What price loyalty?

By Fredric Markus, October 31, 2009

Many discerning voters may have discovered by now that I’ve lent my name and my long-time political affiliation with the DFL in support of Kris Broberg, who runs for this office with the support of both the Independence and the Republican Parties.

Kris is making his first run for political office in a highly charged atmosphere. He has a fondness for limited government that might not be so salient were it not that we are entering “the seven lean years” episode that has begun to darken the economic horizon far beyond the capacities of our municipal government.

The incumbent city council has taken good care of Ward 13, especially in that we have been coasting along in the roseate glow of “the seven fat years”. These good times actually began to falter some time back but it takes a while for changing market conditions to become inescapable.

The incumbent city council has been struggling with budget shortfalls that will become much more insistent in the time ahead. Facile consent agendas and well-nigh automatic green lights for developers will not continue to be the norm. LGA is likely to vanish because of chronic conditions at the state level no matter who becomes governor. Federal stimulus money will likely continue to flow from Washington in the short run but that too will falter for Minneapolis as other more challenged states and metropolitan areas compete for these dollars. The dollar itself is looking a bit anemic lately and that too is significant and beyond the control of a mere municipal government.

The incumbent city council has had a fairly easy time protecting the usual sources of economic wealth but that isn’t going to be the case for the next city council, however populated. Brand loyalty – translated as routine acquiescence in the DFL’s recipes for municipal success – will not be helpful when the usual atmosphere of government largesse vanishes beyond local and even regional recall.

In this situation, it’s pretty hard to have a serious dialogue about cutbacks and achievable efficiencies when only one political voice is speaking. That’s an argument for setting aside uncritical loyalty to the regime in power. That’s an argument for introducing voices and personalities who are better aligned with the “bottom-line” mentality that prevails in market-based analysis.

I’m not sympathetic with the Milton Friedman school of economics that has been debunked by events. I am, however, keenly interested in seeing conservative approaches given their due respect in our city council and unthinking loyalty to the DFL movers and shakers doesn’t countenance this. IMHO Kris is passionate about his beliefs, willing to learn from others, and shrewd enough to see past such persiflage as the DFL-sponsored attempt to corner the market on municipal financial planning by eliminating the Board of Estimate and Taxation.

This is not a good time for sheep. Being driven over a financial cliff by shepherds who are rigidly hierarchical is not a good idea, especially if those shepherds have ulterior motives that are much more fruitful for shepherds than they are for the hapless sheep.

Fred Marcus