Will Tim Pawlenty Support a State-Level Stimulus?
posted by Josh Goodman On the federal economic stimulus, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty was able to finesse his two roles as a state executive and as an aspiring Republican presidential candidate. But, the governor has a brand new challenge that seems likely to force him to walk an even narrower tightrope: a stimulus plan coming out of the Minnesota legislature. Pawlenty took an interesting approach to the federal stimulus. He, like most Republicans, criticized the concept. Unlike other G.O.P. governors, though, he didn’t go through the show of pretending to reject the money. You might call Pawlenty’s position on the stimulus pragmatic. The case he made is that Minnesotans already pay the federal government more in taxes than they receive in benefits. Even if his state had rejected the stimulus money, Minnesotans still would be as responsible for paying off the additional national debt as anyone else. So, he reasoned, rather than become even more of a “donor state,” Minnesota might as wel
