My read of the law is that he is allowed to ‘reduce’ allotments; not cancel them altogether. Now, that said, there is certainly ambiguity in the language of this statute. How much reduction is a reasonable prudent reduction? Can anyone involved say ‘prudent’ man standard? Pawlenty might argue prudence is dropping a costly program that has increased too much like GAMC. I don’t buy it.. Reducing allotments doesn’t mean canceling them; otherwise, why have the legislature involved in budget at all? This is a question the court must ask itself. Is the intent of the statute to allow the governor to establish the entire budget in a shortfall? Ha, that is funny.

From my limited knowledge of the law, Pawlenty overstepped by dropping any programs fully. This was not the intent of the law. I think Pawlenty ought to be worried about the appeal because I think the lower court erred and didn’t provide the clearly needed legal scolding.

Further, Pawlenty’s budget did not have one page dedicated to the revenue side of the budget; not one. I don’t see how this is prudent either. I do see how it was ideologically convenient in an economic downturn known long before the November, 2008 forecasts. Have I got my dates wrong? No way. By November, of 2008, we had lost about 50% of our IRA to the downturn/crash, and I bought a house for the value of the land in January, 2009. To suggest the shortfall was unmanageable without fully cutting some programs is preposterous.

I think the court must step in and do a couple of things here. It must stop a governor from being the sole decisionmaker in budget downturns. Now, where Pawlenty didn’t want to raise taxes, he could have well ‘reduced’ allotments as the statute allows if the legislature would take no action. Canceling them does not seem within his authority. Most of the time, when a business is in a down cycle, the CFO asks the budget managers to cut or reduce a certain percentage of their budgets before he does anything else. There is that word again ‘reduce’. The statute doesn’t say cancel.

While the research done suggests the word remainder is not defined, I frankly don’t think a genius is required to understand remainder means after a budget has been established. Pawlenty didn’t face an interim budget problem, he faced a budget problem within the budget cycle. This is also something businesses handle far differently than did King Tim.

I expect the court to admonish the legislature for a very poorly written law and the governor for usurping the clear intent of that law.