There has been a great deal of teeth gnashing among some Democrats and progressives over the deal Governor Dayton struck with the GOP to end the shutdown. So for anyone who thinks Dayton capitulated, let's brake the deal down to it's essential elements:Mark Dayton gave up an income tax increase on top earners and in return he got everything else he wanted; his $35+ billion budget, none of the GOPs crazy policy bills including cutting 15% of the state workforce and even his long forgotten bonding bill.
The GOP got to not raise taxes on the wealthy and they gave up everything else; their grab bag of extreme social policy provisions, their demand not to spend more than $34 billion, their desire to cut an arbitrary percentage of state workers for no good reason and they even agreed to go along with Dayton's bonding bill.
Still not convinced? How about this; Mark Dayton will get most of the credit from the public for ending the shutdown.
So tell me again, who won?
Fair point, but Dayton gave up on his signature "tax the rich" promise, and the GOP did not give up on their signature "no more taxes" promise. I fear that history will only remember who broke their biggest promise, and the rest will just be forgotten subtext. For the record, I hope I'm wrong.
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