A more eloquent description of Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s destructiveness was made by former Republican Party Gov. Arne Carlson this past Wednesday during Gary Eichten’s midday interview. I would recommend listening to this broadcast by going to minnesota.publicradio.org and clicking on “Midday with Gary Eichen,” the Wednesday, Dec. 3 broadcast. It is an hour well spent.

As George Bush is the worst president ever, Gov. Tim Pawlenty is the worst Minnesota governor ever. When Pawlenty was the leader of the Minnesota State Legislature, he and his party of purists at that time could not immediately change the educational, infrastructure, social, medical and other governmental systems so they passed tax and other laws they believed would eventually “starve the beast.” The beast included at that time the very best state-funded educational system in the United States with the very best of all outcomes.

So here we are at a time when Pawlenty and his most pure Republican legislators (remember the Republican Party purged the six or so who voted for Minnesotans last session) are poised with what Pawlenty declared to be their opportunity — an opportunity to tear down working government programs established after decades of the grown-ups from both political parties critically thinking through and creating programs such as the Minnesota Miracle and MinnesotaCare.

So what do Pawlenty and the remaining purists of his party want? Let me speculate. They want to create a Minnesota in their own image. An image that looks a lot like the state of Mississippi. Let’s have a brief view of the state of Mississippi, a state that is now the second least healthy in the nation. It was the least healthy until Louisiana recently took over that distinction. Mississippi has forever been one of the worst states in the nation when it comes to public education outcomes. We are likely to hear about all of the now-proven failures of the Bush era as the cure all for solving the Minnesota budget deficit.

Who in their right mind would listen to anything that any Minnesota Republican legislators would have to say about solving a crisis that they created and now claim an opportunity for themselves to make things much, much worse. What could be worse than interstate bridges falling down during the rush hour? We’ll find out if Pawlenty and his Republican Party purists get their way.

Ted Hinnenkamp

Albert Lea