“The first casualty when war comes is truth.” Republican Sen. Hiram Johnson was speaking about World War I, but his observation is equally accurate about unarmed political combat. As our state leaders battle over the budget, they always seem to inflict the most mortal of wounds on truth. Gov. Tim Pawlenty and many of his supporters keep claiming that the state will collect $2 billion more in taxes, and that should be enough. That much is true, and that’s a pretty healthy growth. In fact, the state’s two-year budget would be in pretty good shape if the governor and Legislature hadn’t used all those one-time gimmicks over the last several years. Unfortunately, they did, so now we’re paying the price. Because our state leaders used temporary patches instead of honestly balancing the budget, they left a huge hole in next year’s budget. As one example, they drained our $1 billion tobacco trust fund to pay for ongoing programs. That means they might be collecting another $2 billion in taxes, but after they plug the hole they left, the state will have less than $1 billion of total new revenue to support their 2006-07 commitments to education, healthcare and other programs. Some cynics might suspect that our state leaders are lying about the actual revenue they’ll have to spend as a justification for their anti-tax positions. Actually, it’s a bit more complicated than that. Princeton philosopher Harry Frankfurt explains why in his recent book, “On BS.” That’s not the actual title – I cleaned it up for publication. Frankfurt points out that the liar is aware of what is true – he simply chooses to ignore the truth. In contrast, the BSer does not even care about the facts – he makes them up to suit his purpose. A liar rejects the truth, while a BSer simply ignores it. I first learned about this distinction more than a decade ago from a prominent politician who regularly attacked Gov. Arne Carlson for his purported lack of fiscal conservatism. Of course, that was a little like accusing Elliott Ness of being soft on crime. We’d been beaten up pretty badly for our miserly budgets, but our challenger kept claiming that government spending was growing twice as fast as personal income. In fact, the opposite was true. Although I provided the political aspirant with the correct data on spending and income, he continued to make the inaccurate claims. So I called him. He acknowledged that the state’s audited financial statements and the federal income reports were correct, but insisted on continuing his false accusations. When I asked him why he refused to use the accurate information, he explained, “I just don’t believe that it could be true.” I was dumbfounded. He was the first politician I had ever encountered who refused to even acknowledge the given facts. Unfortunately, he was far from the last. I now understand that he wasn’t consciously lying simply to get elected. Rather, some people’s lives are governed more by preconceived beliefs than by actual facts. Their statements and actions have little to do with accuracy or objectivity, and more to do with self-righteous BS. Unfortunately, they carry their convictions on philosophically gray social issues into the black-and-white world of fiscal reality. Regardless of the factual evidence, they just “don’t believe it’s true.” Psychiatrists call that a “fixed delusion,” and it’s an arrogant rectitude I’ve always found difficult to accept – that someone would substitute their beliefs for the factual truth. Or rather, meld the two in such an inappropriate way. It’s truly troubling to know that people with such a tenuous grasp on reality are actually elected to make daily decisions about our lives.
John Gunyou is Minnetonka’s city manager and was the state’s finance commissioner under Gov. Arne Carlson.
