The Game, Summed Up Quickly

T-Paw broke out the veto pen, as promised, and the tax increase the DFL leadership proposes is shot down. But why not override the evil T-Paw? The Star Tribune sums it up:

To this point, Democrats have not pushed for an override attempt, opting to let lawmakers ponder the veto and the near-record deficit as the session creeps toward adjournment Monday. The DFL has a large enough majority in the Senate to override a veto if all its members went along -- something that didn't happen in Monday's votes -- but is three seats shy in the House.

It's pretty simple -- the DFL wants to raise taxes but the only way they can is to own the increase by overriding a veto. In other words, they want something for nothing.

The Strib did add a little comedy to their coverage, too:

Some Democrats held out a faint hope that the cooling-off period might encourage three House Republicans seeking to leverage a big political score for their communities to support some kind of revenue increase.

So that's what they call it now, a big score. Nope -- the big score that matters to the Republicans will be the score on November 2.