Private businesses suffering from Minn. shutdown

It's the fourth day of the government shutdown in Minnesota. Road construction projects are on hold, and on this Fourth of July holiday weekend, popular tourist attractions are closed and the state's 84 highway rest areas have been barricaded shut.

A judge's emergency ruling did allow the zoo to re-open on Sunday, but state parks remain closed.

"Everybody is pretty disappointed. People look forward to the 4th of July weekend. People plan way in advance to come here," said park manager Rick Sample.

Small businesses that serve park visitors are also affected. "We really need the business, and for a small little company like us it means whether we have a good year or not," said owner Andy Kramer.

The shutdown could affect as many as 90,000 state park campers and visitors daily, costing the state as much as $200,000 a day in park fees, reports CBS Station WCCO correspondent Holly Wagner.

The privately-owned Canterbury Park horse race track is also shut, because the State Racing Commission (which oversees racing) is itself out of commission thanks to the shutdown. About one thousand employees at Canterbury Park were laid off, and the track's managers - afraid a prolonged shutdown could wipe out the state's horse racing industry - are appealing the decision to halt races.

And the shutdown couldn't come at a more inauspicious time: At last year's Fourth of July holiday, the track generated $1.3 million in revenue, reports WCCO.

The state government shut down Friday when lawmakers failed to close a $5 billion budget gap. Dayton let state government shut down rather than accept Republican lawmakers' demands not to raise income taxes on the wealthy.

That led to more than 20,000 state workers being laid off, and affected programs serving the poor and disabled.

Democrats and Republicans blame each other.

Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton suggested Republicans were "willing to throw the poor people of Minnesota, the elderly people of Minnesota, the people with disabilities, under the state bus."

Republican State Representative Matt Dean said, "I really don't see a rational explanation" for the government shutdown, "and why it's as punitive as it is and why it's as widespread as it is."

All sides went home for the holiday to "let the dust settle," with no plans to talk before Tuesday.

And when they got home, Minnesota residents gave them an earful.

In the St. Paul suburb of Eagan, where three freshman Republicans marched in an Independence Day parade, some parade-goers shouted "Get back to work" and "End the shutdown." But others shouted words of support.

For all their rhetoric, Dayton and GOP leaders have shown hints they could compromise, and in some cases offered small clues on how.

Dayton has pushed for months to raise income taxes on the state's wealthiest residents to fix a budget $5 billion in the red. Yet he has suggested he would drop that proposal if Republicans who control the Legislature agree to some other way of raising money to get closer to his spending target of nearly $36 billion.

That's a big if for the GOP, and yet in the last round of negotiations, party leaders showed they might finally budge on their proposed spending limit of $34 billion — the amount the state is expected to collect in the next two years if no new revenue is found.

"They pick a number in between and find another way to pay for it other than an income tax, which if you're a Republican, they hate. That's the third rail of Republican politics — that's the worst tax," said Tom Hanson, who served as the state's finance commissioner during Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty's administration.

To get closer to Dayton, the GOP could go for several options that don't include the dreaded T word, including further delays in school aid payments, surcharges on medical providers, expanded gambling or issuing bonds for tobacco payments.

"The most likely scenario is that Gov. Dayton recognizes that the Republicans in the Legislature will not agree to a tax increase, and the Republicans in the Legislature recognize that Gov. Dayton will not agree to a $34.2 billion budget. The difference is going to be, I believe, made up by some additional spending beyond where the Republicans are today and Gov. Dayton giving up on his tax increase," said former Rep. Paul Kohls, a Republican from Victoria who served during the partial shutdown in 2005.

That shutdown ended when Pawlenty, a Republican-led House and a Democratic-controlled Senate agreed to raise cigarette charges by 75 cents per pack. They called it a "health impact fee," although many saw it as a tax.

Here's a look at some of the revenue options that could help break the current stalemate in Minnesota: