Tim Pawlenty’s “Hard Truths” Op-ed in USA Today

In case you missed it, check out Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s op-ed in USA Today:

Real change is about telling hard truths
By Tim Pawlenty, USA Today, May 23, 2011 1:30 AM EDT

In the third year of Barack Obama’s presidency, unemployment is at unbearable levels, gas and food prices are skyrocketing and federal government spending is out of control. “ObamaCare” is unconstitutional, and it is already driving up health costs — not reducing them.

The president’s policies simply aren’t working. And more than that, he won’t even tell us the truth about the problems we’re facing and what it’s really going to take to get America back on the right track.

As a candidate for president, it would be easy for me to just tell the American people we can solve our debt crisis and fix our economy without making any tough choices. But we have now seen where that type of leadership gets us.

Leadership isn’t about fancy speeches and empty promises. It’s not about telling people just what they want to hear. It’s about telling the truth. Like too many Washington politicians, President Obama governs with an eye toward the next election, at the expense of the next generation. He would rather pretend there is no crisis and attack those who are willing to stand up and try to solve it rather than risk doing anything about it himself.

In Washington, they call that “smart politics.” But I’m not from Washington.

Success at the state level

As Minnesota’s governor for the last eight years, our state’s big-government legacy presented me with smaller-scale versions of the problems President Obama found in Washington. But my solutions — and my results — were very different.

I signed a budget that actually reduced state spending in real terms for the first time in the 150-year history of our state. I led the charge to move Minnesota out of the Top 10 highest-tax states. I passed market-based health care reforms and introduced merit pay for our teachers.

Read the full article here: https://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2011-05-23-Truth-needed-in-politics_n.htm