Live blog: DFL responds
12:25: Wrapping up. Minority leader Marty Seifert is waiting in the wings.
12:21: Kelliher has answered all but a handful of a half-hour of questions. She is clearly stepping forward as the DFL's point person on the budget issue. She also talked about "spending some time" with senior management at General Mills recently, perhaps a not-so-subtle reference at burnishing her business sector connections.
12:20: "I don't plan on a special session. We plan to end by sending the governor a budget that he can sign," says Kelliher. "That is our plan."
12:17: Kelliher: "The snarkiness of the first two months is going to go away," when lawmakers realize the newly unemployed would fill the Metrodome twice.
Create a More Connected Minnesota
MPR News is your trusted resource for the news you need. With your support, MPR News brings accessible, courageous journalism and authentic conversation to everyone - free of paywalls and barriers. Your gift makes a difference.
12:13: Majority leader Tony Sertich is back, defending a proposal to require a four-year budget plan. "This is pretty common sense. There's nothing vague about your books must balance."
12:11: Kelliher: The actual budget gap has grown by 25 percent since November, with $1 billion less in revenue, but that the drop is masked in the budget forecast by the federal stimulus money. "The actual budget balancing we are going to have to do over the long term has become harder," Pogemiller says of the new forecast. He also says it can't be done without cuts to K-12 education. "You can't do it taking 40 percent of your budget off the table."
12:09: Kelliher, again, on stimulus: This is short term, temporary help, and senior DFLers have some doubts about what the long-term effects of the stimulus. "There is some skepticism about how the math is being calculated here."
12:07 Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller: "Everything needs to be on the table, that includes government, state, local, school districts."
12:05: Kelliher, on taxes: "All options are on the table, that includes revenue."
12:03: Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher: "I believe you'll see us begin to put a budget together before you see the governor's do-over budget."
12:00 -- Tony Sertich says DFL isn't going to rush to judgment with a budget plan, says putting forth a plan before this forecast was pointless. "It's just political food fights that we're not going to involve ourselves in."