Horner wants to raise everybody's taxes, delay payments and cut a little bit. Proposal makes him more fiscally liberal than Matt Entenza.

Independent candidate Tom Horner who's trying to fashion himself as the third way candidate released his plan for balancing a projected $6 billion budget deficit. It turns out he's more liberal fiscally than Matt Entenza.

He does it by cutting spending by $1.3 billion, $1.8 billion by delaying payments to schools and local governments and raising a lot of taxes which will hit everyone. He'd raise taxes by $2.2 billion.

He also wants to get the state into the gambling business in hopes of raising $125 million in new taxes. And he's hopes to reduce another $1.1 billion by the proverbial "streamlining government".

Horner has tried to fashion himself a conservative fiscally but his budget is anything but. Only about 20% of his budget balancing comes from cutting spending.

To give you a perspective of where he stands on the political spectrum. I talked with Matt Entenza, one of the more liberal DFL candidates, the weekend before the DFL primary. I asked him how he'd deal with our projected $6 billion deficit. He said a third, a third, and a third, e.g. spending cuts, delayed payments and tax increases. Matt Entenza in fact supported more budget cuts than Horner. One can't say Horner is much of a fiscal moderate much less a fiscal conservative.