Leadership Quote by Mark Dayton

A “squeeze” is the oldest budget trick in politics: admit scarcity up front so whatever comes next feels like grim responsibility rather than choice. Mark Dayton’s line works because it frames austerity as moral triage. He’s not arguing about spreadsheets; he’s ranking human bodies in uniform above “other procurements,” a deliberately bloodless phrase that conjures hardware, contracts, and the quiet momentum of defense bureaucracy. The contrast is the point: people first, then the stuff.

The specific intent is to preempt resistance to cuts or delays by anchoring the debate in a nearly unassailable priority: service members and reservists. “Men and women in uniform” is civic shorthand for sacrifice, but Dayton narrows further to reservists, a group often celebrated rhetorically and underserved administratively. “Treating our reservists fairly” signals benefits, pay, deployments, family strain, and the bureaucratic limbo that can follow call-ups. Fairness here isn’t abstract; it’s back pay, healthcare continuity, and the promise that part-time soldiers won’t be treated like disposable labor.

Subtext: there are competing appetites inside government - vendors, agencies, pet projects - and Dayton is warning that procurement politics can easily outrun obligations to people. By saying “before we move on,” he implies a queue that has been distorted, where purchases too often get approved faster than care.

Contextually, this is the post-9/11 governance dilemma in miniature: long wars, heavy reliance on Guard and Reserve forces, and budgets strained by both security demands and domestic needs. Dayton’s rhetoric tries to pin patriotism to administration, not pageantry: support isn’t a slogan, it’s a line item that comes due.