The dispute that’s been going on for months at the state Capitol came to Mankato Tuesday with dueling press conferences by Republican and Democratic lawmakers.

Within the political posturing and broad statements that will likely return in next year’s campaign season was the dispute that really matters to Minnesotans.

It matters if you or someone you know works or receives care in a nursing home or a hospital and if you or someone you know has health insurance.

The disagreement matters if you or someone you know works for, or receives services from, or pays property taxes to support, a city or county.

It matters if you or someone you know is employed by or attends a state university or college.

For all of you and more, the next couple of years are going to bring some ugly news, according to Democrats.

“These are difficult choices and we shouldn’t make light of them and we shouldn’t play partisan politics with them,” state Rep. Terry Morrow said of the cuts that are coming. “Because these are real people. Cuts cost. .... Cuts cost. You don’t get something for nothing.”

Republicans discounted the Democratic warnings, calling the DFL press conferences held in Mankato and around the state a “misery tour.” And the GOP lawmakers predicted the budget reductions to be made in coming months and years by Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty will be sometimes painful but not nearly as decimating as DFLers suggest.

“This will be good for Republicans because what people are going to squawk about for the next six months isn’t going to come to fruition,” said Sen. Dick Day, R-Owatonna.

But Republicans, like their Democratic colleagues, suggested that the outcome of the legislative session that ended at midnight Monday is going to have a crucial impact on many Minnesotans.

It will have an impact if you or someone you know has a job, if you or someone you know runs a business and if you or someone you know drinks alcohol. That’s because Pawlenty blocked DFL attempts to raise taxes to erase about one-sixth of a $6.4 billion state deficit, a step that will leave the governor with the power and obligation to unilaterally cut spending to make up the difference.

“You cannot keep taxing the business owners and the profitable ones because I guarantee you they’ll move out of town,” said Sen. Julie Rosen, R-Fairmont.

They’ll take the jobs they provide with them, and they’ll do it at a time when Minnesotans are struggling through a deep recession, other Republicans said.

“We have to have good-paying jobs and we have to have a lot of them,” according to Rep. Bob Gunther, R-Fairmont, who said the top refrain he heard from people in his district was this: “What we need most, Gunther, is jobs, jobs, jobs.”