Archive for the ‘ABM’ Category
This weekend, RNC National Committeeman Jeff Johnson announced his candidacy to be the next governor of Minnesota. The DFL’s response was predictable:
DFL Chairman Ken Martin said Minnesotans will notice his ambition.
“Jeff Johnson is a classic politician trying to climb the ladder. He left the Minnesota House of Representatives to run for Attorney General and failed,” Martin said. “Now after a short time as a Hennepin County Commissioner, he wants to run for another statewide seat. Minnesotans will recognize this personal, restless ambition for what it is.”
The Alliance for a Better Minnesota released a statement from Executive Director Carrie Lucking in response to Johnson’s campaign.
“Jeff Johnson will ask Minnesotans to forget his record o extreme votes at the expense of the middle class during his time at the legislature,” Lucking said. “Amnesia is not a winning platform for Minnesotans in 2014.”
Ken Martin’s response is feeble. If he thinks winning election to more than one office is a bad thing, then he’d better apologize for One-and-Done-Dayton. Gov. Dayton served a single term as State Auditor. Later, he served a single term as U.S. senator. Now, he’s Minnesota’s governor.
While both men have held more than one elected office, that’s where the similarity ends. Jeff Johnson hasn’t had to rewrite his entire budget like Gov. Dayton has. In fact, Gov. Dayton has rewritten his budget twice, once in 2011, once this year. Jeff Johnson hasn’t been rated one of America’s “Five Worst Senators”[11] by Time magazine. Likewise, Jeff Johnson wasn’t nicknamed “The Blunderer” for temporarily closing his DC Senate office in 2004 because of an imagined terrorist threat.
Another dissimilarity between Jeff Johnson and Gov. Dayton is Commissioner Johnson’s Golden Hydrant award:
The latest Golden Fire Hydrant award goes to the Property Tax Study Project, an endeavor Hennepin County has funded on and off for the past decade.
Bottom line (and pardon my crudeness): Government is giving the finger to the taxpayers of Hennepin County as it spends taxpayer money to lobby the legislature for increased taxes on those same taxpayers.
The Project began several years ago and is funded jointly by the counties of Hennepin, Ramsey and St. Louis, the cities of Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth and the school districts of those same three cities. Each entity allocates approximately $10,000 each year to the Project.
The Project essentially funds one “consultant” (who happens to work for Matt Entenza’s liberal Minnesota 2020 think tank) year after year to prepare a report that pretty consistently says the same thing: Minnesotans are not taxed enough. That report is then used to lobby the legislature for increased taxes, apparently in hopes of obtaining more money for cities, counties and school districts in Minnesota.
Isn’t it great that taxpayers funds a consultant for a progressive think tank? If you think, like most people think, that think tanks should be funded privately, then you’ll agree with Jeff Johnson, not Gov. Dayton.
Ms. Lucking, is highlighting the metro slush fund for MN2020 one of those “extreme votes at the expense of the middle class” that you’re referring to? I’m betting that protecting taxpayers’ wallets is better than ignoring liberal local government contributes to a liberal slush fund.
Gov. Dayton needlessly shut down state government two years ago. Now, with a dysfunctional DFL legislature, he’s wasting the taxpayers’ money while chasing businesses from Minnesota. It’s time Minnesota dumps Gov. Dayton once and for all. We can’t afford 4 more years of his counterproductive policies.
At the start of this session, I said that the DFL would sail through because Alida Messinger would give them their marching orders. When Gov. Dayton introduced his bill, businesses far and wide criticized it for imposing a sales tax on transactions between businesses and lawyers, accountants and other service providers. When the House DFL introduced their tax bill, it was criticized for imposing a gigantic, disastrous income tax increase, raising the top income tax rate from 7.85% to 12.49%. It’s difficult to imagine how the Senate DFL’s tax bill could be worse.
Difficult but no longer impossible:
Democrats in the state Senate released a plan today that increases income taxes on wealthiest 6 percent of Minnesotans, raises the sales tax on clothing and services, and increases the cigarette tax.
Republicans don’t like it and even some Democrats in competitive districts are uneasy about the taxes and spending. But DFL leaders say the $1.8 billion dollar tax increase is needed to erase the state’s budget deficit and increase spending for schools and property tax relief.
It’s incredible that the Senate DFL took the worst part of Gov. Dayton’s tax proposal, the sales tax increase on services, watered down the worst part of the House DFL’s tax increase, then added their own terrible wrinkle by raising income taxes on the middle class.
While Senate DFL leaders praise the bill as good tax policy, some of their rank-and-file members remain apprehensive about it.
“This is going to be a hard one for me to support,” said first-term DFL Sen. Melisa Franzen. Franzen, who represents the swing district of Edina, Minnetonka and Bloomington, worries the bill could harm the state’s business climate.
“If the cost of doing business in Minnesota is going to rise and small business is going to be impacted, that is something that I have to take into account,” Franzen said.
Sen. Greg Clausen, DFL-Apple Valley, worries about the income tax portion of the bill, but said he thinks many of his constituents could live with it since the bulk of the extra spending is dedicated to education.
“There certainly are people out there that say ‘no new taxes.’ Whenever they see a tax they don’t support that,” Clausen said. “But I think there is also a group of people who recognize that there are needs in our state.”
First, Sen. Rest is wrong that the Senate bill is “good tax policy.” It isn’t good tax policy raising the cigarette tax because it’ll significantly hurt convenience stores while cutting cigarette tax revenues without reducing smoking.
Hurting retailers and Minnesota’s general fund while doing nothing to tamp down smoking is a nasty negative trifecta of tax policy.
Second, there’s no way the cost of doing business in Minnesota doesn’t increase. Businesses will get hit with higher income taxes & higher business costs thanks to the sales taxes on services. That’s before talking about how the cigarette tax increase will hurt convenience store sales.
If the DFL doesn’t pull its act together quickly, they’ll find lots of complaints on the campaign trail next year.
Tags: Tax Increases, Sales Tax, Cigarette Tax, Income Tax, Business Services, Mark Dayton, Tom Bakk, Paul Thissen, DFL, Small Businesses, Middle Class, Prosperity
The cruelest April Fools joke Minnesotans have experienced is the disastrous month Gov. Dayton just finished. It’s a month marked by incompetence (see e-tab revenue projections), overreaching (see Gov. Dayton’s ‘tax reform proposal’) and outright foolishness (see his taxing kids who babysit, mow lawns and shovel snow.)
The reality is that Gov. Dayton has shown a hostility towards businesses that create jobs and thrive on competition. Meanwhile he’s shown an affinity towards unions that insist on protecting their clients while rejecting competition and reform. If the major media outlets actually investigated organizations like Conservation Minnesota, the Minnesota Environmental Partnership and the Minnesota Center on Environmental Activism, they’d find a DFL ally that’s killing Minnesota’s economy. They’d find the network that’s preventing Iron Range families from making a great living.
What that means politically for Gov. Dayton is that he’ll face some strong headwinds in running for re-election. He’s had to rewrite his budget in both 2011 and 2013. He’ll still have ABM running another unprecedented smear campaign. This time, though, the Minnesota Jobs Coalition will be pushing back. In fact, tthe Minnesota Jobs Coalition plans on hitting back hard.
That’s important because Gov. Dayton benefited from ABM not getting challenged by business organizations in terms of media ABM’s lies were disgusting. ABM’s lines didn’t have anything to do with reality. In short, they demagogued every issue imaginable without pushback.
That won’t happen this cycle.
The MNGOP candidate will be well-funded this time. Ditto with the Minnesota Jobs Coalition. The worst news for Gov. Dayton is that he’ll have a record of needlessly shutting down state government, raising taxes on Minnesotans of all income levels while attempting to unionize small businesses and limit law abiding citizens’ right to protect their families.
Finally, he’ll have the problem of dealing with a gubernatorial candidate named Dayton. His open hostility towards people who work hard and create jobs will hurt him. His thoughtlessness in putting his tax increases together show he doesn’t think things through. Finally, his reliance on the Minnesota Gambling Board’s projections for e-tab revenues show he’s utterly gullible or willfully blind when he wants something like the Vikings stadium bad enough.
That isn’t what a statesman does. That’s what foolish people do. Stupidity is what gets people in trouble. Pride is what keeps them there. At this point, it’s pretty clear, Gov. Dayton has an overabundance of foolishness at a time when Minnesotans need wisdom from their leaders.
Tags: Mark Dayton, Minnesota Vikings Stadium, Electronic Pull Tabs, Revenue Forecast, State Government Shutdown, ABM, Smear Campaign, MCEA, MEP, Tax Increases, Sales Tax, Tax The Rich, DFL, Small Businesses, Minnesota Jobs Coalition, Free Market Capitalism, MNGOP, Election 2014
When Gov. Dayton unveiled his latest budget, DFL leaders praised him for proposing an honest budget that funds the DFL’s special interest allies’ priorities:
DFL legislative leaders praised Dayton for proposing an honest budget that restores fiscal stability and funds most of their priorities, but they stopped short of endorsing the particulars.
Friday night, Carrie Lucking, ABM’s executive director, sang from the same hymnal, praising Gov. Dayton’s honest budget and his “bold investment in education.” Later, when pressed by Ben Golnik on Gov. Dayton’s taxes on couples making $250,000 or singles making $150,000, Ms. Lucking threw a hissy fit about how corporations aren’t paying their fair share.
During the budget fight, Republicans would be well-advised to look for euphemisms like bold investments in education, honest budgets and evil corporations as justifications for increasing individual income taxes while ignoring Gov. Dayton’s willingness to stiff school districts out of $1,252,000,000 owed through school shifts from the Pogemiller Senate and Kelliher House.
One thing they’ll certainly avoid talking about is Rep. John Ward’s bill that would gut teacher accountability. Here’s the description of the bill:
K-12 teachers; requirement repealed for teachers to pass a basic skills examination in reading, writing, and mathematics as a condition for receiving a teaching license.
The DFL purports to be the education party. Why would they propose a bill that would let unqualified teachers get their teaching licenses? This isn’t an imaginary problem either:
My district — Sauk Rapid-Rice — has 37 teachers with certification waivers or variances, including four certified for elementary education teaching secondary math and science. Their college-level course work did not include geometry, trigonometry or even college algebra.
In other words, people should question the DFL when they praise Gov. Dayton’s “bold investments in education” or when they ignore paying off the school shift, then praise Gov. Dayton for his proposing an honest budget. The DFL, with plenty of help from school boards, criticized the GOP, saying that the GOP’s school shift was a “budget gimmick.” Now that Gov. Dayton isn’t paying off the school shift, those school boards are silent.
Ms. Lucking’s inadvertant reference to corporations not paying their fair shair while talking about Gov. Dayton’s proposed tax increase on “the rich” is telling, too. Gov. Dayton proposed cutting the corporate income tax rate. Gov. Dayton proposed creating a new tax bracket with a rate of 9.85%.
There’s little question that the phrase “corporations not paying their fair share” tests well in focus groups. That’s why Ms. Lucking used that phrase when she was caught in a difficult situation. People who didn’t pay attention didn’t notice that Gov. Dayton proposed raising income taxes on small businesses, not corporations.
These are just some examples of the DFL’s/ABM’s empty words machine. The DFL has spent millions of dollars on focus group testing to find words that sound good in public. It’s a shame they didn’t spend that money on finding which policies actually create jobs or increase individual prosperity.
Finally, what kind of political party stiffs school districts out of hundreds of millions of dollars, proposes gutting teacher accountability while raising taxes on hard-working entrepreneurs?
Tags: Mark Dayton, Carrie Lucking, John Ward, Teacher Accountability, Teacher Licensure, School Shift Tax the Rich, Tax Increases, Income Taxes, Education Minnesota, Special Interests, DFL
On this morning’s At Issue With Tom Hauser, Hauser played a clip of Gov. Dayton, Speaker Thissen and ABM’s Carrie Lucking talking about Gov. Dayton’s “bold investment in education.” Gov. Dayton, Speaker Thissen and Ms. Lucking recited their spin with the most professional of poker faces.
The reality is that Gov. Dayton, for the second time in two years, agreed to stiff school districts out of $1,252,000,000. This time, he’s proposed to delay paying back the school shift until 2017. What’s worse is that the DFL legislature has agreed with Gov. Dayton. They’ve agreed that they shouldn’t pay off the shift until the distant future.
What’s worst about the DFL’s “bold investment in education” is that the DFL has proposed gutting teacher accountability by repealing the basic skills test for teachers. Rep. Ward submitted HF0171, which would repeal the Basic Skills Test that the GOP legislature passed and Gov. Dayton signed in 2012.
Rep. Ward supposedly submitted this bill because some teachers are having difficulty passing this test. Rather than insisting on more qualified math and science teachers, Rep. Ward apparently thinks the ‘solution’ is to make it impossible for teachers to not get licensed.
Putting this into simple summary form, the DFL is stiffing school districts out of a billion dollars while attempting to make it easier for unqualified teachers to get licensed.
I’m willing to bet that most parents wouldn’t call that a “bold investment in education.” I’d bet they’d call that selling out to the DFL’s special interest allies in Education Minnesota. I’m betting they’d say, convincingly, that Gov. Dayton, Speaker Thissen and Ms. Lucking listen more attentively to Tom Dooher than they listen to parents.
I’m betting they’d be spot on with their opinion.
Tags: Mark Dayton, Paul Thissen, Carrie Lucking, School Shift, Basic Skills Test, John Ward, Tom Dooher, Education Minnesota, Special Interests, DFL, Reforms, Teacher Accountability, MNGOP
Carrie Lucking is the executive director of the ABM. One of her responsibilities is to sell Gov. Dayton’s budget regardless of how unpopular it is with Minnesotans. During an Almanac debate with Ben Golnik, the president of the Minnesota Jobs Coalition, Ms. Lucking got her talking points mixed up. At one point, she was arguing against herself.
During her rant about raising taxes, Ms. Lucking started whining that “evil corporations” weren’t paying their fair share in income taxes. She praised Gov. Dayton’s 2-point income tax increase as a step in the right direction.
Admittedly, Ms. Lucking isn’t the brightest bulb in the DFL’s chandelier. Corporations don’t pay income taxes based on the individual income tax rates. In fact, Gov. Dayton’s Mulligan Budget proposed cutting the corporate tax rate to 8.4%, a cut of over a point. Does Ms. Lucking think that cutting taxes on “evil corporations” is a step in the right direction?
The top individual income tax bracket would apply to small businesses, not corporations. Successful small business owners frequently work 60-70 hours a week. They first meet their payroll while complying with mountains of city, state and federal regulations. That’s a daunting task at minimum. That’s before they see a dime of profit. These are the people that Ms. Lucking thinks aren’t paying their fair share.
At another point, Ms. Lucking talked about how Gov. Dayton’s revised budget (he can’t seem to get that first budget right) made bold investments in education. Again, Ms. Lucking seemed more interested in the DFL/ABM talking points than in reality. The reality is that Gov. Dayton has had a pair of opportunities to pay off the school shift.
The first opportunity came when the GOP legislature passed a bill in 2012 to pay off the school shift. Gov. Dayton immediately vetoed that bill. Gov. Dayton had another opportunity to pay off the school shift as part of this year’s budget. Instead of paying the shift off, Gov. Dayton chose to stiff school districts to the tune of $1,252,000,000 (that’s $1.25 billion) until 2017.
Gov. Dayton’s “bold investments” in E-12 education are predicated on stiffing school districts. That isn’t bold. According to the DFL’s definition, Gov. Dayton’s education budget is predicated on gimmickry.
At another point, Ms. Lucking said that Gov. Dayton’s dropping of the sales tax and other tax increases proved that he’s willing to listen to his opponents. That ignores the fact that Myron Frans, the commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Revenue, spent 18 months travelling the state, supposedly listening to business leaders, to put together Gov. Dayton’s tax reform proposal.
Commissioner Frans either didn’t listen to business leaders or the tax increase activists within the DFL and ABM overruled him. Either way, Gov. Dayton put a high priority on listening to his special interest allies than he put on listening to Minnesota’s job creators.
Ms. Lucking’s appearance showed she isn’t ready for primetime. Meanwhile, Mr. Golnik made one argument after another refuting the ABM/DFL talking points. He highlighted the fact that opposition to Gov. Dayton’s tax increase agenda was a bipartisan thing. Mr. Golnik highlighted the fact that significant numbers of DFL legislators opposed those crippling tax increases.
Ultimately, that’s why Gov. Dayton dropped most of his tax increase proposals as quickly as he did. Ms. Lucking’s spin can’t change that irrefutable fact.
Tags: Carrie Lucking, ABM, Spin, Education Shift, Mark Dayton, Investment, Regressive Tax Increases, Sales Tax, Corporations, Income Taxes, Small Businesses, Myron Frans, Minnesota Department of Revenue, Tax Reform, Special Interests, DFL, Ben Golnik, Minnesota Jobs Coalition
During his 2013 State of the State Address, Gov. Dayton talked about how states with higher tax rates also had higher incomes. During the 2010 campaign, Gov. Dayton said that Minnesotans he knew were better people, that they wouldn’t object to higher tax rates. According to this article, buried in the Strib’s praise for Gov. Dayton, is information that businesses care about taxes:
Dayton endured battering criticism as business leaders weighed his proposal to tax business services. Several of the state’s largest companies said they were exploring options to relocate their headquarters to low-tax states.
It’s time for the DFL to admit that high tax rates matter, that Minnesota Miracle was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. The Minnesota Miracle didn’t happen because people didn’t care that they paid higher taxes. It happened because other states didn’t have a well-trained workforce. Once other states put a stronger emphasis on building a well-trained workforce, competitive tax rates became more important in a state’s economic viability.
It’s time, too, to say what progressives won’t admit. With higher taxes comes a higher cost of living. That higher cost of living is the result of artificially inflating the price of products to offset the cost of high taxes.
This isn’t good news for the DFL or Gov. Dayton:
More than 800 business leaders are expected at the Capitol Wednesday to press legislators to reject tax increases. David Olson, president of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, said tax hikes would force companies to scale back, not grow. “I want them to look [legislators] in the eye and say, these are the kind of decisions you are forcing me to make.”
This isn’t what the DFL wants to hear. In 2010, the DFL, led by union thugs and ABM’s money, intimidated businesses to the sidelines for the election. There’s no chance businesses will be intimidated this time. This time, businesses will enthusiastically support pro-growth GOP candidates for the House and governor.
Freshmen DFL legislators from swing districts will face a series of difficult votes. Will they represent their constituents’? Or will they represent Alida Messinger, Mark Dayton and Paul Thissen? If they vote against Messinger, Dayton and Thissen, it’s likely Gov. Dayton’s budget would fail, weakening him for his re-election bid. That’s why it isn’t likely they’ll let Gov. Dayton’s budget fail.
Voting for a tax-filled Dayton budget presents a different set of difficulties for swing district DFL legislators. Specifically, they’ll be voting against their constituents while angering small businesses. That’s a difficult position to put yourself into but it’s what’s likely to happen.
Gov. Dayton’s budget proposals have been disasters. He’s dramatically modified both of his proposals before they ever got committee votes. Then he engineered a state government shutdown in an attempt to force GOP legislators into a tax increase. When the public sided with the GOP, Gov. Dayton caved.
Now he’s back proposing higher tax rates again. It’s apparent Gov. Dayton won’t learn from his biggest mistakes. If he won’t learn, the business community will teach him a rather harsh lesson in 2014.
Tags: Tax Increases, Alida Messinger, Mark Dayton, Paul Thissen, Competitiveness, Special Interests, DFL, Entrepreneurs, Job Creation, Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, David Olson, Minnesota Jobs Coalition, Tax Reform, MNGOP, Election 2014
A basic requirement of governors and presidents is their ability to put budgets together. President Obama seems incapable of putting a budget together, at least one that people don’t laugh at. Gov. Dayton’s proposed budgets have been disasters by any measurement.
President Obama’s budgets haven’t gotten a single vote in the House or Senate since the 2010 midterm elections. Democrats treated them like toxic waste. When a president can’t get a single vote from his party on his budgets in more than 2 years, that’s a pretty good indicator he didn’t put a serious budget together.
Similarly, Gov. Dayton’s budgets haven’t been taken seriously, probably because they’ve both been radically modified after their initial submission. In 2011, Gov. Dayton insisted on creating one of the top tax rates in the nation at 10.95%. Not only that but he insisted on a 3% income tax surcharge for people making $1,000,000 a year.
When the February forecast dropped the projected deficit from $6,200,000,000 to $5,030,000,000, Gov. Dayton immediately dropped the 3% income tax surcharge. After Gov. Dayton shut down the state government during a temper tantrum, he finally agreed to a budget that didn’t raise taxes but did reform government while creating tens of thousands of jobs.
This year, Gov. Dayton submitted a budget that included another income tax increase, this time to 9.85%. Gov. Dayton’s budget also included a cigarette tax increase that will hurt retailers and a sales tax increase that would’ve drained $2,100,000,000 from Minnesotans’ wallets, including teenage babysitters and kids mowing lawns. Gov. Dayton reportedly thought that kids weren’t paying their fair share.
Now that the deficit projection dropped from $1,100,000,000 in December to $627,000,000 at the end of February, proof that the GOP’s budget was working, Gov. Dayton dropped his regressive sales tax increases. (Perhaps someone explained that taxing babysitters was a disastrous political move?) Instead, Gov. Dayton is rumored to be thinking about raising the tax on liquor sales.
Whether that’s true or not, it’s apparent that Gov. Dayton’s budget will need major revisions. Think of it as Gov. Dayton’s second mulligan budget. There’s little doubt that the DFL, ABM and the Twin Cities media will spin this as Gov. Dayton being flexible and listening to ‘the people’.
Don’t be fooled with that BS. Myron Frans spent 18 months travelling the state, allegedly talking with small businesses about their concerns with Minnesota’s tax policies. This Dayton budget was supposedly the result of all that travel and those consultations.
If that’s the case, then only two conclusions can be reached. Either Frans didn’t listen to businesses or the entrepreneurs he allegedly met with lied to him about their biggest worries about tax policy. It’s unlikely that the entrepreneurs lied to Frans. Likewise, it isn’t likely these entrepreneurs told him that cigarette and sales tax increases would strengthen their businesses or Minnesota’s economy.
Thus, the only logical conclusion people should draw from Gov. Dayton’s tax proposals were predetermined before Frans set out on his listening tour.
That isn’t the way to reform Minnesota’s tax system. It isn’t the way to put a serious budget together.
Tags: President Obama, Federal Budget, Mark Dayton, All-Tax Budget, Tax Increases, Income Tax Surcharge, Income Tax, Cigarette Tax, Sales Tax, Babysitters, Deficits, ABM, DFL, Reforms, Job Creation, Surplus, MNGOP
During this morning’s @Issue With Tom Hauser, DFL strategist Darin Broton admitted what savvy people had been thinking. There isn’t a political appetite for Gov. Dayton’s budget. Specifically, there’s a revolt against his sales tax increase, especially Gov. Dayton’s B2B sales tax increases and Gov. Dayton’s sales tax on services.
Once the budget deficit projection shrunk from $1,100,000,000 to $627,000,000, a 43% drop, DFL legislators couldn’t justify Gov. Dayton’s sales tax increases. After Gov. Dayton admitted that his sales tax initiative didn’t have the public’s support, it was just a matter of time before Gov. Dayton would be forced to admit that his entire budget would have to be scrapped.
Gov. Dayton’s budgetting abilities are questionable at best. During the 2010 campaign, he submitted his “detailed budget plan” to the Minnesota Department of Revenue 3 times. Each time, the Department of Revenue said his plan didn’t balance Minnesota’s budget. His last proposal came closest to balancing. The Department of Revenue said that plan ‘only’ had a $1,000,000,000 deficit.
In 2011, Gov. Dayton proposed massive tax increases, including a top income tax bracket of 10.95% and a 3% surcharge for people making $1,000,000 or more. When the deficit forecast was revised down from $6,200,000,000 to $5,030,000,000, Gov. Dayton immediately dropped the income tax surcharge. Eventually, the GOP majority forced him to drop his tax increases.
When Gov. Dayton submitted this biennium’s budget, it included the aforementioned sales tax increases on babysitters and lawnmowers as well as on business services. It also included a cigarette tax increase that will create an underground economy that hurts retailers. Gov. Dayton’s budget also includes raising the top individual income tax rates.
By the time Gov. Dayton delivered his State of the State address, he inadvertantly admitted that the GOP budget and reforms were working. He said that 72,000 jobs had been created under his watch, though he didn’t admit that they weren’t created as a result of his budget.
In his State of the State Address, Gov. Dayton was distancing himself from his budget faster than a man his age should be able to move. Here’s where the backpedalling started:
My proposals have already aroused considerable controversy. Such debate is healthy in our democracy.The genius of our system of governance is that no one gets to have it all her or his way. Starting with the governor. Some will characterize any legislative changes in my budget as my loss. I don’t see it that way, at all.
The winners I care about are the people of Minnesota, whose collective best interests I was elected to represent. As were you in the legislature. Whatever outcome does the most to improve the lives of the most Minnesotans makes winners of us all.
That sounds nice but it’s the prelude to Gov. Dayton caving on the sales tax increases. All that’s left from Gov. Dayton’s first budget is Gov. Dayton’s income tax and cigarette tax increases. Warming up in the bullpen is a liquor tax increase to replace Gov. Dayton’s ill-advised sales tax increase proposal.
It won’t take long to kill the cigarette tax increase. It’s virtually on life support. If history is an indicator, Sen. Bakk will help kill the liquor tax. Here’s what he said about raising the liquor tax in 2009:
Senate Taxes Committee Chairman Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, said eliminating the current mortgage interest deduction could hurt Minnesota’s high rate of home ownership and higher alcohol taxes would drive some liquor shoppers across the Wisconsin border.
It’ll be interesting to see if this Sen. Bakk will agree with the 2009 version of Sen. Bakk. I think it’s more likely that this Sen. Bakk will do whatever Alida Messinger tells him to do.
At the end of the day, the Dayton/Messinger/DFL budget will include massive tax increases because they’re needed to pay off their political allies with taxpayers money. That said, the budget that will pass won’t look much like Gov. Dayton’s first budget.
That’s what happens with mulligan budgets.
Follow this link for more on Gov. Dayton’s mulligan budget.
Additional suggested readings:
Gov. Dayton tells babysitters they aren’t paying their fair share
Gov. Dayton uses tragedy to sell his tax increase
Tags: Mark Dayton, State of the State Address, Minnesota Department of Revenue, Tax Increases, Income Tax, Sales Tax, Cigarette Tax, Liquor Tax, Deficits, State Government Shutdown, Mulligan Budget, Alida Messinger, Tom Bakk, DFL, Reforms, Job Creation, MNGOP
According to ProgressNow’s Denise Cardinal, Gov. Dayton is doing a great job of focusing the conversation on his budget. Friday night on Almanac, here’s what Ms. Cardinal said:
MS. CARDINAL: Let’s get real. Guns and gay rights is something that’s also getting talked about nationally so I don’t think there’s anything we could’ve done that would’ve avoided talking about those things. And I would actually disagree. I think the Governor’s done a great job of talking the pillars of his budget. I noticed that they’re talking about the relief it would give working families who have kids that are about to go to college.
Ms. Cardinal is a prefessional spinmeister. She didn’t say a thing that’s accurate. The nation isn’t having a major discussion on gay rights. A few highly funded special interest groups are pushing to start the conversation but the DFL, after saying “who are we to say no to these couples?”, is now doing their best to ignore these couples.
There was a brief moment in the immediate aftermath of the Newtown, CT, shootings that the nation attempted to have a conversation about stopping school violence. Unfortunately, that conversation got hijacked by anti-Second Amendment activists.
As for Gov. Dayton doing a great job “talking about the pillars of his budget,” that’s laughable. What he’s done thus far is talk rather defensively about his tax increases on Minnesotans. His sales tax proposal will hit everyone. Cities will be especially hard hit. When a city like Sauk Rapids remodels their downtown, they’d need an attorney, an architect and an engineer to turn Sauk Rapids’ vision into a reality.
The Dayton/DFL/Lenczewski sales tax increase could cost a city like Sauk Rapids $500,000 or more for a significant-sized project. Cities wanting to remodel their city that aren’t getting LGA would be faced with the option of either not doing their project or getting hit with a massive property tax increase to pay for the project.
When the bill got a hearing in committee, a Plymouth city official testified that Plymouth would pay an additional $690,000 thanks to the Dayton/DFL/Lenczewski sales tax increase.
Plymouth isn’t the only local government that would be negatively affected by the Dayton/DFL/Lenczewski sales tax increase. Beltrami County would be negatively affected by the sales tax increase, too. The truth is that there won’t be any cities or counties that won’t get hit with this sales tax increase.
The Dayton administration, including Ms. Cardinal, haven’t talked about the negative effects the Dayton/DFL/Lenczewski sales tax increase will have because their primary goal is to raise taxes to pay for more spending on their political allies. This isn’t about tax fairness. This isn’t about creating jobs or tax reform.
What’s saddest about this tax increase is that it’s cutting into people’s buying power because government won’t take an inventory of what it’s supposed to do, then implement a plan that accomplishes the things it’s required to do at the most reasonable price.
It’s time that the DFL admitted that they aren’t about putting Minnesota on a path of prosperity. They’re about paying off their special interest allies even if it means hurting job creation.
Tags: Tax Increases, Sales Tax, Mark Dayton, Ann Lenczewski, Denise Cardinal, Special Interests, ABM, Sales Tax, Property Tax, LGA, DFL, Guns, Gay Marriage