Archive for the ‘Melissa Hortman’ Category

Tim Walz and the DFL continue insisting upon a budget that’s best described as insane, stupid or counterproductive. The DFL’s goal, apparently, is to make Minnesota uncompetitive with other states. We’re already the highest-taxed state according to Kiplinger’s. That isn’t good enough for Tim Walz and the DFL, though. They’re pushing a $12,000,000,000 tax increase over the next 4 years.

What’s worse is that it hits the lowest incomes the hardest. That isn’t just my opinion. That’s the official summary of Gov. Walz’s Department of Revenue’s Tax Incidence Report! The latest word is that Walz and the DFL have ‘offered’ a 16-cent-a-gallon gas tax instead of a 20-cent-a-gallon gas tax. WOW! How generous. Walz and the DFL have also offered to trim $300,000,000 of spending from a $51,000,000,000 biennial budget.

If Walz and the DFL want to run on that in 2020, bring it on. That’ll be as popular as a Packer fanatic at a Vikings game. Good luck with that.

Thanks to the DFL, we’ll soon have 4 of the last 5 budget sessions ending with either a government shutdown or a contentious special session. In other words, the DFL has made governing dysfunctional again. No wonder why wealth keeps fleeing the state.

The first 6 seconds of this video of the Republicans’ press availability last night shows how determined the DFL is to overtax Minnesotans:

For instance, the budget surplus from the November forecast is over $1,000,000,000. Additionally, the year-to-date additional surplus is $573,000,000, which is 3.1% above forecast, including $489,000,000 in unexpected revenues in April, 2019. That’s before factoring in $2,523,000,000 in Minnesota’s Rainy Day Fund. That’s a record amount in the Rainy Day Fund, BTW.

What’s obscene about that is that that’s money stolen from Minnesotans who would otherwise use that money to create jobs. Instead, the DFL has confiscated that wealth to protect government. That’s how not to govern.

Republicans should stand their ground. Period. This isn’t just a budget fight. It’s a fight to restore sanity to the budget. At no point has the DFL offered reforms to fix the problems that’ve been identified by various OLA audit reports.

In summary, the DFL is gaining the reputation of spending recklessly and ignoring existing problems. Let’s see them run on that in 2020.

It’s insulting to hear DFL legislators and Democrat Gov. Tim Walz complain that Republicans hadn’t moved from their position of being unwilling to raise Minnesota’s taxpayers burden by $12,000,000,000 over the next 4 years. According to this AP article, the DFL expected GOP lawmakers to accept that $12,000,000,000 tax increase in exchange for the DFL cutting $332,000,000 out of the DFL’s $50,000,000,000 budget.

That isn’t a compromise. That’s a total capitulation if it happened. Thankfully, it won’t happen. That’s because the GOP majority in the Senate won’t budge on these (or any other) tax increases.

Minnesota’s tax and regulatory system has already made it one of the least competitive states in the US. According to Walz’s own Department of Revenue report, the Walz-DFL monster tax increases promise to hit lower income taxpayers the hardest:

The tax plan proposed by Gov. Tim Walz would hit lower income Minnesotans harder than wealthier earners. That’s the outcome of analysis by the Democratic governor’s own Department of Revenue, which carried out a tax incidence analysis of Walz’s plan, which includes, among other things, a reduction in state income taxes but increases in business, estate, gas and vehicle sales tax, among other changes.

According to the revenue department, the overall tax burden on Minnesotans would increase from 11.63 percent currently to 12.39 percent under Walz’s plan, an increase of 0.76 percent. However it’s the lowest earners who would see a bigger increase in their taxes.

The so-called Party of the Little Guy wants to soak the little guy? That fits the DFL’s identity since the DFL seems to think that President Trump’s broad-based recovery is only being felt by millionaires and billionaires, not the blue collar workers that’ve experienced a 4.5% growth in wages compared with the 1% seeing a 3% increase in wages:

The governor said in an interview on Minnesota Public Radio that his budget was based on what the state needs to spend to maintain quality education and other programs at a time when the state’s population is growing, and that he’d like to see some reciprocity from Republicans.

That’s BS! Minnesota doesn’t need to become less competitive taxwise. Republicans’ campaign slogan should be ‘Make Minnesota competitive again.’ There isn’t a polite way to put this so I’ll just say it. Tim Walz and Melissa Hortman are economic illiterates. Walz was a nobody in Washington, DC. Hortman’s list of accomplishments is shorter than Barack Obama’s.

If the DFL keeps insisting on their massive tax increases, Hortman will be a 1-term speaker and Republicans will gain seats in the Senate, too. These tax increases are, to put it politely, counterproductive. The DFL should be sued for economic malpractice.

It’s safe to say that the DFL House majority isn’t interested in keeping Minnesota competitive with other states. This DFL majority is intent on raising a whole host of taxes. This AP article highlights the latest DFL partisan vote to raise taxes.

It says “The 74-58 vote on the $7.2 billion package fell mostly along party lines. Majority Democrats stressed during several hours of debate that began Friday the need for a stable, dedicated source of revenue to make badly needed road and bridge improvements. Their proposal would raise the gas tax by a nickel per year for four years for a 70% total increase from the current tax of 28.5 cents per gallon.”

Later, the hammer dropped:

Minority Republicans countered that the state already has plenty of money to spend on transportation from existing revenue streams and a projected $1 billion budget surplus. They also pointed to a recent Department of Revenue analysis that found the tax increase would fall hardest on low- and middle-income residents, and said it would make driving more expensive for all Minnesota motorists.

Of course, Dan Wolgamott, my DFL representative, voted the way he was told by DFL Speaker Melissa Hortman told him to. Thus far in his brief legislative career, Wolgamott has voted for billions of dollars of tax increases. It’s apparent that Wolgamott, like his DFL puppet masters, intend on hurting taxpayers. It’s clear that the DFL views taxpayers as ATM machines.

There’s an old saying about how differently Republicans and see the world. It’s said that Democrats see every day as April 15th while Republicans see each day as the 4th of July. This article does nothing to dispel that perspective.

I’m not surprised that the DFL House wants to raise taxes again. After reading this article, though, I’m getting a bit upset that they think taxpayers are just their personal ATMs.

Republicans in the House better vote unanimously against these tax increases:

Democrats in the Minnesota House proposed a tax bill Monday that would raise $1.2 billion in new revenue, largely from big business. DFL leaders stressed that the money is needed for education, health care and other new spending plans. But Senate Republicans oppose the tax increases and are digging in for the fight ahead.

House Speaker Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, said public schools have been underfunded due to Republican-backed tax policies, including recent federal changes, that she believes favor the rich. “Tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations have exploded income inequality, and our tax bill works to restore some fairness,” she said.

I’m sure there’s a polite way of putting this but I won’t say this politely. Thanks to the DFL’s tax policies, Minnesota is no longer competitive.

When Gov. Walz told us that the state of the state is strong, he lied through his teeth. That’s BS. People of all age and income groups are leaving Minnesota. They aren’t just leaving for retirement. They’re leaving because the DFL has run the state’s economy into the ground. Why would people start or expand businesses knowing that they’ll have targets painted on their backs virtually immediately?

This is the chief thief this time:

It’s time to fire her in 2020.

Last week, I received an email from Sarah Anderson talking about the state budget surplus. Rep. Anderson wrote “Dear Neighbors, today the state budget forecast was released showing a whopping $1.54 billion surplus.” We have another $2.45 billion in the State’s rainy day fund. Despite all this money sitting in Minnesota’s coffers, it’s stunning that the DFL is pushing tax increases.

It’s time to ditch Minnesota’s ‘business model’ and establish new priorities. The achievement gap isn’t closing, at least not compared to what they should be for all the money that’s gotten spent.

Minnesota’s economy isn’t terrible but it isn’t exactly hitting on all cylinders, either. The DFL spent most of the last decade building Minnesota’s government instead of building Minnesota’s economy. In 2013, Gov. Dayton and the DFL legislature passed the biggest tax hikes in Minnesota history. Since then, the middle class of all age groups have left Minnesota. The only income group that’s increasing their percent in the state are the lowest incomes.

It makes sense. From an education standpoint, Minnesota is mediocre. From a taxes and regulations perspective, Minnesota isn’t competitive. It isn’t close. If the DFL doesn’t admit that their blueprint isn’t working, we’ll quickly turn into a cold California. Why does the DFL think that raising taxes will strengthen the economy?

In 2007, the DFL insisted that spending should be indexed to inflation. Now Melissa Hortman insists that, because spending isn’t tied to inflation, the $1.54 billion surplus is really only $382,000,000. According to Hortman, that’s justification for additional tax hikes.

The moral to this story is that the DFL doesn’t understand a thing about economic competitiveness. They want their tax hikes regardless of whether it hurts or not. This move hurts badly. Throughout the state, people from all income groups (except the poor and the working poor) are leaving for lower-tax states. That’s what’s driving the worker shortage.

Let’s hope Hortman and Walz don’t kill Minnesota’s economic competitiveness entirely. BTW, this is how socialism kills economies. When people lose the ability to make profits, they either leave the state or they stop making what they’d been making.

In Part II of this series, I wrote about a mailer that the DFL sent out a mailer claiming that Republicans voted to give themselves a 45% pay raise. I wrote that KSTP gave the mailer an F rating, meaning that it was “demonstrably false.” That’s the KSTP equivalent of the Washington Post’s 4 Pinocchios rating.

Despite that awful rating, Melissa Hortman insists that the mailer is accurate. Apparently, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a woman or man in the DFL. If you’re part of the DFL, apparently, you’re expected to tell whoppers whether you’re male or female. Hortman insists “that Republicans prioritized the funding measure while failing to complete other important work, including bills related to elder abuse and opioid addiction. She says the campaign material simply highlights those points.”

First, Gov. Dayton line-item vetoed the funding for the legislature, which includes the funding for the Office of Legislative Auditor. It also meant that legislative staffers didn’t get paid. That meant Gov. Dayton vetoed the funding for some important audits into his administration that cast his administration is a bad light. Isn’t it amazing how Rep. Hortman omitted that from her statement?

Hortman contends that Republicans prioritized the funding measure while failing to complete other important work, including bills related to elder abuse and opioid addiction. She says the campaign material simply highlights those points. “That’s entirely fair game, the Republicans priorities, what they chose to do and the order they chose to do things in and the fact that they never got the rest of the work done,” she said.

Actually, Sen. Karin Housley took the lead on the elder abuse so the House knew that that issue was getting taken care of. Next, members of the House got after the opioid addiction crisis virtually immediately. It’s impossible to argue with House Republicans’ priorities.

Finally, the DFL voted overwhelmingly to sustain Gov. Dayton’s veto of the MNLARS bill after they initially voted overwhelmingly for the bill. Thanks to the DFL’s vote to sustain Gov. Dayton’s veto, companies went out of business and families lost their homes.

What about those priorities, Rep. Hortman? Is it that lying and playing politics is more important to the DFL than saving families’ homes from foreclosure? That’s the definition of a dirtbag politician. It’s time to throw the DFL out.

Last night, Melissa Hortman retweeted something titled a “comprehensive list of DFL candidates running for the House of Representatives.” One of the candidates listed in the link is Dan Wolgamott. It’s difficult to picture him as a serious candidate, mostly because he’s run for 3 different legislative seats in the last 3 election cycles. If Mr. Wolgamott keeps up this pace, he’ll make Tarryl Clark look like homebody. This year, Wolgamott is running for Jim Knoblach’s seat in HD-14B. In 2016, Wolgamott ran for the SD-14 senate seat. In 2014, Wolgamott ran for Tama Theis’s seat in HD-14A. But I digress.

Mr. Wolgamott’s campaign website is nothing but mush. Wolgamott’s priorities page is entirely devoid of substance. What it’s missing in substance, though, it more than makes up for in platitudes and feel-goodisms. For instance, on the subject of higher education, Wolgamott wants to “lower tuition and administrative costs, fully support our state colleges and universities and allow students to refinance school loans.”

St. Cloud State is located entirely in HD-14B. Its enrollment has been declining since 2011. Retrenchment (a fancy term for firing faculty and administration) looks likely in FY2019. Rather than fixing the SCSU crisis, Mr. Wolgamott offers platitudes but no specifics? Where’s Mr. Wolgamott’s solutions to the district’s biggest problem?

On the subject of “Jobs and Economic Development”, Mr. Wolgamott “supports job training and placement programs, expanding start-up business grants, encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship” while streamlining the “permitting process.”

Again, businesses are leaving St. Cloud (Electrolux) for other states or they’re going bankrupt (Herbergers). People are leaving St. Cloud proper. Despite these things, the best Mr. Wolgamott can do is offer generic-sounding platitudes without offering specific solutions. On Mr. Wolgamott’s priorities page, he asks this rhetorical question:

Who cares if something is a Republican idea, a Democrat idea or an Independent idea?

Based on this picture, I’d bet that it matters to Mr. Wolgamott:

Mr. Wolgamott insists that he’ll bring people together. That might be true. It might not. There’s no question whether Jim Knoblach will bring people together. He’s already done that. Do voters want a wannabe career politician who spews platitudes? Or do St. Cloud voters want an experienced policy maker?

Technorati: Dan Wolgamott, Melissa Hortman, Mark Dayton, Tina Smith, Higher Education, St. Cloud State, Retrenchment, Electrolux, Herbergers, DFL, Election 2018

After reading this article, you’d think something catastrophic had happened. House Minority Leader Melissa Hortman and Senate Minority Leader Tom Bakk took turns criticizing Republicans after the budget forecast was released.

Hortman criticized Republicans, saying “Elections have consequences, and when Minnesotans switched control of the legislature to 100% Republican control, we went from a $1.6 billion surplus to a $188 million deficit in a little bit less than a year. Hopefully people will keep that in mind as we move into 2018.” Bakk chimed in, saying “I pretty strongly advised the governor the last night of the special session not to sign the tax bill because it wasn’t sustainable. I’m not happy I was right.”

Talk about a pair of DFL drama queens. Dave Orrick and Bill Salisbury co-wrote this article, which explains how little of a deal this is. First, they wrote “the federal government reauthorizes a health insurance program for children, which it very well might, the forecast shortfall would fall to about $10 million. There are other such variables that could make it rise or fall.” It’s virtually certain that they’ll reauthorize the CHIP program. That eliminates all but $10,000,000 of the deficit forecast. Next, the model used anticipated only 2.2% growth. That’s because this forecast model predicts that Congress won’t pass the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

It’s absurd to think that the economy will grow at only 2.2% since it’s grown at 3.1% and 3.3% thus far this year. The third quarter would’ve been better if not for 5 hurricanes hitting, virtually wiping out economic growth in Texas and Florida.

Even Myron Frans, the state budget commissioner, downplayed the deficit, saying that the “forecast deficit” was “more of a mist than a downpour.”

This video is part of the DFL’s press conference:

Sen. Cohen’s statements are partisanship at its worst. The term sore loser leaps to mind, too. The DFL talks about the 2013-14 biennium as though it was the glory days. They weren’t. Since the 2011 budget, spending increased by more than $15,000,000,000. That’s fifteen billion dollars with a B. That’s a spending increase of more than 33% in 2 biennium. Let’s also remember that the surpluses following the 2013 budget session were the size of the tax increase.

It isn’t that the economy grew by leaps and bounds. It’s that the tax increase accounted for roughly 90% of the surpluses. Any budget that doesn’t produce economic growth is worthless. That’s what the nation rejected when they said no to a third Obama term. Meager growth isn’t something to be praised. It’s something to be criticized.

The Republicans wanted to pass a pro-growth budget. Gov. Dayton resisted that. For the third time in 4 budget sessions, we had a special session. Yes, unemployment is low but that’s because we’re spending like drunken sailors. There’s a reason why people of all age groups are leaving Minnesota, especially for our neighboring states.

If Bakk, Cohen and Hortman don’t ditch their socialist and/or crony capitalist policies, that outmigration will accelerate. Finally, if the DFL constantly stands in the way of pipeline and mining projects, we’ll never see the good old days again.

Technorati: Melissa Hortman, Mark Dayton, Tom Bakk, Dick Cohen, Tax Increases, Budget Deficit, DFL, Election 2018

Something jumped out at me while reading this article. Specifically, I’m upset with Melissa Hortman after she said “I think that Senator Gazelka should work with Democrats like Governor Dayton and me and Senator Bakk to solve a problem rather than using people as pawns in a political dispute.” Actually, Gov. Dayton is the problem. If he hadn’t negotiated in bad faith, this wouldn’t have happened. In fact, he negotiated in bad faith twice, once when he said he’d sign the Republicans’ tax relief plan 2 years ago. He negotiated in bad faith this year when he signed the tax relief bill, then line-item vetoed the funding for the legislature.

Gov. Dayton’s holding the people of Minnesota hostage because he wants to renegotiate legislation he’s already signed. Giving a governor that type of authority is unforgiveable. With that authority, governors could hold the legislature hostage every budget session. Is the Supreme Court willing to give the executive branch that authority over the legislative branch? If they’re willing to do that, then the Supreme Court is corrupt. They’re willing to give one branch of government the upper hand in budget negotiations. It isn’t difficult to envision a governor holding the legislature hostage if the legislature doesn’t give him what he wants.

Here’s what I’d tell Rep. Hortman. Rather than defending people in the DFL, she should defend the people of Minnesota. Thus far, she’s defended the DFL. She hasn’t defended Minnesotans.

By vetoing the legislature’s funding, then filing the appeal after losing the first court case, Gov. Dayton has endangered the funding for the Office of Legislative Auditor, aka OLA, and the Revisor’s Office. I wrote in this post that those offices aren’t inconsequential offices:

The office of the Legislative Auditor is funded through the LCC. Legislative Auditor Jim Nobles has already expressed concerns about certain functions of his office being suspended – specifically the certification of state financial reports that support the state’s credit rating and the receipt of federal funds.

The Office of the Revisor of Statutes is also funded through the LCC and they work year-round with state agencies on rule making authority. The Revisor’s office would also be necessary to draft a bill to restore legislative functions once session begins in February.

Thanks to Gov. Dayton’s line-item veto, the office that certifies Minnesota’s financial reports that keep our credit rating healthy is getting its funding stripped. The Revisor of Statutes Office is essential to Minnesota’s rule-making and legislation writing processes. What is Gov. Dayton thinking when he’s stripping funding from these essential offices? Was Gov. Dayton thinking when he forced the stripping of these funds?

Anyone that’s willing to shortchange these offices just so he can renegotiate a bill that he’s already signed is disgusting. Gov. Dayton isn’t a man of integrity. He’s a man who thinks that the ends justify the means. How pathetic.

Technorati: Mark Dayton, Melissa Hortman, Revisor of Statutes Office, Office of Legislative Auditor, Minnesota Supreme Court, Government Shutdown, Bad Faith Negotiations, DFL, Tax Relief, Paul Gazelka, Separation of Powers, Republicans

According to this article, House Minority Leader Melissa Hortman supports Emperor Dayton’s new-found authority to negotiate in bad faith.

After Friday’s ruling, Hortman issued this statement, which says “Minnesotans expect their elected officials to collaborate on solutions to benefit everyone, but Republicans chose to go to court instead of negotiate in good faith with the Governor. This summer, I joined Governor Dayton in calling on the Republican majorities to return to the negotiating table and work to craft a long-term, sustainable budget for Minnesota. Given the Court’s order, all sides must come together with a spirit of compromise and collaboration in order to reach an agreement that will better serve Minnesotans. I look forward to working with Governor Dayton, Senator Bakk, and Republican leadership to do so.”

A refresher of history is required to detect how dishonest Rep. Hortman’s statement is. Prior to Emperor Dayton’s calling a special session, legislative leaders from both parties and the House and Senate agreed to how much would be spent. Republican leadership then submitted the legislative language for each bill, including the Tax Relief Bill, to the legislative leaders and Emperor Dayton’s senior staff.

It’s vitally important to note that there weren’t any surprises as to what was in the bills. It was there in black and white. Only then did Emperor Dayton agree to call a special session. After the legislature passed these spending bills and Emperor Dayton had signed almost all of them, he insisted that Republicans renegotiate the Tax Relief Bill.

Another important piece of information in this is the fact that Republicans already had agreed to reduce the size of the Tax Relief Bill when Emperor Dayton line-item vetoed the legislature’s funding. For the DFL and Emperor Dayton to now say that they’ll negotiate in good faith takes tons of chutzpah. They haven’t negotiated in good faith thus far. Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka and Speaker of the House Kurt Daudt released a joint statement, saying in part “Today’s order did not decide the case or vacate the lower court’s ruling, and we are ready to go to mediation to secure funding for the legislative branch of government. We worked in good faith in the past to attempt to breach this impasse, and will work in good faith again as we look ahead to the mediation process.”

The question now becomes whether Emperor Dayton and the DFL will finally start negotiating in good faith. The thing that Minnesotans should notice is that Emperor Dayton and the DFL insisted that his authorities are absolute. They argued that Minnesota governors should have the authority to hold the legislature hostage until he gets what he wants.

Pretty soon, DFL candidates and incumbents will start campaigning. Many DFL candidates will insist that they’re good at bringing people together. There’s proof that the DFL is good at not keeping their promises. There’s proof that the DFL is good at playing hardball. There isn’t proof that the DFL is good at bringing people together.

Finally, Republicans promised tax relief. They kept that promise. Republican promised educational reform. They kept that promise, too. Emperor Dayton didn’t keep his promises. Then the DFL insisted that Emperor Dayton’s authority was absolute. While all this was happening, Emperor Dayton issued a ruling that he was throwing another bone to the special interests by unnecessarily delaying the Enbridge Line 3 Pipeline replacement project.

It’s obvious that the DFL is the party of the special interests. It’s obvious that Republicans keep their promises. Think about that for a minute.