By Rep. Paul Anderson
The process of crafting a two-year state spending plan kicks into high gear this week with the release Tuesday of Gov. Tim Walz’s budget. It will give lawmakers their first glance of the new governor’s priorities and how he plans on utilizing the state surplus and if any new taxes are on the agenda. Two of his main campaign promises were to increase substantially funding for education and to push for a ten cent per gallon bump in the gas tax.
As late as this past November, it appeared Minnesota would enter the new biennium in July with a surplus of around $1.5 billion. However, the last few months have seen a reversal in the trend of higher revenues coming into state coffers. In fact, the shortfall for January was over $200 million. Now, talk is common of the surplus in the upcoming February budget forecast shrinking down to something around a half a million dollars. That will most likely change the thinking of how much new spending we can encumber, in addition to ramping up talk of tax increases being necessary to fund the many increases that have been introduced in the Legislature.
It’s amazing to think how much the approximately $100 million allegedly misspent in the state’s subsidized child day care program would come in handy to fund some of these new programs. Or, if the disastrous MNLARS program had been rolled out when it was actually ready, without the need for additional infusions of money, think how those funds could have been put to better use. It seems there are those who want to forget about those mistakes and simply move on, without fully investigating the hows and whys of those programs. In private business, any such programs that were so over budget and under-performing would be thoroughly examined and corrected. If not, that company would probably be out of business.
Gov. Walz made headlines last week by announcing that his Commerce Department would renew its push to have the Line 3 pipeline project come back under further review. That, after the Public Utilities Commission voted unanimously to allow the project to finally get underway. Environmentalists are against a new, much safer pipeline, which would replace an aging line that currently runs at less than half its original capacity. They say we should be moving to replace all fossil fuel and instead be using renewables such as biodiesel. But remember, biodiesel, which I fully support, is only partly renewable. In warm weather months, we use 20 percent soy oil in our diesel fuel, which means it still contains 80 percent regular diesel. E-15 gas utilizes 15 percent ethanol and 85 percent gasoline.
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Attended a meeting last Friday in Montevideo of county assessors from around this part of the state. It’s good to visit with the folks who have to work with and implement the laws and regulations we make at the Capitol. Assessing land and property correctly can be challenging, especially when there are many exceptions to the general rules. Agricultural Homestead is one classification that can indeed be complicated. There are acreage limits, rules on various entities that make up a farming operation, and limitations on how far away one can live from their farm and still claim the ag homestead. It’s an important part of tax law for farmers, as they struggle to make ends meet in these difficult economic times. The ag homestead formerly was defined by a certain number of acres, for example, 360 acres used to be an ag homestead. Now, it’s defined by a dollar amount, with an estimated market value of $1.9 million qualifying for that same ag homestead. One assessor commented that some operations have that much value in their farm yards alone, in the form of large grain bins, dryers and machine sheds!
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This is turning out to be a tough winter for wildlife, especially pheasants. On my drive down to Montevideo and back last week, I must have seen at least 50 birds or more scratching along the side of the highway or out in the snow-covered fields, looking for something to eat. Let’s hope conditions warm up soon and allow these birds and other animals to find food.
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