Dear Neighbor,
Thanks to everyone who attended the town hall meeting I conducted with Sen. Westrom earlier this week on Zoom. We enjoyed the discussion and appreciate the input. Another similar meeting is in the process of being scheduled so watch for more information on that once the details are in place.
As for news from St. Paul, there has been growing frustration over the lack of movement on bills to address some key, time-sensitive issues. Of course, most of a given session’s most important bills usually are not resolved until the later stages toward the end of May, but this session has been slow on the floor even with that in mind. In fact, through the first 10 weeks of session, the House had passed just five bills, the fewest at that point in a session since at least 1995, which is as far back as records are available on the House website.
In an attempt to spur things along on some issues that warrant timely action, House Republicans made efforts this week to jump-start bipartisan legislation that has stalled, including:
- The SAFE Account — Funding for mutual aid for anticipated law enforcement response for the Chauvin trial and other major public safety events.
- Exempting forgiven Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan income for businesses from state income taxes.
- Exempting boosted Unemployment Insurance payments for workers from state income taxes.
- Summer school funding to help students catch up after a year of distance learning
Unfortunately, the majority was not receptive to bringing bills on any of these subjects to the floor for approval, so they remain unfinished. I had hoped we could get the PPP tax issue resolved by the March 15 deadline for businesses, but that didn’t happen. Now, I am hopeful we can get the unemployment insurance issue resolved before the deadline to file individual returns. The longer we wait, the more people will be negatively impacted and there is no reason to further delay, especially with the state enjoying a $1.6 billion surplus and receiving billions more in federal aid.
In other news this week, the governor on Thursday issued an updated budget proposal taking into account the state’s latest economic data. His initial plan included $1.7 billion in tax increases and his new proposal still includes $670 million in tax hikes.
That is a step in the right direction, but I question why tax increases are necessary at all in light of our state’s $1.6 billion surplus and $2.5 billion coming to the state from the recently passed federal relief bill. The governor’s revised budget also fails to fully exempt the PPP loans from state taxes and includes tax hikes on both individual and corporate income taxes.
On a final note, most of our time in the House remains focused on getting bills through the initial committee stages. One bill we recently discussed provides funding for our state’s Soil and Water Conservation Districts.
Our SWCDs provide valuable services as the “boots on the ground” for projects and we need to find a dependable source of funding for them. However, the proposal we heard to collect transfer fees at recorders offices would create a system of winners and losers due to the great disparities in the volume these county offices handle – Pope County vs. Hennepin County, for example.
Again, our SWCDs do a good job and we need to find stable funding for them, but the the proposal we heard is not the best approach and I cannot support it.
Until next time, stay in touch and enjoy your weekend.
Sincerely,
Paul