Deb Kiel and Dan Fabian, St. Paul, letter:

Democratic majority snubs rural Minnesota

House Democrats from Minneapolis and St. Paul continue to prioritize the Twin Cities to the detriment of rural Minnesota.

As published in the Grand Forks Herald on April 22, 2013.

ST. PAUL — It is not our style to be partisan. We’re from rural Minnesota, and our work on behalf of northwest Minnesota is based on a common-sense standard that is not only valued by all of us, but also is expected when we represent northwestern Minnesotans in St. Paul.

So, it comes as a shock to our common-sense values when House Democrats from Minneapolis and St. Paul continue to prioritize the Twin Cities to the detriment of rural Minnesota.

Our fears of a rural versus Minneapolis/St. Paul divide started early this legislative session when new House leaders appointed a majority of Twin Cities legislators as committee chairs, including a Minneapolis member who is in charge of funding for agriculture and environment.

We learned just how partisan and polarizing Minneapolis and St. Paul legislators can be when the House majority passed their Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture Finance omnibus bill last week.

There is no polite way to say it. This is a bad bill for rural Minnesota.

House Democrats loaded the bill with $14 million more in taxes and fees in order to drive extreme environmental measures and to pay for wasteful government spending.

As a result, rural Minnesotans, cities, hospitals, businesses, lake property owners, nursing homes and schools can expect their water rates to go up by 600 percent in some cases.

Consumers can expect to pay more on paint, carpeting and batteries. The bill also mandates 105 new employees at the Department of Natural Resources and 19 employees at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

And it gets worse.

On the horizon, we can expect the House majority to debate their Legacy Act bill, authored by a chair from Minneapolis who aims to funnel some of the funding for Greater Minnesota state parks and trails into the metro.

But the bill containing the most misplaced priorities and the most harm to rural Minnesota is the Health and Human Services Finance omnibus bill. Even though House Democrats plan on increasing more than $3 billion in taxes and fees on hardworking Minnesotans, they are cutting $150 million from HHS.

We’ve had many conversations with our local nursing homes and hospitals, who have mounting concerns over the huge hit they will take from the cuts and new taxes contained in this proposal.

In fact, the Long-Term Care Imperative has indicated that 47 percent of the nursing facilities in northwestern Minnesota already are at risk of closing, and these cuts will serve only to add extra pressure to the facilities’ budgets.

We remain committed to standing up for rural Minnesota and working with our colleagues across the aisle to remedy some of these proposals as they make their way through the legislative process.

We look forward to Herald readers’ valuable input.