Saturday, April 30th, 2022 – Yesterday, House Democrats amended their budget resolution for the 2022 legislative session for the second time. This document summarizes all the spending they plan to do across all of their bills. Democrats would add $7.36 billion to the already $51.7 billion two-year budget approved in June of 2021 – a 10% increase over the previous year's two-year budget period. That $51.7 billion budget fully funded the State government through June of 2023. The additional spending would increase Minnesota's state budget to roughly $59 billion.  Or said another way, the current budget is a 10 percent increase from the previous budget. The DFL proposed spending increase would make for a 25 percent increase in the budget in ONE BUDGET CYCLE. This Democrat supplemental budget resolution shows how detached the Minnesota DFL is from working families. State government is fully funded and sits on a projected $9.3 billion surplus. Money that should be in your pocket, funding your life, home, and retirement. Not government largess. Worse, this supplemental spending is all one-time money setting up the taxpayers for larger and permanent budget increases. Right now, people are having to adjust their budgets due to inflation, and the Democrat response is to put together a bloated spending plan. We should not be increasing spending by one dime. Instead, we need to take this record surplus and give it back to the people by slashing state taxes and eliminating the social security tax. We need to be helping people, not by spending their money, but by allowing the people to spend their own money. When our Government was formed, it was created with three distinct and separate branches of Government. Creating legislation and passing laws is intentionally deliberative and slow. Having a governmental system that moves quickly runs the risk of making mistakes, and those mistakes could endanger our freedom. This all comes after a shocking report released earlier this week that confirmed what economists thought; The economy is shrinking. The United States saw a drop in GDP of 1.4% as supply chains and inflation is hitting middle-class incomes. As a result, people are cutting back their expenses, yet the House DFL is trying to buy a new Cadillac. If you are a middle-class American like me, you know this is not self-governance. The DFL is operating with complete disregard for your checkbook. They seem to have forgotten that this money didn't appear out of thin air; it was earned by this state's hardworking men and women. If we returned the entire surplus, we could return nearly $4,000 to every Minnesota taxpayer, not the $300 check Governor Walz has proposed. Choose Freedom, Cal Bahr
State Representative, 31B |