Dear Neighbors,
Last week, the Legislature approved compromise legislation that provides a fix to the state’s Unemployment Insurance (UI) Trust Fund. This reverses a massive 2.7 billion dollar tax increase on job creators, as well as funding to provide bonus payments to frontline workers who worked to keep people healthy and safe during the COVID-19 pandemic.
If you are an employer, this link to a new FAQ page created by DEED should help you make sure you are paying the appropriate amount following the passage of this bill. Please reference this page for any questions you may have: https://mn.gov/uimn/employers/employer-account/news-updates/tax-changes-affect-you.jsp
It’s disappointing that it took this long to get this done, but I am nevertheless pleased to see the bill signed into law by Gov. Walz.
Supplemental Budget Bills
House Democrats’ remaining supplemental budget bills were approved this week. Now that the first round of bills has passed, the House and Senate will meet in conference committees to see if compromise agreements can be reached.
Here is a brief rundown of the three supplemental budget bills that were passed this week.
Health and Human Services (HHS): Democrats’ HHS bill spends hundreds of millions of dollars over the next four years only to drive up the cost of health care and impose burdensome regulations. It also does little to address the crisis facing nursing homes and long-term care facilities in Minnesota. With billions of dollars in budget surplus, we should be focusing on ways to lower the cost of health care.
Taxes: This year’s Taxes bill represents a missed opportunity as it fails to provide middle-class families with meaningful and permanent tax cuts. Remember, across their budget, House Democrats are proposing to spend $21 for every $1 in tax cuts/reductions. This is unacceptable.
Labor/Workforce/Climate & Energy/Commerce: Democrats combined spending and policy from the areas of Labor, Workforce, Climate and Energy, and Commerce into a single omnibus bill. While Minnesotans are struggling with inflation and soaring gas/prices, this bill would make the problem even worse by raising billions of dollars in taxes and imposing new expensive mandates on job creators.
Much of the supplemental budget represented missed opportunities to return the budget surplus to the hardworking taxpayers of Minnesota. I am hopeful that the bills will look dramatically different when they return from conference committee following negotiations with the Senate.
Staying in Touch
I encourage you to reach out to me to share your priorities, thoughts, questions, and concerns. I can be reached by phone at 651-296-4293 or via email at rep.john.poston@house.mn.
Have a great weekend,
John