By Rep. Shane Mekeland
A recent piece I wrote cited some “Fleecing of Minnesota” examples, highlighting government waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars. Here’s another doozy to add to the pile:
We recently learned Gov. Walz and family will be relocating to a $17,000-a-month lakeside mansion later this year during renovations at the St. Paul governor’s residence. It’s fair to expect the governor would receive nice accommodations during the time he’s displaced from his official residence, but more than $17,000 PER MONTH? At a total taxpayer cost of $329,581 in rent? For a year and a half?
This is outrageous.
Minnesotans are struggling with soaring interest rates, high inflation, and price increases across the board in this Biden-Walz economy. So what is a tone-deaf governor do at this point? He goes ahead and forces taxpayers fork over $17,000 a month in rent payments for a palatial lakeside mansion for his family and him.
The governor can lay it on thick and patronize Minnesotans all he wants as the ol’ ball coach in a buffalo plaid costume, but actions like this illustrate just how out of touch he is with the everyday Minnesotans – or how little he cares about taxpayers.
There are many more affordable options the governor could have chosen for his temporary residence that would have been far more reasonable for the paying public. A quick online search shows comparable properties are available within the same proximity at a much more reasonable cost. Instead, it's more for thee, not for we.
As if this doesn’t look bad enough on its own, it’s happening at a time the governor and fellow Democrats propose increasing state spending by 40 percent, raising taxes despite a massive state surplus, refuse to fully eliminate the state tax on Social Security and propose dramatically underfunding nursing homes. Oh, and they want to legalize marijuana but at the same time outlaw flavored tobacco and have plenty of time to advance gender-related issues.
Back to the tax increases: The House Democrat transportation bill alone raises taxes and fees by at least $4 billion – $1.71 billion in 2024-25, and by more than $2.2 billion in 2026-27. This includes:
- License tab fee increases
- $10 surcharge on license tabs
- Motor vehicle sales tax increase
- ¾-cent metro area sales tax increase (for transit)
- 75-cent delivery tax (everything from Amazon packages to pizza delivery)
Meanwhile, House Republicans are calling attention to the lack of funding for nursing homes in the House majority’s budget proposal for the next two-year cycle, despite the ongoing industry crisis.
As I’ve asked regarding eliminating the Social Security tax, if we can’t support nursing homes at a time the state has a $17.5 billion surplus, when can we?
Together, with Republican legislators, nursing home providers are calling on the Legislature to take action and ensure our nursing homes have the investments they need to keep caring for our seniors. We made a motion in the House chamber to declare urgency and vote to approve nursing home funding on Thursday, but the majority blocked that effort.
We’ll see where things stand after the state’s new budget is established. In the meantime, I will continue pushing for our priorities each day in St. Paul, whether it’s defending taxpayers, supporting our seniors, advocating for improved public safety, standing up for our constitutional rights, promoting affordable and reliable energy, and more.
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