Dear Neighbor,
We are coming to the second half of the 2023 legislative session, yet a couple of issues that had bipartisan support last summer and fall have remained on the back burner with the House majority focusing more on controversial and divisive issues.
For example, Minnesota remains one of the last states that continues taxing Social Security at a time people need some relief and the state has a $17.5 billion surplus ($19 billion using last fall’s metrics). But, not only have Democrats in both the House and Senate not brought bills to the floor to get this done quickly, they actually have blocked Republican efforts to conduct votes on approval.
In addition, violent crime remains abnormally high in Minnesota and, in fact, House Democrats seem to be more interested in reducing punishment for criminals than cracking down on violent crime and stopping the revolving doors for repeat offenders.
House Republicans are assembling a package of bills that focuses on confronting crime, supporting law enforcement, and increasing transparency in our court system to help stop the revolving door for repeat offenders. I will share more details of this proposal soon.
In other news, the House Children and Families Finance and Policy Committee conducted a hearing this week for this bill (H.F. 2320), creating a new state department to tend to something as personal as children and families. I serve on this committee and numerous things stood out to me during this hearing, causing me to strongly oppose this bill.
Let’s start with the fact that, with this bill, Democrats are looking to replace the kind of warm nurturing only a family can provide, with faceless, ideological and stats-based government bureaucracy. We need to be going the opposite direction by empowering individuals to take care of themselves and their families. Parents know their family best and can provide the kind of loving care a child needs to grow and succeed in life.
This is just another step toward the nanny-state model. This new Department of Children, Youth and Families would be a convoluted monster of bureaucracy fed by a government that just keeps itself growing into further unsustainability. More bureaucracy means more taxes, which leads to even more bureaucracy and more taxes – a wicked cycle we can’t seem to escape – as Democrats continue to frame it as offering more “benefits” to citizens.
As an example, a testifier during the hearing on this bill was explaining how she basically works just to pay taxes … and then added how the addition of a new government agency would be so helpful to her. That’s not my line of thinking and I wish her well. However, this bill is a bad direction for our state to take and I think we all know what direction this ultimately points us.
Watch for more from the House soon and thank you for the continued correspondence regarding a variety of issues. I’m still hearing a lot from people who oppose the House Democrat bill that would ban the sale of gas-powered lawn equipment. I share your concerns and also oppose this proposal.
Sincerely,
Ben