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State Representative Mary Liz Holberg
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
651-296-6926
For more information contact: Jodi Boyne 651-296-0640
NEWS COLUMN
REP. HOLBERG: WHEN YOU’RE OUT OF MONEY, STOP SPENDING
By MaryLiz Holberg
State Representative, District 36A
Chair, Minnesota House Ways & Means Committee
“I think it’s a concept most Minnesotans can understand: When you know you’re out of money, stop spending.”
Those were my words to reporters last month when legislative Republicans introduced “phase one” of what will be a long, difficult effort to balance the budget. Despite taking in $32 billion over the next two years - a 5-percent increase - automatic spending growth will increase by 27 percent to $38.5 billion. As the numbers show, for too long government has made spending promises it can’t keep with money it doesn’t have, and now those promises have caught up to us. To get our budget balanced, we have to re-examine our priorities and fund them with the $32 billion we have. This is the driving concept behind our bill that now makes its way to Governor Dayton’s desk to reduce the deficit by $900 million. Our plan consists of two parts: reduce spending in the current budget and continue most of the funding levels agreed to in May 2010 by a majority of legislators on both sides of the aisle.
In the current budget, we’re asking Governor Dayton to make $100 million of reductions prior to June 30, 2011, to stop the “Christmas in June” phenomenon that takes place when agencies rush to empty their budget so they can justify the same funding level for the next year. It’s a practice we need to stop. Unfortunately, since we announced this bill people have come to me saying June’s Christmas has been moved to February to protect budgets against this bill becoming law. They clearly have not understood the message to stop any non-essential spending.
The second part of our bill makes last year’s one-time reductions permanent. As part of the agreement to end the 2010 session, Democrats insisted that all the reductions we made be undone in future years, meaning more than $800 million in spending would re-appear even though there was no money to pay for it. Throughout our budget negotiations I tried to get them to see the structural problem their insistence would create for our budget, but they refused to budge. Ironically, these same Democrats would later criticize former Governor Pawlenty for leaving the state with a large deficit – a deficit built in part by their staunch opposition to permanent spending reductions.
Since that May agreement, the economy continued to struggle and the budget picture only grew worse. Given that situation, expecting hundreds of millions of dollars in spending to suddenly snap back into the budget is unrealistic. Reflecting this reality, our bill freezes current spending levels in many areas for future years. It doesn’t “cut” as critics say, it simply continues the current spending level many of those critics previously supported.
None of this is easy. To date, Governor Dayton has been cool to our phase one plan, but I’m hopeful that his administration will see the wisdom in starting to tackle this budget problem as soon as possible. He is meeting everyday with his budget team to look at the same numbers we are. He may discover that there are things in this bill he can agree with us on, and the time to move forward on them is now.
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MaryLiz Holberg, R-Lakeville, is the Chair of the Ways and Means Committee in the Minnesota House of Representatives.
News Items
- Legislative Update - (Posted: Jun 7 2013 4:32PM)
- Legislative Update from Rep. Mary Liz Holberg - (Posted: Mar 22 2013 3:39PM)
- Legislative Update from Rep. Mary Liz Holberg - (Posted: Mar 8 2013 4:54PM)
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