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Minnesota House of Representatives

State Representative Denny McNamara

359 State Office BuildingState Office Building
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
651-296-3135

For more information contact: Jason Wenisch 651-296-2317

Posted: 2009-06-09 00:00:00
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NEWS COLUMN

NEWS AND VIEWS WITH REP. DENNY McNAMARA

In just a few weeks, you are going to hear a lot about a process called unallotment, which is a procedure that a governor can use to bring our budget into Constitutionally-required balance.

In short, Pawlenty will eliminate spending in certain budget areas on his own in order to make state expenses match our incoming state revenue.

Governor Pawlenty will be using this unallotment process at the end of the month. I’m extremely disappointed by this result, which is happening because the legislative majority chose to spend more money than the state collects this session. Working families don’t have that option and neither should state government.

Throughout Governor Pawlenty's budget reduction process, I’ll be advocating for our hospitals, nursing homes, and group homes. I’ll also be pushing for welfare reform. This year a welfare investigator told us that $1.5 billion in fraudulent claims may be occurring in Minnesota every year. I’m hopeful the Governor will use this opportunity to reduce spending in this area.

Now that the tough choices have been passed along to the Governor - roughly $3 billion remains to be cut - we’ll have to wait and see where the reductions will be made. If you have thoughts on areas where the Governor can reduce spending, please email or call me with those ideas and send them to this email address: budgetideas@state.mn.us. This is an administration email account which has been set up specifically to receive your budget reduction input.

As always if you have any issues, thoughts or concerns please contact me.

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