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TRAVELLING THE FAILED, JOB-KILLING, MIDDLE-CLASS- SQUEEZING ROAD OF THE PAST Floor speech on House Omnibus Tax Bill from Minority Leader Thissen

Welcome to back-to-the-future budgeting, Members.

Year after year after year in Minnesota, a Republican, “no new tax" governor balanced Minnesota’s budget by shifting more and more of the responsibility for essential state government onto local property taxpayers. Minnesotans became increasingly sick of the so-called no new taxes pledge because we knew that it was nothing more than hollow rhetoric.

The new Republican legislative majority turned “no new taxes” into “live within our means” – a magic wand that would somehow wipe away the largest deficit in state history with no pain and no responsibility.

But no matter what we call it, this high-property tax plan has failed us for 8 years. For nearly a decade we’ve seen Minnesota sputter – creating fewer jobs, dropping in educational rankings, attracting fewer companies, and losing our spot as a national leader.

Now, the Republican majority wants to put failed budgeting on steroids. As opposed to learning from our mistakes and failings, this Majority wants to make a bad plan worse.

Members, let’s not fool ourselves.

Your budget is filled with tax increases that will raid middle class checkbooks.

It repeals property tax credits that nearly every Minnesotan benefits from – the Market Value Homestead Credit and the Renters Credit. We will all pay hundreds more on our property tax bills as a result of these repeals.

It cuts local government aids – a sure property tax increase according to every single non-partisan historical analysis, no matter how much the other side wants to deny the facts.

And this plan is bad for business. The biggest tax businesses pay is their property tax – 36% and rising if the Republicans get their way.

Businesses don’t pay their property taxes from a different account than they pay the rest of their taxes; and Minnesota families use the same strained checkbook to pay their property taxes as they do any other tax.

And Members, do not think your vote today is only a vote on this tax bill. Absolutely not. Your vote for this bill cannot be separated out from the awful choices being made in the omnibus bills we will be seeing for the rest of the week.

Your vote on this tax bill today makes those awful choices with their awful consequences for your constituents inevitable.

Listen, your leadership has already decided for you that your promise to voters on the campaign trail to “live within your means” is, in fact, meaningless. You are already spending more -- probably close to $2 billion more -- than you said you would last fall and even as this session started. That is the fact, plainly and simply. So you are already dirty. You’re promises are already broken. You have no worries about rejecting this bill. Vote No – and we can start a real conversation about what is best for your constituents.

Because let’s look at the real consequences of this bill – a continuation of the middle class squeeze that Governor Pawlenty imposed on middle class Minnesotans for the last 8 years.

Reps. Murray and Kiel – by voting for this bill, you are cutting the LGA that your constituents, including the business leaders in your community, say is so vital to the health of Albert Lea and Grand Forks and so many other communities. You are voting to raise property taxes on your constituents and undoubtedly taking more taxes out of their pockets than if this bill would not pass. And Rep. Murray, you’re also voting to cut funding to the Albert Lea school district.

Rep. Fabian – by voting for this bill you are voting to cut our state agencies so deeply that the times to issue permits will get substantially slower, perhaps close to double – more than reversing any progress that may have been made in HF1. Knowing your passion for that issue, you cannot believe that this bill is right for Minnesota.

Rep. Hamilton – by voting for this bill you are voting for nearly $400 million in cuts to people with disabilities and older Minnesotans, including more than $30 million in nursing home cuts. That’s not what you told your constituents you would do. Indeed, just a few weeks ago you assured them in a letter to the editor that you would absolutely not do that.

Rep. McElfatric – You’ve already voted this year to raise property taxes on your constituents in HF 130. Can’t change that history. Be let’s be clear, by voting for this bill, you are adding insult to injury and voting to steal $60million from the Doug Johnson Fund – stealing money from your local taxpayers to fill the state’s budget hole.

Rep. Banian – by voting for this bill, you are voting to cut St. Cloud State University and other public colleges and universities in this state by nearly half a billion dollars, costing hundreds of jobs and again driving up tuitions. That’s not what you told your constituents you would do – make college education even more out of reach for middle class families.

Moreover, Rep. Banian, you cannot be satisfied with the process that got the budget to this point. What happened to zero-based budgeting? As a principled economist, I cannot imagine you approve of the Enron accounting, using maybe a billion dollars in Monopoly money to plug the $5billion deficit. But that is what is going on in the Republican House budget.

Rep. Wardlow, you used to work in downtown Minneapolis –maybe you still do when we’re not in session. I know you have many middle class constituents who also work downtownand take the bus every day to get to work. By voting for this bill, you are voting to triple their fares,drastically reduce their job flexibility and lay-off more than 500 people in the process. That’s not what youpromised your constituents last fall.

Rep. Myhre, I know for a fact that you did not campaign oncutting funding to the Burnsville Schools. Nor did you Rep. McFarlane, campaign on cutting funding for your local schools. But that is precisely what the House GOP Education budget does. By voting for this bill today, you are sealing that fate – cuts to education in Burnsville. You still have a chance to change course. Vote No.

And Rep. Buesgens and Drazkowski and Quam and Gruenhaugen –I know you think that the budget your leadership put together spends way too much money, spends it excessively. You can also vote No on this tax bill.

The Majority can pass this bill today – and you likely will. But when you do, you need to stop with the claim that you are the party of tough choices. You haven’t made a tough decision – you have passed the buck. You could at least be honest with Minnesotans that their property taxes WILL go up, but you’re not even willing to take responsibility for that.

Just like the Republican governor before you, the Republican majority will deny the evidence and decry the facts. The state economist has said very clearly that this plan is worse for our fragile economy, but economist be damned. The non-partisan Office of the Legislative Auditor says this plan WILL raise property taxes, but auditors be damned.

And history has told us that the budget boondoggles of the past are worse for our economy, but history be damned, too.

Members, this Majority is so dead set on traveling the failed, job-killing, middle-class-squeezing road of the past that no one can stop them. Except each one of you. Vote your conscience. Vote your district – your constituents are watching. Vote No.

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State Representative Paul Thissen is the DFL House Minority Leader. He represents Richfield and part of Minneapolis in the Minnesota State House of Representatives.