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ST. PAUL, January 22, 2010 – House Republican Minority Leader Kurt Zellers, R-Maple Grove, today commented on the new state budget forecast showing a $1.2 billion short-term deficit and a $5.4 billion in the next biennium.
“Spending is going up almost twice as fast as tax revenues. It is plainly obvious from this forecast that government has an undeniable spending problem. If we lived within our means and resisted these automatic spending increases, our budget and our economy would be in much better shape.
“The drop in wages revealed in this deficit is shocking. We are not going to double down on this bad news by going out and telling people they aren’t paying enough taxes. The nonpartisan Tax Foundation rates our business climate among the ten worst in the country and getting worse. We’ll be a cold Detroit if the Legislature adopts the strategy of raising taxes to turn things around.
“The forecast confirms what job creators have been telling us all year. They are scaling back by 10-, 20-, even 30-percent and more. It should be reasonable to ask government to scale back four or five percent. To think otherwise or suggest that higher taxes and more spending are the answer is just unrealistic.”