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State Representative Leon Lillie
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
651-296-1188
For more information contact: Ben Schweigert 651-296-5809
Column/LTE
GETTING THE JOB DONE FOR MINNESOTA
To the Editor:
One minute after midnight on Monday night, the Minnesota Legislature went into special session. This was one minute after the regular session adjourned, and not a minute too soon. We still have important issues before us, and there is no reason to wait. Now is the time for open-mindedness, compromise, and working until we get the job done.
The unresolved issues are the biggest ones the state faces, including education, health care, and transportation. In each of these areas, we have growing needs that have been neglected for too long. Each will require smart, reasonable investments. On that point there is no disagreement. Our schools have suffered cutbacks over the last several years, and will again unless significant new money is found. Our health care system is costing patients and employers more and more, while covering fewer and fewer people. Our roads are jammed with traffic while our transit system runs out of money.
There is also no disagreement that new revenue is needed to address these problems. I applaud the Governor for repudiating his irresponsible “no-new-taxes" pledge and joining a serious discussion about raising new money. Now we just need to determine where that money will come from. The Governor has suggested property taxes, borrowing, cigarette taxes, and cuts. Others have suggested an income tax on people making more than a quarter of a million dollars.
The test will be to bridge the differences over how much to invest and how the money will be raised, and reaching this compromise will not be easy. Yet all of us in the Legislature should do everything possible to make the process a quick one. In that spirit, I have joined a group of other first-term DFL legislators in rejecting the daily pay, called per diem, that lawmakers receive to cover expenses. There is no reason we should charge the taxpayers for the Legislature’s failure to finish on time.
Ultimately, however, the most important thing is that the final product of the session be a budget that meets the real needs of the state. If we do only the bare minimum to adjourn quickly, that will hardly make up for continued suffering in our schools and a failing health care system. If we try to push these challenges into the future and fail to confront them, we will only make them worse. But I am confident that if we can work in a spirit of courage, honesty, and bipartisanship in this special session, we will be able to forge the real solutions that Minnesota deserves.
Sincerely,
Rep. Leon Lillie
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