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State Representative Bob Dettmer
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
651-296-4124
For more information contact: House GOP Communications 651-296-5520
OP/ED COLUMN
And Down the Stretch We Come Racing against the clock to balance the budget
By Bob Dettmer
State Representative
District 52A
With both the Republican and DFL conventions behind us, it is full speed ahead to the end of the 2010 legislative session. The mandatory adjournment date is May 17, and the budget remains the biggest issue. We are hearing budget bills in committee on both Health and Human Services and K-12 Education. These bills will hit the floor for a vote soon.
It is well publicized the state faced a $1 billion budget deficit this session. Earlier in the session the House passed a bill cutting $312 million from the deficit, but unfortunately since then, House leadership has taken the “wait and see” approach to tackling the remaining deficit. We have been waiting to see if the folks in Washington are going to send us more than $400 million in federal aid. . Rather than acting reactively—waiting to see if/when the federal government sends one-time aid—we must be proactively working toward long-term reform.
We have also been waiting on a Supreme Court decision that could grow Minnesota’s deficit by an additional $2.7 billion. Earlier this year the majority filed a lawsuit to overturn the unallotments Governor Pawlenty used to balance the budget last year. If their suit is successful our current deficit will balloon to nearly $3.4 billion.
The Supplemental HHS budget bill, in its current form, will cut about $150 million from the deficit. HHS accounts for about 38 percent of all state spending. While this bill does cut government, it is basically a band-aid on a broken leg and doesn’t address the long-term issues we face. It also has a number of issues.
The bill puts new mandates on health care providers and insurance policies, but it exempts public programs and state employee insurance from them. The bill also cuts hospitals by 7 percent and adds a $50 million tax on insurance companies. We cannot hammer the free market while we continuing to grow government programs. These moves will have a negative impact on private consumers and will mean more money out of your pocketbook.
The K-12 Education bill will have minimal cuts, but it will also enact minimal reforms. This bill does little to improve the state’s chances of being awarded an extra $175 million in federal funding through the Race to the Top program. Besides this, the biggest issue I have with the bill is that it allows school districts to renew a referendum without voter approval. This gives school boards the power to continue taxes indefinitely, even if voters only originally approved them for a short period of time. Basically, this means once a referendum is passed, it is never going away.
It looks like we will have a balanced budget by the end of the session, but we still won’t have any long-term solutions. Using one-time program cuts and federal aid puts the books in order for the time being, but it is equivalent to making the minimum payment on your credit card. We still face a $5.8 billion deficit next biennium. It’s time to get serious about solving the problems we face in Minnesota. We can’t keep kicking the can down the road and dump these issues into our children’s laps.
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