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Minnesota House of Representatives

State Representative Chris Swedzinski

251 State Office BuildingState Office Building
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
651-296-5374

For more information contact: House GOP Communications 651-296-5520

Posted: 2012-01-25 00:00:00
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LEGISLATIVE UPDATE

News From Representative Swedzinski

During the 2011 session much of our time was dedicated to solving the $5.2 billion budget deficit. We did accomplish some reforms during that time, like alternative teacher licensure, permitting reform, and eliminated the provider tax. At the end of session last year we made a commitment to ensure that more reforms are enacted in the 2012 session. The legislation that will be introduced this year will focus on jobs and helping to grow our economy, raising student achievement, giving Minnesotans control over their health care decisions and reducing the size of government.

We will never be able to live within our means if we don’t tackle some of these reforms now. We don’t want a repeat of what happened in 2011 with such a large deficit and a government shutdown. Believe it or not, all of those things were avoidable. If government lived within its means like most Minnesota families do, we would not be in a constant deficit.

This last fall many of our legislators traveled around the state to hear from our job creators, small business owners, farmers, local government officials, and area residents to see what we could do at the legislature to help. We asked, what could make growing your business easier? How can we empower our local governments? These ideas that we heard, are our agenda for 2012.

Reform 2.0 is a plan that House Republicans have come up with in order to accomplish these goals of providing smaller government, job creation and growing our economy. The goals of Reform 2.0 are to restore confidence and grow the private sector economy, reform education and health care, and reduce the size and cost of government.

Projected general fund spending for 2012-2013 is close to $35 billion but if we spent according to population growth and inflation we would be spending nearly $10 billion less with spending at only $25 billion. With these government reforms we need to reflect upon how we are spending our money, and if each dollar spent is a good use of taxpayer funds.

This is not going to be an easy task, but I remain committed to see reforms in government that will help Minnesotans grow their businesses and get our economy on track while reducing the size of government. During the 2012 session we have the opportunity to not only talk about what we want to accomplish but to actually get things done for the long term prosperity of our state and nation.

Sincerely,

Chris

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