Dear Neighbor,
Another week is coming to a close at the Capitol and the focus this week was on passing supplemental omnibus finance bills.
I am not a fan of omnibus bills in general because provisions should be judged on their own merits and voted on accordingly. The issues get clouded in these wide-ranging packages and you often end up voting for proposals you do not support and/or voting against measures you do favor. I digress.
Anyway, one of the provisions I was most pleased to see advance this week puts an end to the failing MNsure program, transitioning Minnesota to the federal exchange. It might not be ideal, but that seems to be the best path at this point instead of continuing to waste more of our taxpayer dollars on a redundant website that has failed from Day 1 and still cannot perform its most basic function of providing easy access to affordable health insurance.
A recent legislative survey I conducted indicates 82 percent of respondents say MNsure is a failing waste of taxpayer dollars that should not receive any more taxpayer dollars. Our action in the House supports the position of those people.
This is not an official budget year since a two-year budget was enacted last year, but the supplemental omnibus bills do include changes in spending. These adjustments have a net-zero result, preserving the $900 million in tax revenue the state overcollected. Those funds should go back to the Minnesotans that were overtaxed in the first place.
It is interesting how Democrats in the Legislature are coming up with idea after idea for how to spend the pot of taxpayer dollars that remain in the state's hands. Yet 90 percent of the people who responded to my survey say the state has raised taxes too much and 90 percent also says the government already spends too much.
Only government could get away with overcharging people and then just deciding to keep the money for its own spending purposes. If anyone else tried this it would be called theft.
A bill with significant tax relief remains in the works for this session and that is where I advocate the $900 million in tax overages be directed. Last year the House passed a new Minnesota personal or dependent tax exemption that could save a middle-class family of four more than $500 over the next two years. Another provision we passed would end the state tax on seniors' Social Security benefits but – surprise! – Democrats ground all that to a halt over their insistence on raising the gas tax by at least 16 cents per gallon.
Let that sink in for a minute: Democrats blocked tax relief for seniors and families throughout their state because they wanted to tax them even more.
The survey results give us an indication of where people in District 9A stand and I am proud to say I am right there with them. I will pass along more news as we move into the home stretch of the 2016 session. Until then, click here to see the full results of my survey.
Sincerely,
Mark