To the editor,
We are 10 weeks into the session and we have yet to hear one bill on creating jobs, improving the economy or the budget. The bills we have heard have been about allowing gay marriage, restricting gun rights and unionizing day care providers.
I am looking forward to working on what is truly important: jobs, education and transportation. We also need to get to work on setting the budget which is a requirement this session. Bills to repay K-12 debt are stuck in neutral. I had hoped that this session would be about jobs, the economy and paying back what we owe our children. We have not voted on any bills that could help people get back to work.
One of the bills heard in committee is an effort to unionize Minnesota’s day care providers. Significant concerns have arisen on this subject. There are more than 11,000 licensed day care providers in the state of Minnesota and only 57 have indicated an interest in unionization.
Current law requires at least 30 percent of employees to request an election for union certification, but this bill triggers an automatic election without regard to employee demand. Any licensed or unlicensed provider who has received a state subsidy in the past year would be eligible to vote on the collective bargaining unit issue. This begs the question: If a day care provider is the employer of record and works directly with the union, then with whom do the providers' employees negotiate?
If unionized, childcare providers serving our low-income families and children would be required to pay union dues or fair share fees, thus potentially driving up costs or reducing services. It appears it would lead to higher costs, fewer choices for parents while providing no improvement in quality of care being provided to children.
Proponents of this effort indicate unionization is necessary in order to negotiate increases in Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) benefits. The Legislature sets the CCAP reimbursement rates, if CCAP rates are the issue then we should be debating the rate not unionization.
Parents should be able to choose childcare providers that provide quality, affordable services - without government interference.
GOV. NIXES SOME TAX INCREASES
Gov. Mark Dayton this week officially conceded a number of tax increases he was proposing after it became clear he lacked public and legislative support. Particularly, he backed down from expanding sales taxes to include services like haircuts and oil changes, and eliminated the business-to-business sales tax.
Dayton’s revised budget still includes a spending increase of $2.7 billion over 2012-13. He proposes raising taxes by $1.8 billion. Tax increases the governor retained in his new plan include: $1.1 billion on the top 2 percent of earners, $30 million on snowbirds, $317 million on cigarettes, and a metro transit sales tax plan (which may increase from .25 percent to .5 percent).The governor still would not pay back delayed school funding and even withdrew his initial budget’s proposal of repaying it in 2016-17.
HEALTH INSURANCE PLAN PASSES HOUSE
The House gave final passage to a bill to establish a state-run health care insurance exchange this week. House language including a 3.5-percent tax on premiums was adopted in the bill’s final form.
Serious issues regarding lack of consumer privacy, reduction of choice and high costs remain even after final passage. Patient data could be accessed by the federal government, there is no guarantee patients will be able to see their preferred doctor, and the system will cost more than $60 million dollars annually to operate.
Sincerely,
Rep. Jeff Howe