Dear Neighbors,
Yesterday the Minnesota House passed our Jobs and Energy budget. After several hours of debate over two days, our bill that does so much to protect and invest in our workers finally passed.
My colleagues and I worked diligently to make sure we crafted a budget bill that helps working Minnesotans. This bill protects wages, ensures employees have time to care for their families and themselves, invests in struggling or innovative industries, funds broadband and net neutrality, and supports and trains our workers.
While the majority of my work in the budget pertained to the areas of jobs and economic development, the bill also takes on the challenges of climate change by growing our clean energy economy.
You can read more about the Jobs and Energy budget here.
E-12 Education
Before we got our Jobs & Energy bill to the House floor, we had to finish our debate on the E-12 Education budget, our first major budget floor debate of session. Just as our Jobs & Energy bill invests in and protects our workers, the E-12 Education bill makes historic investments in Minnesota’s students, and supports them both inside and outside of school.
Highlights of the E-12 budget includes state-wide increases in per-pupil funding, an expansion of career and technical programs, and increased access to mental health, housing, and community services for our students.
You can read more about the E-12 Education budget here.
Health and Human Services
We’ll be spending the majority of today on another budget bill, Health and Human Services (HHS). Like the other two, I imagine there will be a lengthy debate before we ultimately pass this legislation. Feel free to follow along with our floor debate today. All Minnesotans deserve access high quality, affordable health care, and the investments in this budget puts us on a path to achieve just that
The HHS budget takes on the skyrocketing cost of health care, and holds Big Pharma accountable. We’ll be discussing ways to address the surge in youth tobacco use, how to protect elders and vulnerable adults from abuse and neglect, ways to leverage the state’s purchasing power to reduce drug prices, and the pathway to building a public health care option in Minnesota.
Stay In Touch
We’ll have more budget bills in the coming days, and I’ll be sure to update you on our progress as we work towards our final weeks of session. As always, I want to hear from you. If you have any questions or comments on the legislative process, you can reach me at (651) 296-4277, or at rep.tim.mahoney@house.mn.
Sincerely,
Tim Mahoney
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