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Legislative News and Views - Rep. Tina Liebling (DFL)

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Legislative Update - May 2, 2016

Monday, May 2, 2016

Dear Neighbors,

Last week, the House heard and passed all of the supplemental budget bills. Since I sit on the Ways and Means Committee and all bills that spend money must pass through that committee, the last two weeks have been intense.

Education Finance Bill

On Monday evening, the House went into session at 4 pm to begin debate on the omnibus Education bill, which was combined with the Higher Education bill. Despite a $900 million state budget surplus, E-12 education and Higher Ed each received a budget target of $0—which means all cuts and spending had to net to zero. Of course, there are times when previous budgets can be cut without harm, and the E-12 committee managed to “find” $52 million to spend and put some good provisions in the bill. However, all are only funded with one-time money, and too low to have a large impact. Had the bill stood alone, I probably would have voted for it. It does a little good, but no harm.

Higher Ed

In 2013, working with Governor Dayton and Senate Democrats, the House DFL passed the first increase in higher education funding in nearly a decade. With that investment we froze tuition at MNSCU (Minnesota State Colleges and Universities), increased the state grant program, and created a program to help students refinance their debt.  

Last year, when the GOP took the majority in the Minnesota House, the priority shifted to tax cuts.  

Minnesota’s graduates have one of the highest student debt burdens in the nation and we have one of worst racial disparity problems in the country.  Recently, during a meeting with some of my constituents, a young woman described her and her husband’s struggle with student debt: she said they will never be able to afford a home and have decided not to have children because they can’t afford them. Then she started to cry.

This situation--which affects so many Minnesotans and other Americans--is simply unacceptable.  Yet the bill gives no aid, comfort, or even hope. That’s why I could not support the bill.

This supplemental Higher Education Bill could be helping to address this crisis, but it did nothing. The Chair of the House Higher Education Committee said that he was “praying” to do better when the bill goes to conference committee (which means, that his own party’s position will not prevail so the target for the final bill will be higher and actually help students).

Minnesota is in a position to make progress for students this year, so long as the House GOP does not continue to hold them hostage to unsustainable tax cuts.  

Minnesotans know that the future lies in the opportunities we give our students—starting with birth and even with pre-natal care. This means renewing our commitment to education—from the earliest interventions all the way through college and student debt.

Jobs and Economic Development

This bill combined so many areas of the budget that it’s hard to keep track: jobs and economic development, energy, environment, housing, and agriculture. Yet the bill doesn’t do much for jobs or economic development and moves backwards in some of the other areas. Like most of the supplemental budget bills we heard last week, it’s full of cuts, shifts and gimmicks that don’t move our state forward.

The one item you’ve probably heard the most about is broadband. Last year, House Republicans originally proposed no funding for broadband and even tried to shutter the office of broadband technology. After howls from the press in Greater Minnesota, they reversed course and provided minimal funding. This year we’re seeing the same inaction on building our broadband infrastructure.

The projected need for broadband improvements is in the billions of dollars. Broadband improvements are essential for hospitals, schools, libraries and business to thrive, especially in areas of Greater Minnesota where access is much more limited than in the metro or even unavailable. People who live in Rochester know that local broadband access is too slow, but the issue is far larger than most people realize.  For example, in 29 Minnesota counties, less than half of the households have access to broadband. In today’s economy that’s like not having paved roads.  Yet the House GOP bills provide only $15 million in funding while the Senate and Governor are proposing many times that amount.

The most significant cuts in the bill are to the Job Creation Fund and the Minnesota Investment Fund. Those two funds are intended to help businesses expand and create good paying jobs, and I’m told that they’ve leveraged billions of dollars in private business investment and created thousands of jobs all across Minnesota. Yet this funding is cut and repurposed in the bills. 

The bill also shifts $4 million out of the Workforce Development Fund, which means that the dislocated worker program will run out of funds in November or December, impacting about 2,000 people.

There are many other examples of why this is being called a “jobless jobs bill.”

Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Best Life Alliance (5%) Campaign

The Health and Human Services, state government, and public safety bills were rolled together and debated on Thursday, from 1 pm to almost 2 am.  The Speaker controls the order of amendments so it was no surprise that, once again, some of the most controversial issues were debated in the dark of night.

About 70 amendments were pre-filed on the bill, and the speaker brought them up in no particular order. For anyone watching—and for legislators--this made the debate chaotic with the topics skipping all over the place.

To say that these are finance bills does not fully describe them, because they also contain many policy provisions that don’t have costs on the state spreadsheet.  In past sessions I recall the GOP complaining that policy provisions should not be included in finance bills. Whether or not this is a good way to do it, I don’t think they will raise that issue in the future because it now seems to be just the way things are done.

The HHS portion of the bill also has a spending target of zero, yet it spends about $20 million.

The bill spends the money on some important items—including funding the primary care project at Zumbro Valley Health Center for another two year. However, the bill seems more like a political statement and a thumb in the eye to Senate Democrats and the Governor than a serious attempt at a supplemental budget.

The bill focuses on two primary areas: (1) the GOP vendetta against the Affordable Care Act, its manifestations in Minnesota (especially MNSure) and any agencies of Minnesota government that interact with it, and (2) the GOP war on women’s rights to control their own reproduction—including abortion and contraception.

With a $900 million budget surplus, there are a lot of important things we should be doing to support vulnerable Minnesotans. Despite nation-leading reviews in many areas, Minnesota is struggling with a crisis in our mental health system, a near-crisis in our system of care for folks who need personal care services at home and in the community, and what must seem like a personal crisis for parents who can’t afford the high cost of child care while they work or go to school.  The GOP bill does little or nothing to help with these problems.

The Best Life Alliance’s 5% campaign deserves special mention. Thousands of elderly and/or disabled Minnesotans receive care in their homes or community settings, and those who provide the care often do it for very low wages. The cost of these services is largely paid for through Medical Assistance, which is a state-federal program. The Best Life Alliance is a broad- based group of organizations interested in the care of these people and their care providers. Payment for these services is controlled by the legislature, so the Best Life Alliance has been lobbying for a 5% raise. There are so many such providers and settings and people needing services that the raise is expensive—about $90 million for one year.

While there is strong bipartisan support for the 5% campaign, this year that seems to be mostly talk. Budgets are where we see the real priorities, and the 5% campaign is clearly not among the House GOP priorities because the HHS budget does nothing for the 5% campaign.  What it does instead is one of the most cynical and dishonest things I have seen in 12 years at the legislature.

The HHS bill goes after waste, fraud, and abuse in our public health care programs—a worthy goal in itself. It sets up a special fund for the 5%, into which it directs any “savings” found in these areas. The problem is that MA and MinnesotaCare are forecasted programs, which means that no “savings” can ever be quantified. In other words, no matter how much waste is found, not one dollar will ever go into the fund. Instead, it goes to the bottom line of the state budget—the surplus or deficit—and the only thing that will ever go to into the fund is hot air. As I explained during the debate, the place to find the money is in the $900 million surplus—which the GOP wants to spend on tax cuts.  The House GOP knows this, because the non-partisan fiscal staff gives the same information to all legislators. Yet they are pretending they have done something to help the people who care for our loved ones and so badly need a raise.

State Government Finance and Cyber Security Tax Refund Theft

The state government finance portion of the omnibus bill is full of unnecessary, vague and ill-conceived reductions in state spending. It goes the wrong way on election reform, by eliminating the state subsidy of campaigns. This removes all spending limits in our state elections and continues the trend of more expensive elections and more influence from outside special interests. The bill also places arbitrary caps on hiring, cuts some wages, and has accounting gimmicks that take money away from the Senate.
Also very troublesome in the bill is that the House Republicans disregarded what should be a bipartisan issue: safeguarding our state and Minnesotans from cyber security threats, including tax refund fraud.

The state, working with the National Guard and private corporations, came to the conclusion that we are $30 million and a decade behind in protecting the private data of our citizens. Governor Dayton had two simple recommendations to protect Minnesotans from cyber threats but they were both ignored in the state government bill and nothing was done to protect Minnesotans or help prevent tax refund theft.

As always, please contact me with your questions, comments, and concerns. I love hearing from you, even when I’m behind on my email and can’t always answer right away.

Warmly,

Tina