Hello from the State Capitol,
Tax increases of 15% or more will be leveled on local employers following repeated inaction by Minnesota House Democrats.
I was disappointed that the House majority has chosen to financially punish our state’s job providers when the state is sitting on more than $10 billion in unallocated funds. After months of talks as to how to eliminate this debt and not raise taxes on our local employers, House Democrats ultimately decided to not address the issue and force local job providers to pay more.
The tax increase on job providers is happening due to a debt of more than $1 billion in Minnesota’s Unemployment Insurance (UI) Trust Fund. Governor Walz’s employment commissioner stated legislation needed to be approved by March 15 in order to prevent tax increases of 15% or more on business owners from moving forward.
Minnesota has a $9.3 billion budget surplus, along with more than $1 billion in federal COVID funding that has not been utilized. Either of these pots of money could be used to eliminate the UI trust fund issue.
Before the deadline, House Republicans twice tried to move legislation that would have prevented these tax increases. In both cases, House Democrats blocked them from debate.
Senate Democrats and Republicans did their job, as they passed a bill that would have eliminated the UI trust fund problem and prevented tax increases. House Republicans tried to follow their lead but were blocked by House Democrats every step of the way. It’s very unfortunate that House Democrats would rather play political games than solve pressing issues, but that’s exactly what they’ve done. Now, local job providers will pay the price.
Talk to you soon,
Bob