ST. PAUL, MN—House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt, R-Crown, issued the following statement regarding today's news that Minnesota has a $1.3 billion budget surplus for FY20-21.
"Last session Democrats raised health care costs on Minnesotans by $900 million per year. This surplus is enough to fully repeal Democrats' harmful health care tax hike and lower health care costs. With our budget reserve fully-funded and revenues continuing to grow thanks to Republican-led tax cuts, we have an opportunity to reduce health care costs for Minnesotans by nearly a billion dollars."
As of September 2019, MMB indicated that the state needed just $259 million to fully-fund the state's budget reserve. State law requires up to one-third of the surplus go to the budget reserve until it is fully funded.
Repealing the 1.8 percent provider tax is estimated to cost about $875 million for the remainder of this biennium. Daudt added that the surplus news should eliminate any talk of tax hikes next year at the Capitol.
"Democrats spent last session pushing $12 billion in tax hikes that would cripple our economy and reverse the economic growth generated by tax cuts. The state's own economic consultants have said that tax cuts generate growth—let's listen to them, take tax hikes off the table, and look at giving as much of this surplus back to taxpayers as possible."
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