Minnesota Politics
Budget Surplus
Some say that Minnesota’s $1.9 billion surplus is proof that we’re being taxed too much. But with our state’s long-neglected and crumbling infrastructure, it seems to me that having a surplus means we can finally use revenues to invest in maintaining and updating our roads, bridges, water and sewer systems, our schools and more. (UPDATE: on February 26th, 2016 the new budget forecast lowered the surplus to $.9 billion)
Cutting taxes back to the levels of austerity that created the problems in the first place just does not make sense. The fact that we’ve neglected infrastructure maintenance for so long means that fixing things is going to cost us more than if we’d taken care of them when we should have. But here we are. We should use the surplus to help us catch up. This seems obvious to most people, yet still some are saying we need to slash taxes to destroy this budget surplus. Apparently they want more budget deficits.
Right now state Republicans are pushing for a corporate property tax cut which would mainly affect large corporate business owners, many of whom don’t even live in Minnesota – Home Depot, Menards, WalMart to name a few. And one of the largest corporate welfare recipients would be the owners of the Mall of America, who don’t even live in the United States.
Instead of tax cuts and austerity measures that have proven to fail our state, we should use the surplus to make responsible investments in the things Minnesotans expect like safe bridges and roads, decent schools for our kids, and clean water. By doing so, we would have a balanced budget while also providing for the needs of our state. And if we keep things in place like the 4th tier tax level, LGA, and the homestead tax credit, we can continue to make smart investments and keep personal property taxes reigned in at the same time. Plus, making infrastructure investments in our state creates jobs. And with more people working, more people are spending money on the things that Minnesota small businesses provide.
