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Hello from St. Paul,
In an effort to right size Minnesota’s budget, leaders in the Minnesota House have agreed to a budget framework that recognizes our state’s future economic woes and begins to address them.
Last session, a Democrat legislative majority and Governor Walz approved a budget that wasted an $18 billion surplus, raised taxes by more than $10 billion, and grew state government spending by 40%. Because of these decisions, Minnesota is projected to face a $6 billion deficit during the next budget cycle – which could be the largest budget deficit in our state’s history.
We made some progress with this budget framework, but it’s worth remembering that this agreement is a compromise. The House proposal avoids increasing taxes while potentially closing the gap between available resources and projected spending.
The agreement reduces spending by $3.9 billion when compared to the 2024-25 budget and is $1.159 billion below the 2026-27 budget base. For the 2028-2029 projected budget, more than $2.6 billion in spending would be eliminated.
We didn’t get everything we needed to right the ship, but with the House in a statistical tie between Republicans and Democrats, a compromise had to be made. If this had been a Republican proposal we would have gone much further. Of course, if Republicans had been in charge last session, Minnesota also wouldn’t be facing a deficit situation as we would not have raised anyone’s taxes and would not have squandered a record surplus by growing government spending by 40 percent.
Have a good weekend,
Paul
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