Dear Friends and Neighbors, 

The session continues to be a challenging one on many fronts.  Republicans are continuing to press the Governor and Democrat Majority for tax relief, the Governor and the Democrat Majority are continuing to load on the unsustainable spending and borrowing and refuse to compromise. 

Governor Walz announced some changes to the budget he previously announced in January.  It’s usual for governors to tweak their budget as the legislative session is underway and after the February Forecast numbers come out.  

Apparently, what Governor Walz read in the updated fiscal analysis was that it’s time to step up government spending and growth in government even more than his January budget!

The Governor’s new spending proposal would reflect a 27.6% increase over the proposed FY 22-23 spending, with most of that coming in the next biennium, that is, hitting in the fiscal year 2024-2025.  For FY 24-25, spending is increased by $14.338 billion. Some of this blowout spending is one-time money, as the “tails” in ’26-’27 drop back by about a billion.  But those of us who know how government works know that this increase will never really go away; it will become part of the base, lobbied and protested for by new clients and dependents on your tax money. 

Some of this new spending will be in new government employees; the Center of the American Experiment published a piece today on how this spending binge is also a hiring binge.  Three completely new bureaucracies are created in Walz’s budget and a proposed 2,349 FTEs or “full-time equivalent” government workers across the major state agencies.

 
The majority of economists predict a recession sometime this year if it hasn’t already begun.  Expanding the state’s overhead and getting more people hooked on government programs is exactly the opposite of what we should be doing.

Tax cuts must come before bonding

Democrats forced a vote on a bonding bill this week, and it failed.

The reason for that is simple: They need Republican votes to pass it. Our Senate Republican Caucus told them clearly and repeatedly that we will not pass a bonding bill until we also provide tax relief to Minnesotans. With a $19 billion surplus, tax cuts must be our top priority.
We pleaded with them to work together. We could have probably passed both bills, if they worked in good faith. But they were not interested in that. They only care about political games and bullying and threats and underhanded tricks, all of which they used to get us to do their bidding.

But we are holding firm until they agree to help us return some of the surplus to taxpayers.

I have been working hard to get important infrastructure bills in our region done this session, as well as return a large part of the surplus in tax relief. But Democrats’ priorities are completely out of whack. Minnesotans have been overtaxed by $19 billion, yet Democrats' first items of fiscal business are to put more money on the state's credit card and grow government.

It is completely backward. Tax cuts must come first.

Last week, United States Attorney Andy Luger announced 10 more indictments in the massive Feeding our Future fraud scandal. The total number of people charged is up to 60, and while Luger did not provide an additional dollar amount on the new indictments, he indicated it was now more than $250 million from 60 individuals. He also indicated there could be more indictments in the future.  There continues to be no accountability from the Walz Administration's Department of Education. Our Tax dollars were used by criminals to buy houses, cars, luxury goods and even a plane, that was scheduled for delivery to Kenya!

You can read my full statement here.

1. It wasn’t a vote to feed or not feed poor children. We already feed children who are low-income at school.  This bill was about feeding all kids, regardless of their income level, free breakfast, and lunch in school.
2.  This program is funded for two years. After two years, to support the program, school districts must come up with the money to continue it.  Thus, to fund a program for non-needy kids, there may eventually be choices to cut programs for needy kids.  
3. Minnesota, an agricultural state, has an extensive, coordinated system of food distribution centers for the needy. These are not the tiny church closets folks used to drop off a can or two, although those still exist. Instead, there are warehouses full of food purchased with State and Federal taxpayer dollars and large donations.  They even coordinate across the state so that when the legislature passes a bill, such as we did last month, to give food shelves even more money, they give it to a single statewide organization of food shelves to divvy it up. People seem to want to argue that the existence of these highly organized and well-funded food distribution centers is evidence of hunger when it’s the opposite.  These organizations prevent hunger on the scale we see in other parts of the world.  
4. Due to the “food shaming” issue a few years ago, the legislature passed a law requiring that students who came to the school cafeteria and got food without being able to pay would receive food anyway without question. This unfunded mandate sometimes left school districts with more bills to pay, but most found ways to handle it, including having wealthy community members step up and donate the cost.
5.  The Democrats voted against my amendment to prevent people associated with any type of fraud, especially welfare fraud, from becoming vendors in this expanded program. Whenever you have a giant government program that requires a lot of different vendors, you will have fraud. Whenever government provides things for “free,” there is tremendous waste.  This program is likely to result in both.  

In my floor speech, I mentioned "relative hunger," which got some people riled up. Why? Because Liberals never want you to define a need.  If you did, then you could meet the need, and they are all about never-ending, unmet needs that must be funded with taxpayer dollars forever.  I looked up some terms they use, like “food insecurity.” That means that you don’t have food available to you within reach at this very moment.  Some definitions even suggest that the food must be “socially acceptable.” So it has to be a food you prefer as well as being immediately available.  

We are genuinely lucky in this country to be able to define hunger and “food insecurity” in such an expanded way.  A hot baloney sandwich like many of us kids ate 30 years ago at the end of a month would probably not qualify as “socially acceptable” today.  

This bill can be coupled with an effort by the Walz administration to create a new mega bureaucracy of K-12, Early Childhood Education, and Human Services called “The Department of Children, Youth, and Families.” We can see where this is headed. Can Government be more responsible than a parent?  Let’s look at the scandals of Child Protective Services over the last few years: overly zealous social workers interfering with parental rights, while other social workers have ignored signs of dangerous conditions in a home, resulting in the harm and even death of children.  Government is a lousy substitute for a parent or responsible adult in a child’s life. 

Other people didn’t like that I called this “socialism.” It is socialism to cause more people to become dependent on state programs. I am speaking about those who can afford to send their children to school with lunch money or food.  It is beyond cruel to make someone who was formerly self-sufficient dependent on a system that has failed repeatedly.  

Governor Walz's latest Executive Order is just another example of his overreach and the one-party majority forcing their extreme agenda on the entire state – indicating to other states that we don’t recognize their laws. This executive order will insert itself into child custody disputes -- when one parent decides that the child needs to undergo transgender surgery, they can come to Minnesota without the consent of the other parent, flagrantly disregarding any custody arrangements granted by a court in another state.  

What was even more eye-opening was that a Democrat authored bill was already before the legislature that contained most of what he did in his executive order.  Apparently having the "trifecta" of the house, senate and governorship is not enough for Governor Walz. He still wanted to usurp the authority of the legislature with Executive Orders that make or ignore laws.

We will hold him accountable to the constitution of this state and are exploring what legislative action is necessary to clarify the roles of each branch of government to prevent this overreach from continuing.

Please contact me to share any issues, concerns, or feedback you have to assist me in best representing you.  The best way to reach me is by email at [email protected] or by phone at 651-296-5612. My legislative assistant is Margaret Martin, and her number is 651-296-4264.  

Sincerely,

Steve Drazkowski

Minnesota Senate, District 20, Wabasha, Goodhue, Winona, Olmsted, and Dakota Counties.

2411 Minnesota Senate Building

95 University Avenue W.
Minnesota Senate Bldg.
St. Paul, MN 55155