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Dear Friends and Neighbors,
The 2021 Legislative Session is now over half over and the Democrat Majority in the House flatly refuses to move forward on any important legislation — preferring instead to attempt to use things with broad bipartisan support in end-of-session negotiations.
They have wasted over half the session and accomplished nothing. They have refused to remove the governor's emergency powers and flatly refused to work on any of the important issues Minnesotans need solutions to immediately—from fixing the PPP & UI tax issue plaguing thousands of Minnesotans to protecting the most vulnerable Minnesotans from predators.
It is truly shameful that House Democrats refuse to work for Minnesotans and are instead content to let the governor rule Minnesota by himself and serve their special interests.
Next week we will recess for the Easter/Passover break and hopefully when we come back, the House Majority is interested in governing and making Minnesota better for all Minnesotans, not just serve their radical base.
Common Sense Push to Help Minnesotans
Since the House Majority flatly has refused to govern, House Republicans put forward non-controversial, non-ideological proposals with overwhelming bipartisan support. However, the Democrats instead blocked the passage of all of these so they can combine them with tax increases in end-of-session negotiations with the Republican Senate. It is wrong to play games with these important issues but that is what Democrats in St. Paul are up to.
Here are a sample of the bills we attempted to pass this week to help Minnesotans:
Exempting forgiven Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan income from state taxes. Currently, Minnesota is the only state in the upper Midwest that has yet to exempt forgiven PPP loan payments. Without action, businesses could owe hundreds of thousands of dollars or more in state income taxes simply for using the PPP funds as intended by the federal government. The Senate passed a PPP tax relief bill earlier in the month with a veto-proof majority on a 55-12 vote.
The Federal government made these PPP loans for businesses forgivable contingent on businesses spending this money in a timely manner and keeping people employed. They were quite literally not allowed to save some of this money in order to pay taxes.
We need to provide a quick fix to make sure these loans are exempted from state taxes too. Waiting to take action until the end of session is causing great uncertainty at a time when businesses are finally starting to get back to some semblance of normal.
Conforming Unemployment Insurance taxable income to Federal Limits: this proposal targets those who lost their jobs last year and now have big tax bills because of the extra Unemployment Insurance (UI) relief money they received. It would exclude the first $10,200 of unemployment pay from income tax in the year 2020 and assures that the $600 and $300 federal relief unemployment bonuses will not be taxed by Minnesota, just as it is not taxed at the Federal level.
Funding for schools to offer in-person summer school programming. We supported a bill that would utilize the expected funds coming in from the federal government to help defray cost of in-person summer school learning to help students catch up from a year of distance learning, along with funding for student mental health, as well as early learning scholarships. We all have seen that, despite the best efforts of teachers and educators, distance learning has left far too many students behind. We need to make sure some of this incoming federal money is available for school districts to offer in-person schooling to catch up over the summer.
Unfortunately, as mentioned above, these proposals though they have overwhelmingly bipartisan support, are being held up so they can be used as part of end of session negotiations. This is extremely unfortunate and I hope we can come back from our Easter/Passover recess and get these important bills passed immediately.
With a large surplus full of one-time funds and federal money coming to Minnesota, these important issues can be resolved without raising taxes or hurting the reopening and recovery of Minnesota.
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