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Dear Friends,
The new legislative session begins Monday, February 12, and there is a lot of work ahead of us. From supporting family budgets to meeting the critical needs of our community, I’m excited to get back to work at the legislature.
Our work this session must always be mindful of the expensive and out-of-touch policies that passed last session. Remember, despite a $17.5 billion surplus last year, Democrats raised taxes by $10 billion to grow government by 40%. Now, we have a looming budget deficit if we don’t rein in spending. Every day, we learn more about the egregious spending that makes up that 40%. This week, we learned that state agency commissioners received a raise recently, some as much as $32,000! Our hard-working taxpayers haven’t gotten a raise like that. Instead, working families and seniors on fixed incomes get the shaft while bureaucrats get more for their pocketbooks.
There are two key issues that must be addressed immediately at the start of session. First, we must fix the $352 million error in the tax bill. If left unfixed, 76% of Minnesota’s taxpayers will be left with a higher tax bill. In their haste to pass the most expensive state budget in Minnesota history, they made one critical error in the tax bill that could take even more tax dollars from our hardworking families. The tax chairs in both the House and Senate pledged over the summer to quickly resolve this issue, and I hope we take swift action to get this done.
Next, we must fix the problem with the student disciplinary policy which has led to many schools across Minnesota from removing their student resource officers (SROs) from campuses. Changes were made to this policy last session that now makes it harder for SROs to keep our students and teachers safe. The Education Policy committee is set to hold a hearing on the Democrats’ proposed SRO bill on the first day of session at 4pm. More information on the hearing and the bill can be found here.
As the new legislative session unfolds, I will continue to keep you updated with the latest from St. Paul. Please don’t ever hesitate to reach out to me with your ideas and questions regarding state policy.
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