12/04/11 - Bemidji Pioneer: So-called windfall has nothing to do with GOP budget, by Cynthia Moothart
So-called windfall has nothing to do with GOP budget
By Cynthia Moothart
Some important facts get in the way of total jubilation over Minnesota’s projected $876 million budget surplus.
Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch used the announcement to promote GOP budget-cutting provisions this legislative session, while chiding Gov. Mark Dayton for asking that those making $1 million or more chip in their fair share for services we all rely on.
In a press conference, Koch stated: “I think the one thing that has been made apparent here, I hope, is that the Dayton tax plan is dead.”
Overlooked by Sen. Koch is the fact that a majority of this so-called windfall had nothing to do with her party’s budget but arose from falling health-care costs. In reality, the GOP budget she promotes sets us back in critically important ways.
Republicans balanced their budget by delaying $1.4 billion in payments to our K-12 schools and borrowing an additional $757 million from the state’s tobacco settlement. Repayment dates on those loans already have been set.
Savings also came from eliminating the homestead tax credit and by slashing local government aid. Those also don’t come without a price tag: Communities across Minnesota already are being forced to increase local taxes simply to provide basic services.
The Republican budget was a sham, a millionaires’ giveaway. The same is true of this so-called surplus. State officials already are projecting a $1.3 billion deficit in the next budget cycle that exceeds repayment on this year’s irresponsible borrowing by the GOP.
Yes, Minnesota is, for a short time, operating in the black. But given the Republican budget, it’s middle-class families, expected to make up for their fiscal failings, who’ll soon be seeing red in their checkbooks.
Cynthia Moothart is policy director of the League of Rural Voters, a Minnesota-based nonprofit working to strengthen rural communities nationwide.
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