If Republicans ran Minnesota - finances and budget

This series is based mostly on what Party of Trump state legislators have been trying to do. It is not remotely meant to be anywhere near exhaustive. Just items I’ve chosen to particularly highlight, being brought together for easy reference. I may be adding stuff, from time to time. Part 2, environment, here. Part 3, education, elections, &c., here.

- Republican budget proposals in 2018 kind of came and went, but this provides the gist of what their approach was. As always.

While the tax cuts passed by Congress last year mean more money for many earners and businesses, Minnesota stands to pull in nearly $500 million a year in additional revenues. Dayton has proposed redirecting that money largely to individuals and families. That would leave some businesses with a higher tax burden while also repealing GOP-backed tax cuts on tobacco products, wealthy estate owners and businesses that passed the Legislature just last year.

But Republicans in the House (in April 2018) released a rough budget roadmap that calls would put an additional $107 million toward tax breaks, while calling for $7 million in unspecified cuts to state agencies. Republicans who control the Senate have also left the door open to using part of the state's expected surplus to reduce taxes even more. - US News & World Report

This details the deleterious long-term effects of the tax policy Republicans rammed through in 2017.

- The Party of Trump was unfortunately successful in raiding the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund. (The article was written before Gov. Dayton, in a position where he pretty much had to give the GOP something, signed off.)

How clever Kurt Daudt and Paul Gazelka are, the Legislature’s head honchos.

Daudt, the Republican House speaker, and Gazelka, the Republican Senate majority leader, waited until the final hours of the recent legislative session to abscond with money from the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund (ENRTF). - Dennis Anderson/Star Tribune

A lawsuit has been filed, by some of the state’s environmental organizations, to try to prevent such a vile travesty from reoccurring.

Environmentalists were infuriated this year when Minnesota’s Legislature funneled money from a natural resources trust fund to pay for a $98 million bundle of infrastructure projects — the first known instance of such a maneuver.

But a lawsuit filed Wednesday by the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy and other groups to reverse the spending from the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund (ENRTF) may have implications that go far beyond that goal.

Aaron Klemz, an MCEA spokesman, said the legal action also serves as a warning to legislators to stay away from the state’s other constitutionally dedicated funds for the environment. That primarily means money from the voter-approved 2008 Legacy Amendment, which pays for a swath of natural resources projects across Minnesota through a sales tax. - MinnPost

As the article quoted just above notes, Republicans would love to raid Legacy Amendment funds as well. What they’d love most of all, though, is to get rid of the Legacy Amendment entirely, long shot though that is. That the people of Minnesota would have voted to raise their own taxes is regarded as a deeply personal - indeed, all but unbearable - insult to the legacy of Almighty Reagan.

- Sometimes you wonder whether if the GOP was in charge there'd be bonding bills at all. Probably just piddling ones, containing only projects in red districts. It's not as if we're talking about tax cuts for the rich, you know.