Affordability Now
by Senator Steve Green

It’s unaffordable to live in Minnesota right now. As the state budget grows, taxes continue to rise, and Minnesota families give more of their hard-earned money over to the government. It’s not right at all. Some of our taxes have exploded to unsustainable levels. It’s pulling us towards a tipping point. That’s why Senate Republicans are pushing so hard for affordability measures that would amount to instant relief for taxpayers. I want to talk a bit about a few of those initiatives: lowering property taxes, reducing tab fees, and implementing no taxes on tips and overtime.

The first bill proposed addresses the ever-increasing rise of property taxes. This is something I constantly hear about from communities in our part of the state. It seems like every year they go up, up, up. It’s pricing many people out of homes they’ve been in for years. It’s also creating a new hurdle to homeownership for first time homebuyers. 5 years ago, the average age of a first-time homebuyer was 33. It’s now up to 40 years old. That’s alarming and depressing. High property taxes (that continue to rise every year) are just one factor that makes this part of the “American Dream” out of reach for many Minnesotans. But make no mistake, we understand our counties have been put in a tough spot. A big reason property taxes are going up is because of what Democrats have passed in St. Paul. In 2023, they passed numerous unfunded mandates – those are laws that our counties and townships are forced to comply with, yet in many cases, no money was provided to help them do so. That leaves them in an awful position. Over 250 mayors from across the state have even signed onto a letter raising the alarm on their fiscal situation.

The bill we’re proposing would cap property taxes at the rate of inflation, plus 50% of population growth for cities and counties over 2,500 residents. We don’t want to fully tie the hands of our communities, though. So if something happened, rates could be increased over the cap, but would have to be approved at the ballot box. We know addressing this situation is going to take a combination of mandate relief and lowering of taxes. This is common sense.

The second issue I hear a lot about is tab fees. People go to renew their tabs every year and they have sticker shock. At one point in time, these fees were manageable and would go down as soon as your car begins depreciating. Those days are behind us. Some car owners will pay over $600 to register their cars. And because of the change in depreciation schedule, they’re stuck paying higher fees for a longer amount of time. Again, this isn’t sustainable for the average Minnesota family. Higher property taxes and higher tab fees – who can afford that? And even if people could, why would they choose to pay these high costs to live when our neighboring states are much friendlier? When it comes to both of these areas, Minnesota is an outlier compared to all neighboring states.

To address tab fees, we’re putting forward a bill to undo the changes made by Democrats. It would save drivers more than $800 over five years. We have higher fees, but we don’t have better roads to show for it. This is insanity.

The last part of our plan is simple: no taxes on tips or overtime. This part of the plan is a conformity measure. The federal government made changes to the tax code, and this is our opportunity to conform to that. But more than that, it’s immediate relief for Minnesotans. It allows people to keep more of the money they worked for. It also helps small businesses. There’s been a huge workforce issue, again compounded by what Democrats have done to our state. Passing this measure would allow them to support and retain employees without adding to their already expensive overhead costs.

Overall, this is a commonsense plan. This is what Minnesotans want. They want a more affordable life, and this plan would make that possible.