Friends and neighbors,
The Senate took important action on Thursday to begin the process of fixing mistakes that Democrats made during last years rushed, chaotic session.
To begin with, last year’s tax bill included a number of errors that would cause more than $360 million in tax increases on Minnesotans. Last summer, the Democrat chairs of the House and Senate Tax Committees sent letters to the governor’s administration acknowledging the errors and promising to fix them as soon as possible.
On Thursday, Democrats broke that promise.
The tax corrections bill addresses most of those mistakes, but one big one was deliberately left out: a $15 million tax increase that will especially hurt small businesses.
Why was it left out? Because Gov. Walz’s administration leaned on Democrat legislators and told them not to fix it. During a February 14 hearing, the Democrat chair of the Tax Committee voiced her displeasure, saying, “I’m very disappointed that the administration did not see fit to recognize an error and its obligation to support us in correcting it.”
We offered an amendment that would have fixed the error. But despite their previous assurances that correcting this mistake was a top priority, the amendment was defeated along party lines.
It is not the Democrats’ first broken promise. During the 2022 campaign, Gov. Walz and others promised to use the budget surplus to provide significant relief. They didn’t. Instead, they spent the entire surplus, raised $10 billion in taxes, and increased state spending by 40%. All the relief they offered was $260 rebate checks, which we now know are subject to federal taxes.
I am glad that we fixed most of the errors because it means people will be spared a $350 million tax hike. But it is deeply upsetting Democrats refused to honor their original promise to fix ALL the mistakes.
I remain committed to revisiting this issue and passing legislation to fully deliver the tax relief small businesses and entrepreneurs were pledged.
Sincerely,