Exactly one year ago today, the Star Tribune ran a story called “Oil demand questioned as Line 3 permit hits appeals court” in the printed version of the paper. The…
State and local taxes and spending MPR News: GOP pushes to end taxes on Social Security, but many don’t pay them KNSI: Deal to Stop Minnesota’s Business Tax Increase Remains…
When it comes to politics in Minnesota, the Democrats are the professionals, and Republicans are the amateurs. I don’t say that to disparage my Republican friends. Politics is supposed to…
Thursday, Gov. Tim Walz unveiled his latest budget proposal. Never mind that a budget for the current biennium was actually passed last summer and that it provided for more state…
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz took the opportunity to announce a slight increase in the size of the “Walz checks” families would receive under his plan at a gas station. The…
Support for education freedom continues to grow across party lines and demographics, according to a February poll by OnMessage Inc. and reported on by the American Federation for Children. Education…
Starting today, businesses in Minnesota will start paying higher Unemployment Insurance taxes after lawmakers failed to reach an agreement on replenishing the Unemployment Insurance (UI) Trust Fund. As the Minnesota…
On Monday, I wrote about how Minnesota’s businesses were about to be hit with a steep hike in taxes if legislators didn’t vote by Tuesday to pay back the money…
In 2017, the Minnesota Legislature established the Minnesota Premium Security Plan (MPSP), a reinsurance program that lowered premiums in the individual health insurance market by over 20 percent. Set to…
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Minnesota last year, the virus and the state government’s response to it wrought havoc with our state’s economy. The unemployment rate rocketed from 3.5 percent in…
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has instructed the Department of Transportation and the Department of Agriculture to release a report detailing how Minnesota would adopt California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard. California’s…
This week, the Minneapolis City Council released a long-awaited report analyzing the city’s response to protest and civil unrest in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police. Remarkably, this…
On Wednesday, I testified in favor of the Consumer Choice of Fuel Act in the Minnesota Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources Policy and Finance. This bill would repeal…
A lot of states nationwide are facing budget surpluses. To a large extent, this is due to federal efforts during the pandemic. However, the sizes of those surpluses vary. And…
On Tuesday, Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Players Association — the players’ union — spent 17 hours trying, and failing, to negotiate an end to the four-month MLB lockout.…
The Committee on State Government Finance and Policy and Elections held a hearing last week with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) about the status of the California car mandates.…
State and local taxes and spending Owatonna People’s Press: Support the Drink Local Economic Recovery Act Duluth News Tribune: ‘Send the money back’: All Minnesota tax filers could see rate…
During the pandemic, numerous Minnesotans lost their jobs for pandemic-related reasons. Because of that, the unemployment insurance trust fund was depleted. Minnesota had to borrow from the federal government. That…
The current budget debate is shaping up much like the debate in 1999, albeit with exponentially more money involved. Jesse Ventura had just shocked the world with his election as…
On Monday, Minnesota Management & Budget announced that the state’s forecast budget surplus had grown to $9.3 billion. This is a staggering amount of money the state government is forecast…
According to Morning Take, several DFL representatives, including Zach Stephenson, Kaela Berg, Dave Lislegaard, Jessica Hanson, and Dan Wolgamott, will propose a gas tax holiday between Memorial Day and Labor Day using the budget…
Yesterday, Gov. Tim Walz’s tax policy proposal got its first hearing of the session in the Minnesota House. The tax policy plan, which is part of a broader spending package,…
Today, Minnesota’s Senate Republicans released their plan for what to do with the state’s forecast budget surplus. They propose to reduce the first-tier income tax rate from 5.35 percent to…
Gas prices in the Golden State are flirting with $5 per gallon due to the energy policies enacted, such as the state’s cap-and-trade program and Low Carbon Fuel Standard, which…