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|  | | | Minnesota’s deficit must be resolved fairly and responsibly
This Week Live | March 19, 2009
On behalf of the Invest in Minnesota Campaign, I would like to thank the more than 6,500 citizens who attended the town hall meetings sponsored by the Legislature and held in 24 different locations across the state. By all accounts, people filled auditoriums, city council chambers, and spilled out into hallways for the opportunity to share their stories and thoughts with legislators on how to balance the state’s budget.
Many citizens told legislators that Minnesota’s deficit must be resolved fairly and responsibly. At the meeting in Virginia, David Bednardczuk of Hibbing told legislators that “it’s time to raise the revenue that we need to make the state work again.”
The Invest in Minnesota Campaign couldn’t agree more with the fact that fair revenue raising must be a significant part of fairly and responsibly closing the state’s budget deficit.
The best way to raise tax revenues fairly is through the income tax. Since 2001 our tax system has become more regressive and unfair than it already was. Currently, those making about $450,000 a year or more pay about 9.5 percent of their income in taxes while middle-income Minnesotans are paying 12.6 percent. Minnesota currently foregoes about a $1 billion a year in revenue as a result of the steep income tax rate cuts in 1999 and 2000, during a time of large budget surpluses. This is not fair and given the ongoing budget crises since 2002, those rates need to change.
Over the past 10 years we’ve lost the opportunity to invest in Minnesota’s people and places, in human capital infrastructure that is needed to achieve a more evenly shared prosperity. During that time Minnesota has dropped in national quality-of-life rankings and shed jobs. Working Minnesotans have lost their health care, congestion has increased, and citizens are paying more in local property taxes, fees and tuitions.
It’s clear from the impressive turnout at the town meetings and comments made by citizens that it’s time for a change.
As citizens, we need to continue to speak out and give extra impetus to elected leaders to do what many of them know to be right for Minnesota. We need to declare the “no new taxes” strategy is a failure and it’s time for revenue to be raised fairly and invested in our future.
If you were unable to attend a town hall meeting or did not get a chance to testify, visit either www.house.mn or www.senate.mn to comment on the state budget or contact your state senator or representative.
The other leaders of the Invest in Minnesota Campaign are: Marcia Avner, public policy director, Minnesota Council of Nonprofits; Brian Rusche, executive director, Joint Religious Legislative Coalition; Ray Waldron, president, AFL-CIO; and Julie Schnell, president, SEIU Minnesota State Council. They have combined efforts to form the Invest in Minnesota Campaign because they believe that Minnesota’s fiscal course in recent years is diminishing the quality of life in our state and that we need more revenue, we need to raise it fairly and we need to invest in Minnesota.
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