Republicans said the new numbers prove that tax hikes would only further burden families and businesses. DFLers are taking a much different approach.
As tax bills come due, some Minnesotans have been surprised to learn that extra unemployment payments through the CARES Act and later executive action didn’t have taxes withheld.
The forecast is a dramatic improvement for a budget that was once projected to have a $4.7 billion shortfall.
The spirit of the Minnesota Capitol is to be open, but the invasion of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 “was a wake-up call,” says Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who chairs an advisory committee looking at security issues at the complex.
Minnesota did not withhold state or federal taxes from the $600 and $300 bonus unemployment payments, which are taxed as regular income.
The purpose of the lawsuit is to put the issue before the courts in case the Legislature can’t agree on new political maps — which is highly likely.
To be illegal according to the bill, disseminating the information would have to pose “an imminent and serious threat” to the safety of a police officer or a member of their household.
Even after Walz announced a relaxation of limits on in-person learning for middle and high schools in Minnesota, the state Senate moved to make sure he could never again have the ability to close classrooms in the first place.
Bills that attempt to change Minnesota liquor laws run into several interconnected obstacles.
Even as top lawmakers pledge to negotiate a compromise over funding for extra security for the trial of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, the episode has highlighted the deep divisions between the state’s rural and urban areas.
The latest bills offered in the GOP-controlled Senate and DFL-controlled House are stand-ins for a continuing argument over the governor’s emergency powers.
Though the program — which allows those who invest in early-stage Minnesota businesses to claim a 25 percent tax credit — has been popular, it has come nowhere near its goals for boosting startups by nontraditional owners.
A bill advancing through the Minnesota Senate aims to put Minneapolis on the hook for any law enforcement help it receives from around the state during the March trial of ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
On Wednesday, Gov. Tim Walz also tipped attendees at a League of Minnesota Cities webinar that an upcoming budget forecast would be good news — that the state’s current surplus would grow and the projected shortfall in the future would “shrink even substantially more.”
That still doesn’t mean lawmakers will pass legislation to make a key state tax credit permanent before it expires.
In many ways, the bill introduced at the Minnesota Legislature this session reflects the latest national trends around the issue.
The idea is to entice law enforcement from other parts of Minnesota to help with security around the trial for the ex-Minneapolis police officer charged with killing George Floyd. But the plan has already faced opposition from legislative Republicans.
In 2020, the DFL-affiliated groups vastly outspent their GOP counterparts and saw their House majority shrink, while also failing to retake the state Senate.
Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, was at the Minnesota Capitol Tuesday to brief lawmakers on economic conditions in Minnesota and the country.
What had been a tense-but-civil relationship has become one of open antagonism, for the same reason much of state and national politics has: the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
