Gov. Mark Dayton’s budget proposes to spend a considerable amount of money on roads and bridges in 2016. He also plans to focus on education and health care in Minnesota.
However, Republican Speaker Kurt Daudt said, “I’ll tell you what: our goal going into session last year, number one was tax relief. We wanted to give as much money back to taxpayers as we could. And number two, we wanted to do a small transportation funding package … to take some of that money and transfer it [from] three sources: sales tax on auto parts, rental cars and lease vehicles, and move that from the general fund into the road and bridge fund, which would have a couple of impacts. Number one, it would fund our roads and bridges, but number two, it would start to starve out the general fund so we move revenue that’s currently going into the general fund, which is a really good thing.”
Republicans want to refuse any increase in the gas tax while spending the state’s $900 million surplus on tax giveaways, Thus, they could turn our surplus into a deficit.
Tax refunds are more important to Republicans than education or deteriorating roads, bridges and mass transportation systems. It’s Republican politics over the people of Minnesota. They propose to put Minnesota’s transportation infrastructure into competition with education and health care.
Dan Connor
This letter originally appeared in Mankato Free Press April 22.
