Imagine The Surplus Minnesota Could Have

Dear Neighbor,

We received some great news at the Capitol last week: A second consecutive state budget forecast calls for a surplus.

Remarkably, we have gone from a $5.1 billion shortfall to a $1.2 billion surplus in just one year. We had an $876 million surplus projected in November and another $332 million surplus in the February forecast issued Wednesday.

This shows that, if we control our spending and do not raising taxes, Minnesota’s economy heads in the right direction. Our improving outlook allows us to pay back at least $318 million of the K-12 school shift and that is outstanding news. What we are doing in St. Paul is working.

The most important thing we did last year in setting a new state budget was to get a grip on state spending. We reduced General Fund growth from the unsustainable $39 billion we were set to spend in this biennium. Our new forecast projects $33.8 billion in spending this biennium, less than the $34 billion many people heralded last year as the upper limit of responsible spending.

This $33.8 billion still is a modest spending increase over the previous biennium, at a time most families in our area were working with flat budgets. Just imagine the surplus we could be looking at today if we had held state spending to the same standards as families!

Minnesota has added more than 27,000 jobs the last two months alone. Our state’s 5.6-percent unemployment rate is well below the 8.3-percent national average. This difference is greater than normal and, if we can implement reform to make Minnesota an easy place to start and grow a business, we will continue to outpace other states.

There still is plenty of reform work necessary to continue stabilizing our state to help us meet the demands of a tough economy. The news we received today should provide even more incentive to stay the course to continue delivering results Minnesotans are counting on us to provide.

Sincerely,

Kirk Stensrud (42A)