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Health & Fitness

Rep. Stensrud's 'Minnesota Turnaround' a Higher Property Tax Disaster

Rep. Kirk Stensrud talks about a "Minnesota Turnaround," but higher property taxes and school cuts tell a different story.

 

A Minnesota Turnaround?

That’s how Representative Kirk Stensrud described the last two years in a recent mailer to Eden Prairie and Minnetonka residents.

However, two years of higher property taxes, billions borrowed from our children and an embarrassing state government shutdown might not have been the turnaround Minnesotans were looking for from the Republican-controlled legislature.

We set the record straight and put Rep. Stensrud’s “Minnesota turnaround” to the truth check — beginning with his false and misleading claim on the state’s smoke and mirrors fiscal surplus:

Better Budget Outlook: Turned a $5.1 billion budget deficit into a $1.2 billion budget surplus, replenishing the state’s cash flow account and budget reserves.

While Rep. Stensrud and his Republican colleagues would like Minnesotans to believe they fixed the state’s budget deficit, they fail to mention that Minnesota faces a projected $2 billion deficit in the next two years as a result of the short-term budget gimmicks Republicans fell back on to balance the budget. This doesn’t include the additional $2 billion the legislature owes our schools.  As a result, Minnesota is still $4 billion in the hole because of the Republican legislature’s short-sighted gimmicks.

Rep. Stensrud then credits the “turnaround” to a list of misleading, or in some cases just false, claims:

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What changed?

- Balanced the budget without tax increases.

Minnesota homeowners, renters and small businesses know differently.

In 2011, the extreme Republican legislature cut millions of dollars in Local Government Aid [HF42] and eliminated the Market Value Homestead Credit [HF 20, special session] — directly raising property taxes and making life harder on middle-class families.  These cuts — which Rep. Stensrud voted for — also caused small business property taxes to skyrocket by 7.4% statewide.

Stensrud’s list continues:

- Reduced projected spending by $2.5 billion while protecting classroom funding.

Again, school administrators, teachers and students from around the state would disagree. Minnesota ranks 47th in the nation in class size, which means only three states have larger class sizes. Minnesota is also among the top 10 states making the deepest cuts to education. Rep. Stensrud even voted to cut funding for special education by $48 million. [HF934]

School districts are being forced to borrow millions of dollars just to stay afloat, meaning they’re spending extra money on interest paying that money back. In Rep. Stensrud’s district last year, the Eden Prairie Public School District had to borrow $15 million, costing them $300,000; the Minnetonka Public School District had to borrow over $6 million, costing them nearly $47,000; and the Hopkins Public School District had to borrow $4 million, costing them $40,000. [AMSD, 9/11]

The Eden Prairie School district also has to cut $4.4 million from its 2012-13 school year budget, including possibly reducing teacher positions and bus routes. And the Hopkins Public School District had to 13 teachers this year and 10 teachers last year.

Rep. Stensrud then brags about a billion dollars in cuts to services primarily for seniors and the disabled:

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- Reformed health care to bring down the costs by more than $1 billion in that area alone.

The $1 billion in drastic health cuts Rep. Stenrusd boasts about in this mailer had devastating effects on Minnesotans who rely on life-dependent services — such as Rob Gendreau.  Rob suffered a traumatic brain injury.  His mom now serves as his full-time personal care attendant. Not only did Rep. Stensrud and the cuts his Republican colleagues voted for put many of the services Gendreau relies on in jeopardy, but they even cut his mother’s only source of income by 20 percent.

Representative Stensrud cut Rob Gendreau’s mother’s pay by 20% instead of asking less than 1% of Minnesotans to pay the same taxes that the rest of us do.

The mailer continues:

Business Tax Relief: Voted to freeze the automatic inflator on the statewide levy for commercial/industrial properties.

This is another example of the Republican-majority’s wrong priorities.

After raising property taxes on middle-class families last year, Republicans should have been focused on offering tax relief for homeowners and renters this year. Instead, Republicans pushed for even bigger corporate tax giveaways. Not only did the Republican tax bills simply try to chip away at the very tax increases Republicans caused in last year’s budget deal, but it would’ve grown our deficit next year and put an additional hole in the state’s budget in the next decade.

Finally, Rep. Stensrud further misleads his constituents:

Pay Back the K12 Shift: Voted to repay the additional 10% shift used to balance the budget in 2011 and make the first down payment on $2 billion debt we inherited.

The “first down payment” Rep. Stensrud refers to is just a tiny fraction of what the Republican-controlled legislature owes our children.

Last year, instead of producing a balanced budget to close the state’s long-term deficit, legislative Republicans chose a short-term fix and borrowed $700 million from our schools and children, leaving them with a $2 billion IOU and no plan to pay it back.

This year, Democrats, including the Governor, supported paying back our children responsibly and in full with revenue raised by closing corporate tax loopholes that allow corporations to hide their profits overseas and avoid paying state taxes.

But instead of closing corporate tax loopholes to pay back our children, Rep. Stensrud and his Republican colleagues chose to raid newly filled budget reserves, which is not only fiscally irresponsible but would’ve only paid back our children a fraction of what they’re owed.

Rep. Stensrud may want to talk about a "Minnesota Turnaround," but the facts tell a different story.

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