A bonding bill has once again become an item of discussion at the Legislature. Despite it being a traditional Budget Year, Senate and House Democrats are pushing for multiple bonding bills to also get done. Due to the current state of our surplus, this is totally senseless.  

It was announced last month that our state now has a record $17.5 billion surplus, which is historic for all the wrong reasons because it means Minnesotans have been grotesquely overtaxed. Instead of prioritizing tax relief, Democrats are talking about putting a bonding bill on the state’s credit card? Folks don’t want that… they want their money back. Yet despite these loud and clear requests, Democrats have been largely uninterested in providing tax relief of any kind.

Senate Republicans have heard the request for tax relief, and have tried four times to bring up a bill that eliminates the tax on social security. Every single time it’s discussed, the Democrats vote it down on a party-line vote, despite their claims of supporting the initiative. They claim it “needs to go through the committee process.” We’ve seen that bills addressing their priorities can be fast-tracked to avoid the “process,” but anything that doesn’t fall in their bucket of interests is held up. So it makes sense that they’re now willing to force bonding bills into the discussion.

A couple weeks back, Senate and House Republicans came together to once again address requests for tax relief. We offered the “Give It Back” tax plan, which offers $13 billion in various forms of tax relief: elimination of the tax on social security, income tax cuts, property tax relief, and much more. This plan represents exactly what Minnesotans have been asking for—they want their money back. If we can’t provide tax relief with a $17.5 billion surplus, why should we be putting multiple bonding bills on a credit card?

Bonding bills are unique pieces of legislation because they require a 60% vote to pass. That means that any bonding bill that comes through the Senate will need Republicans to vote for it, since Democrats only have a one-seat majority. These are typically the last bills that pass in any given year, but Democrats are using scare tactics to fast track these bills. Not only will bonding rates not change between now and May, but the bonds aren’t even issued until August. There’s really no reason to rush through this legislation, but there IS a valid reason to finally offer tax relief. But again, instead of prioritizing tax relief, they are pushing bonding legislation that caters to the metro area. I can confidently say that I will not even consider supporting a bonding bill until we get tax relief for Minnesotans.

Unfortunately, this is just a bleak preview of what’s to come for the second half of session. Things may have slowed down a bit the last few weeks, but numerous extreme bills are making their way through committees. Not only are Democrats pushing for multiple bonding bills, but they’re also pushing forward paid family leave, marijuana legislation, more abortion bills, and so many other plain bad bills. If you have any questions or concerns on these topics, please reach out to me at Sen.Steve.Green@senate.mn.