The Growing $6 Billion Democrat Deficit
by Senator Nathan Wesenberg
The state budget forecast was recently released and it was even worse than we expected, totaling a massive $6 billion. This is unacceptable. Democrats are incapable of budgeting, but they sure are capable of totally breaking our state’s budget.
For those who don’t remember, we had a November Forecast at the end of last year that showed a $5.1 billion deficit with a short-term surplus of $616 million. That was already totally unacceptable, when you consider just a few short years ago this state had a $19 billion surplus.
Somehow, this new February Forecast is even worse. Just a few months into the year and our new deficit is nearly $1 billion more than it was projected to be in November. It’s now $6 billion with a short-term surplus of only $456 million. The deficit increased, the surplus decreased, and the budget is broken. Governor Walz and Democrat leaders in our state did that.
What makes this all even worse is that the forecast also showed our spending is drastically outpacing our revenue. If history is any indicator, Democrats will try to use this as a reason to tax people even more. Minnesota is already ranked the 46th worst state when it comes to local tax burdens, why not shoot for 50th? That is exactly how Democrat leadership in this state functions.
Let’s put these numbers into context. Heading into 2022, Minnesota had a nearly-$19 billion historic surplus – Democrats spent it away in two years in tandem with raising taxes by $10 billion. Heading into 2024, that surplus drastically decreased to just $2.4 billion. Now, at the start of 2025, we are facing a $6 billion deficit. How did we go from a historic surplus to a historic deficit? Democrats have totally broken our state’s budget, that’s how.
Despite the dire state of our budget, state agencies keep coming to the legislature asking for money. They show zero signs of making cuts to their already-bloated budgets. We have to take a hard look at our budget, and that means cutting things that are unnecessary. A lot of the government expansion we’ve seen in recent years falls into that “unnecessary” category. Minnesota families should not be left footing the bill for Democrats’ inability to responsibly manage a state budget.
Despite the budget being clearly in the red due to the Democrats’ breaking the budget, they have tried to blame President Trump. This is a totally ridiculous statement to make, when the deficit was present in November before he had even taken office. There has been zero accountability from Democrat leadership, and they think Minnesotans will just blindly believe their claims. I know for a fact people in this state are too smart to fall for that line. We’ve all seen the Democrats spend billions of taxpayer dollars, and we will not let them skirt taking responsibility for their actions.
The bottom line is that Democrats are incapable of balancing a budget. They’ve spent the entirety of our surplus away and they are ruining Minnesota while failing to take any accountability for what they’ve done. We need to get our budget in check before it’s too late, or families will be left footing the bill for this bad management. It’s clear as day: Minnesotans cannot afford Democrat leadership any longer.