Drazkowski statement looming $6 billion Democrat budget deficit

Minnesota’s office of Management and Budget (MMB) today released its annual February economic forecast. The report, which details the state’s budget picture, projects a surplus of $456 million. But the most concerning aspect of the report is the massive budget deficit on the horizon – $6 billion for Fiscal Year 2028-2029. 

Senator Steve Drazkowski (R-Mazeppa) issued the following statement: 

“Democrats’ empty promises have been exposed once again. They spent like drunken sailors over the past two years, wasting a $19 billion surplus and raising people’s taxes $10 billion. Their ship just hit the huge rock reef of reality, hanging Minnesota out to dry as we deal with the wreckage.” 

“So where do we go from here? We cannot continue the unsustainable path they set us on. Our economic climate will not support Democrats’ reflexive tax and spending increases. Minnesotans have said ‘no more taxes’ repeatedly – Republicans are listening; let’s see if Democrats are too.

“We have to unwind the billions upon billions of excessive and unnecessary spending. We need to remove the $1 billion of inflation that Democrats baked into our budget forecast. We need to repeal the $900 billion spending for housing welfare – a 1,000% increase! We need to cut off the hundreds of millions of dollars in spending on illegal immigrants. We have to put a stop to — and prevent — the billions of dollars of waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars that has metastasized throughout state government on Tim Walz’s watch. We need to claw back the billions of dollars recklessly being spent on self-serving and unaccountable non-profits.

We can fix the mess the Democrats created. There is a lot to do, but we need to get to work.”

In the past decade, Minnesota’s government budget has nearly doubled from a $39 billion general fund budget in 2014 to $71 billion in 2024. The state now has some of the highest individual taxes and the 46th worst state and local tax burden in the nation.

FORECAST DOCUMENTS