If you’ve been following the news recently, you’ve probably seen Governor Walz running around to all the TV stations making a push for a special session and calling for passage of his “rebate checks” with his new offer to increase those checks from $1,000 per joint tax filers to $2,000 today.
Unfortunately, the Governor’s latest pitch for gimmick checks is just a political stunt and reboot of his proposals that went nowhere during the regular session.
When examining the Governor’s proposal, it is essential to consider the timing. Why now? Why only checks? Why isn’t he supporting permanent ongoing tax relief for working families, the working class, or our seniors?
If you’ve been tracking the Governor’s administration since he took office, it becomes evident that tax relief is out of character. Governor Walz has a long history of supporting massive tax hikes. If you look at his 2019 budget, it depended on $1.4 billion in new and existing revenues raised from tax increases on businesses and the wealthy, as well as estate and tobacco taxes. His 2021 budget proposal followed suit, including a series of tax increases amounting to another $1.7 billion in new taxes over two years.
Governor Walz has never proposed making life more affordable for Minnesotans.
His stance on the gas tax backs that up too. Governor Walz proposed a 20-cent per gallon hike that would have made Minnesota the fourth-highest Gas Tax state in the country. Walz even tied in an automatic inflator that would have cost Minnesotans another $6.5 billion over ten years. This isn’t t even including the additional costs he wanted to impose on residents with his hiked vehicle sales taxes and increased registration fees and tab fees.
Walz is not a leader trying to return hard-earned dollars to Minnesota taxpayers.
So why is he changing his tune now?
Frankly, there is no other way to characterize it than an election-year gimmick designed for him and other tax and spending politicians to make it through November. Walz can see Minnesotans are suffering. He can see that people are fed up with inflation, gas prices, and the spiraling costs of almost everything in life. He is desperate to distract voters from his record of higher taxes and growing the size of government. Like the Democrats in Washington, D.C., Walz and Democrats in Minnesota realize that their policies are failing the people and driving our economy into a recession.
So many Minnesotans are struggling with rising costs in every part of their lives. One-time checks won’t help families when inflation remains at 8% or more next year. They won’t help families when gas is still at $5 a gallon month from now. Minnesotans deserve more than short-term band-aids that disappear once the election is done. Taxpayers should not only get more money back now, but we should ensure that it is returned to them every year into the future. At the same time, we need to tell our government to stop taking and learn how to live within its budget, just like you and me.
Senate Republicans fought all session to prioritize broad, permanent, and ongoing tax relief for Minnesotans. We passed more than $8 billion in permanent ongoing tax relief through lowering the income tax rate and eliminating the tax on Social Security benefits.
We were committed to a tax package that would have delivered immediate financial relief to Minnesotans that they could see in every paycheck, week after week, month after month, year after year. Instead of a one-year check, a typical household would have seen about $1000 in relief every year going forward.
We fight yearly to return your money, and our record is clear. Unfortunately, Walz and House Democrats couldn’t agree to ongoing relief this session and refused to work with us to get it done.
So the question you must ask yourself is, what exactly is Gov. Walz’s motivation to finally do something now?