Once again, Mark Dayton is looking out for Minnesota taxpayers while the MNGOP plays financial games in a desperate attempt to retain control of the legislature. Republicans proposed an irresponsible tax bill that would pilfer from our budget reserve to provide a tax giveaway to corporations, and after a bit of soul-searching, the Governor thankfully vetoed it:

DFL Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed a GOP-led package of business tax breaks that would have blown a $100 million hole in the state budget in coming years.

“It ignored my requirement that any future spending must be paid for and avoid adding to the next biennium’s projected deficit,” Dayton said in the veto letter….

Dayton said the GOP wrongly targeted cuts to business property taxes when individual property taxes have risen much more.

The GOP keeps doing things like this. They know that Minnesotans are furious with them for causing a shutdown to protect the super-rich. So they’re trying to buy their way back into office with borrowed money. First, it was pretending to pay back the school shift, when in fact all they would have done was shuffle our debt around. Then, it was a corporate tax giveaway “paid” for by depleting our budget reserve.

At every step, the Governor has been there to demand fiscal sanity. Thank you, Governor Dayton, for protecting us from the MNGOP’s horrendous fiscal failures.

I’m surprised and grateful that Republicans didn’t try to hold the Vikings stadium or bonding bill hostage to try to force Mark Dayton to sign their irresponsible corporate tax giveaway. That means we’ll escape this session without the MNGOP adding $2.3 billion to our deficit over the next 14 years.

Still, that doesn’t mean they’re giving up. Yesterday, Republicans passed a stripped-down version of the tax bill. As it turns out, though, they still won’t properly pay for it:

The cost of House File 247′s tax cuts in the next biennium is less than in House File 2337. But it still creates a $73 million hole in the next biennium’s budget – and this bill does not identify which revenue increases or cuts in services would be used to fill in that hole….

In this budget cycle, $28 million of the cost is covered by drawing on the state’s budget reserve. The other $18 million is not specified in the bill, but is described as being covered by savings elsewhere in the budget.

The Republicans are up to their same old tricks, marred by the same fiscal incompetence.They just don’t get it — our budget reserve is not a slush fund, it’s an important tool for our state’s fiscal health. Minnesota, we can’t afford another two years of being governed by a party that doesn’t understand the difference.

There is no limit to the fiscal fraud the MNGOP is willing to perpetrate in their quest to bestow ever-greater handouts on the rich and powerful. They’ve already put us billions of dollars in debt to keep taxes on the super-rich low. Now they want to increase the deficit even further for yet another giveaway. But it gets even worse. They can’t pay for their new tax cut for the rich, so they’re just planning to commit accounting fraud to “pay” for it:

In the tax bill, Republicans are betting that the economy will continue to improve, which would mean more tax revenue to the state.

The plan directs Minnesota Management and Budget to book higher than expected tax collections from February and March to pay for the changes. Typically, lawmakers rely on the February revenue forecast as they make tax and spending decisions, not the partial information that comes from monthly tax reports….

The bill would also pit tax cuts for businesses against school funding. That’s because current law says any surplus money from the November forecast would be used to pay back a K-12 school payment delay. This bill short-circuits that process by capturing tax revenue that hasn’t been recorded in the forecast yet.

This is just insane. Minnesota Republicans are out of control. No wonder they’re being evicted — they should never, ever be trusted with our state’s budget again. 

There are a lot of big issues to be resolved before the legislative session can come to a close, such as passing a jobs bill and finally resolving the fate of the Vikings stadium. But according to the Star Tribune, the MNGOP’s top priority is a tax cut for the rich:

“It is our highest priority — to get that tax reform to Minnesotans as soon as possible,” said Sen. Julianne Ortman, R-Chanhassen, chair of the Senate Taxes Committee and the Senate’s Deputy Majority Leader….

The bill is to come to the floors of the House and Senate on Monday. It was not negotiated with DFL Gov. Mark Dayton, who has objected to tax cuts that would add to the deficit in the next budget cycle.

Yes, you read that right — the MNGOP is proposing new tax cuts that would add to our already sizable budget deficit. Here’s what the MN Budget Project says about the proposed tax cuts:

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It’s time for Minnesota Republicans to admit that they have a problem with debt. They’ve let their money problems spiral out of control, and they’re about to lose the house. If there is a silver lining to their irresponsible ways, at least they’re finally close to hitting rock bottom. Then maybe they can finally let go.

It’s an incredible irony, really. Minnesota Republicans love to lecture us about fiscal responsibility. Time and again, they tell us that we need to treat our state budget like a household budget. But they’ve turned both our state budget and their own party’s budget into absolute disasters.

In the GOP’s case, their “household budget” metaphor really fits. For the past month, I’ve been writing that their attempts to spread our debt around are like a desperate balancing act played with credit card balance transfers:

Republicans love to say that the government should budget like our families do. Well, we all know families who budget like the GOP — racking up credit card debt and trying to postpone the inevitable for years with intricate budgetary games and accounting gimmicks. It never works.

Now, the state party has shown us just where this sort of mismanagement leads — they’ve stopped paying their bills just to try to make ends meet. Will this be their next step if we leave them in charge of the state budget — will our state begin defaulting on its debts? Please, please, please,let’s not find out.

Paul Ryan isn’t necessarily opposed to raising certain taxes. It just has to be the right taxes. For example, it’s unacceptable to raise taxes on the richest 1 percent, even though they’re paying lower taxes than they have in decades. And we need to slash taxes on corporations, of course. But there are some taxes Ryan is willing to raise — specifically, the poor.

The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center has published new numbers that show the Ryan plan would raise taxes on low-income working families — those making up to $30,000 a year.  That’s because, while he would extend the Bush tax cuts, which are due to expire at the end of this year, he would not extend President Obama’s tax cuts for those with the lowest incomes, which will expire at the same time.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has charted how Ryan’s plan would impact taxes for different groups. The result is a clear indication of what the Ryan plan really is — a radical attempt to take from the needy to give even more money to the rich and powerful.

Ryan and his Republican cronies want to return us to the medieval age of feudalism — a government of, by, and for the rich and powerful, that exists solely to bleed the serfs dry.

Despite their constant preaching about fiscal responsibility, the MNGOP loves debt. In the legislature, they put our state billions of dollars in debt to protect the super-rich. Then, they tried to pretend they had a solution for paying back that debt — but all they were proposing was moving the debt around with balance transfers.

GOP policymakers have jettisoned fiscal responsibility for massive giveaways to the rich. But it’s not just GOP legislators who don’t know how to budget. The state party has over $1 million in debt, and is currently unable to pay its rent:

In a memo to the party’s Executive Committee members, Secretary-Treasurer Bron J. Scherer writes that:

” … we continue to be in a precarious working capital position. Consequently, please note that we are not paying our office lease rent payment currently (but have been in discussions with our landlord) and have not yet negotiated long-term payment schedules and/or negotiated settlements relating to most of the vendors on the accounts payable aging (see accompanying financial statements and schedules for summary accounts payable aging reports as of February 29 and January 31, 2012)”

Politico obtained the confidential report and a spreadsheet that shows the party is $1,232,341.50 in debt. The party also owes money paid for the 2010 gubernatorial recount.

It seems fitting that the GOP has made as much of a mess of its own party finances as it has of our state’s finances. I can’t help but think they could stand to learn the same lesson from both failures — they need to show a willingness to raise more revenue.

You know someone has a problem with credit card debt when they turn to balance transfers to try to keep creditors off their backs. At first, it seems like a simple way to buy a little extra time. Soon, they’re racking up even more debt, taking out credit card after credit card, fooling themselves into thinking they can keep it all from crashing down.

A few days ago, that’s exactly what the Republican-led legislature tried to do with our state budget. After approving billions of dollars in debt to protect the super-rich, the MNGOP tried to push paper around to make it look like they’re paying down that debt. But they aren’t. Their plan would just borrow from our state’s budget reserve to pay down a small fraction of the school shift. Borrowing to pay down our debt is not a solution.

Yesterday, Governor Dayton rejected the Republicans’ irresponsible balance transfer, scolding them for their irresponsibility in his veto letter [PDF]:

During this session, I supported legislation that would repay the school districts with revenue raised from closing corporate tax loopholes… Unfortunately, the legislative majority decided that protecting large corporations’ tax breaks for operating overseas was more important than paying back our schools responsibly.

The Governor was absolutely right to veto this such an irresponsible bill, which was ultimately just a desperate attempt to lessen the voters’ wrath over the budget passed last year. Let’s not forget — we’re facing a $1.1 billion deficit in the next fiscal biennium. Wiping out our budget reserve right now would be just as irresponsible as the GOP budget that led to all this debt in the first place.

The GOP legislature has a great plan to pay down the credit-card debt it built up to protect the richest 1 percent — they’re going to do a balance transfer. That is to say, they’re going to pay back a portion of the $2.4 billion we owe our schools by depleting the state’s emergency budget reserve, which will also have to be paid back.

The GOP plan doesn’t pay down our debt. It doesn’t move us a single penny closer to financial stability. It just pushes money around, spreading our debt around and making us more vulnerable to an unexpected shortfall in the next biennium.

Republicans love to say that the government should budget like our families do. Well, we all know families who budget like the GOP — racking up credit card debt and trying to postpone the inevitable for years with intricate budgetary games and accounting gimmicks. It never works.

The fact is, those same Republicans who preach fiscal responsibility have no interest in being responsible themselves. They only have a single priority — protecting the super-rich and huge corporations. They put us over $2 billion in debt to protect the rich. Now, they want us to believe that spreading that debt around somehow makes it better.

On Wednesday, I wrote about the fiscally-irresponsible plan by Senate Republicans that would increase Minnesota’s budget deficit. It turns out that the House Republicans’ tax bill would also increase the deficit — despite trying to balance the cost of the GOP’s proposed tax cuts on the backs of renters.

Here’s more from the MN Budget Project:

The House omnibus tax bill contains a number of tax cuts. In the short term, those tax cuts are primarily paid for by deep cuts to the Renters’ Credit, a property tax refund for low- and moderate-income renters.

But in the long term, the House omnibus tax bill digs the state’s future deficit hole deeper, adding $228 million to the $1.1 billion projected revenue shortfall in FY 2014-15. And the cost of the bill grows over time, because it gradually eliminates the statewide property tax through 2025. If the statewide property tax were eliminated all at once in FY 2014-15, the cost would be $1.7 billion. The bill does not identify a replacement revenue source or the cuts in services that would be needed as a result of eliminating the statewide property tax.

I have a thought. What if we didn’t cut taxes for the rich and corporations? We’re facing a billion-dollar deficit, and we owe our schools over $2 billion. What’s more, a tax cut won’t do a single thing to create jobs — especially a tax cut for businesses that increases taxes on consumers.

The trouble is, the GOP has no interest in fiscal responsibility, and they have no interest in creating jobs. They have one priority, and one priority only — funneling as much money as possible to the super-rich.