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.

Governor Dayton signed the bonding bill last week, which is a good thing. Anything that will create jobs in Minnesota is a victory. Unfortunately, it should have been a much bigger job creator. The bonding bill sent to Dayton for his signature was the smallest in two decades.

Signing the bonding bill was the right thing for Governor to do, since the legislature had already adjourned and $500 million is much better than nothing. The Republican legislature that produced the bill, though, should be ashamed for passing such a weak jobs bill.

While the legislature spent months working on a giveaway to one particular billionaire, they skimped when it came to helping Minnesotans. Minnesota needs something to jumpstart our economy, and the GOP utterly failed to provide that.

Over the last week or two, I’ve been following the MNGOP tax bill closely. The original tax bill was an irresponsible corporate giveaway that would have increased our already out-of-control deficit, and which the Republicans only pretended to pay for with fraudulent accounting tricks. Fortunately, the Governor vetoed it.

The most recent version, passed after Dayton’s veto, is much smaller but still increases the deficit and takes money from our budget reserve. Session Daily reports that Dayton is unsure whether or not to sign it:

As for the omnibus tax bill (HF2337*/ SF1972), Dayton said there are many provisions he likes, but that he’s still concerned about the impact of the bill’s “tails” on the state’s budget. A second package of mostly technical tax changes (HF2690*/ SF2136) is also a concern to Dayton, because he said it contains local government aid formula changes that would hit certain cities hard. He said he plans to study both bills in detail before he decides whether to sign or veto them.

Governor Dayton, I would urge you to veto this bill. Remember, despite improvements in the economy, we’re still facing over a $1 billion deficit in the next biennium. Not only that, we still owe our schools over $2 billion — a debt we need to begin paying down. Given our still-precarious budget situation„ we can’t afford to increase our deficit and raid the state’s budget reserve.

Here’s some good news to end the week: Governor Dayton has vetoed a GOP tax bill that would have increased Minnesota’s budget deficit. The bill would have used fraudulent accounting maneuvers to make the budget appear balanced on paper, a practice which deserved a veto even if the bill itself were good policy.

In his veto message [PDF], the Governor specifically cited the bill’s fiscal irresponsibility:

This bill would not pay for the business property tax levy freeze and other tax breaks. It would reduce the Budget Reserve for the current biennium and add another $145 million to the deficit projected for the next biennium, which is already projected to be $1.1 billion. Freezing the state business levy would reduce state revenues by a total of $2.3 billion between 2013 and 2026.

My biggest concern was that the Governor might relent on the GOP tax bill to get a Vikings stadium passed, so I’m very happy about this report from MPR:

Dayton said he’s willing to negotiate an alternative tax bill with Republicans, as long as it doesn’t add future debt. [Emphasis added]

Great news! Thank you once again, Governor Dayton, for standing for fiscal responsibility and against the GOP’s irresponsible tax giveaways.

I think Mark Dayton has been doing a great job as Governor, but the one issue he’s been dead wrong on has been the Vikings stadium. His strong stance on tax fairness has simply evaporated when it comes to a new stadium. In fact, he has been the most vocal proponent for giving hundreds of millions of dollars to billionaire Zygi Wilf to subsidize his profitable business.

What’s interesting is that Dayton seems to recognize that the people of Minnesota don’t support paying for a new stadium. That was apparent early today, when he criticized the Republicans’ new plan to use bonding to pay for the stadium. Dayton’s response to the GOP plan indicated a flaw in his logic:

Dayton countered the general fund financing in the GOP plan saying Minnesotans don’t want it: “Polls show… people don’t support it if their tax dollars are going for it. And they support it if they realize their tax dollars are not.”

But our tax dollars are going to pay for it, one way or another. The cost of paying a subsidy to Zygi Wilf is that we can’t spend that money on more important priorities. Whether the money we spend comes from the general fund or some other revenue source doesn’t really matter — it’s still state revenue being squandered, which means it’s still our tax dollars.

For example, I would be absolutely fine raising new revenues from gambling to pay back our schools and increase future education funding. But since we’ll be tapping that funding source to pay for a stadium instead, we’ll have to find another way to pay our kids back. That tradeoff isn’t lessened by the fact that the gambling money is new revenue; it’s still a tradeoff, and a bad one.

So when the Governor says “people don’t support it if their tax dollars are going for it,” I interpret that to mean that Minnesotans don’t want public money spent on the stadium. I agree that the GOP’s new plan is a bad one. But the Governor doesn’t really have grounds to criticize them when he’s also pushing to squander public money on a monument to corporate welfare.

It seems almost definite that Governor Dayton will veto the MNGOP’s outrageous, irresponsible tax bill. This bill will give another tax cut to the rich and big corporations, without even attempting to pay for it. Instead, the Republicans would use fraudulent accounting maneuvers to make it appear paid for.

Dayton has proposed an alternative to the GOP bill that includes certain targeted, temporary tax cuts meant to stimulate job growth, but without the irresponsible long-term budget-busting corporate tax cuts. MPR reports that Dayton said the existing GOP plan would “”rob from the financial future of the state,” which is entirely accurate.

I was never particularly worried about where Dayton stood on this as a stand-alone bill. It goes against his most firmly-held principles on fair taxation. My plea to the Governor not to sign the bill was out of concern that it might find its way back on the table as part of a deal for a bonding bill and/or Vikings stadium. That’s still possible, as anything can happen in last-minute end-of-session negotiations.

I can only hope that once the Governor has vetoed the bill once, it will stay dead. Hopefully, having proclaimed his opposition to the MNGOP’s irresponsible corporate tax cuts, Dayton will stick to his principles if the corporate tax cuts are raised again in end-of-session negotiations. The people of Minnesota elected Dayton because of his message of tax fairness; we won’t forget if he abandons those principles.

Republicans are trying to get Governor Dayton to sign an absolutely outrageous tax bill, which would increase the deficit to give more money to the rich and corporations, and use fraudulent accounting to do so. What would make them think he would possibly sign it? They’re hoping the Governor’s eagerness to get a Vikings deal done will give them leverage.

I think Dayton’s principles on tax fairness and honest budgeting are too strong for that. But I want to make sure I add my voice to those pleading with him not to sign the Republicans’ latest attack on our state’s fiscal stability.

Governor Dayton, you were elected after a campaign that focused strongly on tax fairness. It would be a major betrayal of your campaign promises to give in and sign a bill that will make things even worse. The Republicans want to make all Minnesotans pay for corporate tax cuts that won’t create a single job. Their bill is the antithesis of everything you stand for.

Admittedly, you were also candid about your support for a Vikings stadium. But now you’re faced with a question of priorities. Is the Vikings stadium worth compromising your principles on tax fairness, which propelled you into office? I don’t see it as a fair trade, and I hope you won’t either.

Governor Dayton, Minnesota needs you to stand up for the 99 Percent. We’ve been able to trust you to do that throughout your term, and I believe you’ll make the right decision this time. Let the bills stand on their own merits. Getting a deal on the Vikings isn’t worth abandoning your principles on tax fairness.

Do you know what’s totally insane at a time when we’re trying to dig out of the worst recession in decades? Proposing the smallest bonding bill our state has had in two decades. Only a party of crazy people would provide a tiny jobs bill when we most need the jobs, right?

Well, that’s just what the Republicans have proposed. As I mentioned on Saturday, their latest bonding bill is a tiny step forward, but still woefully inadequate. As I’ve been doing throughout this session, here’s a chart that shows the latest proposal in the context of the last two decades:

(Source [PDF])

The House GOP’s proposal far smaller than the Governor’s, even though the Governor’s would still lower our debt payments. It’s also smaller than any proposal for the last two decades. Jobs, jobs, jobs, right?

Nice economy ya got there, guv. Shame if something happened to it…

That’s the message House Majority Leader Matt Dean (R-Dellwood) had for Governor Dayton yesterday. Dean says his caucus may not even take up a bonding bill unless the Governor agrees to sign some of their bills first:

“I know a lot of our members are very, very interested in having the governor sign some reform bills before we take up the bonding bill,” Dean said. “They’d like to see some more work product out of the governor. They want to see some yeses from the governor before taking up that bill. So, there’s going to be more of an will be more of an appetite for that when we start to see some yeses from Gov. Dayton.”

Wow. Where to even start? Let’s start with this: If they don’t get what they want, Republicans are going to sabotage the Minnesota economy. Although we’re in recovery now, we need a bonding bill to create jobs and help jumpstart the virtuous cycle of consumer spending and job creation. But if they don’t get their way, House Republicans will take it out on all Minnesotans by denying us thousands of jobs.

Second, what a crummy deal Dean is offering the Governor. If the Governor signs a bunch of House “reform” bills — such as the one that would give corporations a tax cut and make renters pay for it — then the House will “take up” its tiny, inadequate bonding bill. The House’s bonding bill would be the smallest we’ve seen in decades.

Finally, I love that Dean only considers Dayton’s signatures to be “work product.” The most important work the Governor has done for Minnesotans has been protecting the 99 Percent from the Republicans’ efforts to take what little we have and give it to the rich. For that work, the GOP will now punish Minnesota by sabotaging our economy.

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.