Dear Constituents,

In the past month, since I’ve returned from special session, I’ve talked to quite a few people at parades and various functions asking them what they thought about this past legislative session. It’s become obvious to me that even though there was a high degree of frustration and even anger about the “shutdown,” few people know what actually went on or what was behind it. This letter, in plain common language, will attempt to explain what brought it about and why it lasted so long. I’ll do this by trying to hit each of the high points that contained the buzz words, clichés and phrases that you’ve all been accustomed to hearing through this process, and try to make it as non partisan as a document like this can be.

First Cliché     “It’s About the Spending!”

I can’t speak for everyone else, but the biggest problem for me was “spending.” To give you an idea, our Minnesota budget has looked like this: This was shocking to me and should be to any of you out there that have a business or have done your own business plan or spreadsheet:

Total State Expenditures History directly from the Minnesota Spending and Management Department archives www.mmb.state.mn.us/doc/budget/report-spend/nov10.pdf :

1990 = $10.0 billion…

1995 = $13.5 billion…

2000 = $17.6 billion…

2005 = $23.3 billion…

2010 =$ 28.4 billion

Over 20 years that is a 184% increase in Minnesota State Spending !!! In the last 20 years the government’s consumer price index from bls.gov/cpi/ has increased by a total of 66%.… So the bottom line is that Minnesota state spending over the last 20 years has increased by 184% while inflation was at 66%.

If you remember, for years the Republicans have been saying; “This is unsustainable.” We really believed this and I think it is proven by the above figures. This session we really felt we had to get our spending under control. We believed we needed to finally cut spending. However, we were met with:

2^nd Cliché “Republicans Formed an All Cuts Budget”

This, of course, was a complete lie. The Republican proposal actually increased total spending overall. What the opposition did not like is that there surely were cuts to certain areas of the budget, but it reduced the increase in spending to the lowest rate of increase in total funds spending since 1961. The opposition wanted to;

“Tax the Rich!” 3^rd Cliche

This phrase is a good sound bite for a seemingly painless resolution but it’s something that has never worked anywhere else and it only causes people to flee to somewhere like Texas. Knowing that all economists are predicting another deficit in two years in the next budget cycle, made us ask the question, “O.K. who are you going to tax next when it happens again in two years?” Will it be the Middle Class? The Poor? Why not just try cutting the spending so we don’t have to tax anyone? Remember, we were just talking about a cut in the increase in spending, not total spending overall.

Just think! The health and human services portion of the budget was set to increase a whopping 22%. If we can’t get state spending under control any better than that, how can we justify taxing “anyone.” This was the biggest reason behind why I thought we had to hold for a better deal. In the end the huge projected increase in spending resulted in less than a 4% increase in Health and Human Services spending. This was great reform; Next we heard:

 “The Republicans are Holding up Compromise for Social Issues.” 4^th Cliche

Totally false! Very few committees heard “any” social issues. Almost none came thru my Public Safety Committee and when they got to the floor, the only one that pontificated, drew it out and filibustered was the opposition so that they could say “social issues” took up time. It you look back at the recordings, records and tapes, you will see that social issues took up a very small portion of time. It was just a fancy phrase to take the spotlight off the real problem which was “spending.”

“Kicking the Can Down the Road” 5^th Cliché

The opposition complains about the use of the tobacco funds and borrowing from payments to schools, stating that it’s “kicking the can down the road.” Taxing the rich and ignoring the reform we wanted was much worse. While they pushed for a seemingly easy solution to just pay the bills, we looked for long term reform and we got a good portion of it. By reform, we can better address the future obligations and deficits w/o playing the class warfare card.

To give you an idea of how tough reform was to get, think about this. A few years ago, you remember the big gas tax debate? There was an amendment to the transportation bill that gave a $25.00 rebate to low income people to deal with the increase in gas cost. This was totally ridiculous one time money that would not be noticeable to low income people and they weren’t even asking for it. However, when we offered an amendment to that portion of the bill that stated that this rebate could not go to “illegal aliens,” to our amazement, it was defeated and did not go into the final bill. Time and time again, we’ve attempted reform that would bring our budget into reality as far as increased and uncontrolled spending and this was the type of response we got. Year after year without reform, our obligations get larger and more unsustainable. This is one reason for the opposition to try to make us appear to some as “stubborn.” Some things are just worth fighting for and this one was one them.

“Republicans Didn’t Finish Their Job” 6^th Cliché

When we left St. Paul, all the finance bills were on the Governor’s desk. If he would have signed them, the budget would have been balanced and the session could have ended. When it was obvious that he was going to veto the bills, we even produced a “lights on” bill which would have let government operations continue on and stopped the shutdown of government until we could reach some type of compromise. The Governor said that he would not sign a “lights on” bill. I feel that our job was done when we left. True, the forming of the budget was not to the Governor’s liking, but we did our job and finished the bills and put them on his desk. By his refusal to sign the bills or to sign a “lights on” bill, government was shut down.

“Republicans Knew Government Would Shut Down and Wanted It” 7^th Cliché

Though some hard right constituents were saying “Shut R Down,” I can’t think of anyone of us who actually “wanted” a shutdown. We were trying to avoid it. However to give you some idea of the politics that were going on behind the scene, I’ll share an e mail that was written by a Union leader in the Department of Corrections. These are actual word for word statements in the Union Leaders e mail to other union leaders. It was written on July 24^th after the compromise was reached. The man who wrote it was a President of the Union,  Mike Keapproth President of both Local 915, and the Correctional Policy Committee, and it was sent to other Union leaders. Here are some interesting excerpts;

“Early in the process when it was becoming clearer that the shutdown was going to happen there was discussion between the governors office and the coalition group ( a group made up of a wide variety of unions including AFSCME, MAPE, Teamsters, and others who discussed on how broad the shutdown should be.) All parties agreed that for the shutdown to be most effective,  that the public had to feel the pain and realize what state workers do for this State. The best way for this to happen would be a real shutdown involving many state workers, in lieu of a partial shutdown.”

And later in the letter; “There was much disappointment when the Governor made his decision to compromise and end the shutdown. Elliot Seide was asked to speak to our group so we could better understand the Governors decision. Elliot stated that the Governor did not take this decision lightly and was burdened by the effects the shutdown was having on state workers and  the entire state on Minnesota. Elliot stated that Governor Dayton did not believe that continuing the shutdown would result in Republicans agreeing to raise taxes on the wealthiest Minnesotans. Elliot and other did attempt to convince the Governor, without success to continue the shutdown as he felt we were gaining momentum and gaining Public support.

There are the excerpts from the Union President’s letter. I think it’s kind of obvious here who wanted the shutdown to continue and why. In talking to most union rank and file, however, this was not the case. Union leadership seems to be the ones who were pushing for continuation of the shutdown to make Minnesotans “feel the pain.” They are totally out of touch with the rank and file hard working men and women that make up the unions. And finally;

“The Shutdown Brought us Nothing!” 8^th Cliche

Wrong. In many ways it was a very successful conclusion. Here are just some of the things that came out of this session.

Taxes were not raised.

The spending increases between budget cycles were reduced by the largest rate since 1961!

We increased funding to low rated rural nursing homes.

Sales Tax Exemptions for townships were finally realized!

We eliminated a Tax on Water levied to Fire Departments for water used to put out fires.

We relaxed the “Maintenance of Effort” on counties, which was basically a mandate to counties on how much they have to spend on programs.

We passed legislation that allows counties to provide much lower health care costs for prisoners.

We provided early Graduation Scholarships allowing academically capable and hard-working students to complete their high school education early and to take the funds to the college of their choice.

We provided Relief of Maintenance of Effort to K-12 Schools finances.

We required regular evaluations of principles and teachers: student test scores must be connected with the ratings of the teacher.

We require school districts to “earn” Literacy Incentive Aid funds through student reading test scores in the early elementary grades.

We enacted tuition limitations at MnSCU’s two year institutions, forcing systematic reform and efficiency.

We require the U of MN and MnSCU to meet performance benchmarks to receive a portion of their funding.

Health and Human Services

No increases in surcharges for hospitals.

No rate reductions to nursing homes and an increase to rural lower rated nursing homes.

We created a defined contribution to privatize public health care for some MinnesotaCare recipients.

We repealed the Provider Tax (The MinnesotaCare Provider Tax is a tax imposed on payments various health care goods and services providers receive for providing certain services to patients or consumers. The tax is used to pay for the MinnesotaCare program, which provides state-subsidized health care coverage for low-income individuals. Provider taxes apply to hospitals, surgical centers, wholesale drug distributors, licensed health care providers (including but not limited to physicians, dentists, nurses, psychologists, physical therapists, chiropractors), non-licensed individuals providing services that qualify for reimbursement under MN's Medicaid program, staff model health plan companies, ambulance services, opticians, and sellers of hearing aids.

Currently, the tax rate is 2%. The Health and Human Services bill that was just passed and signed into law contained two provisions regarding the Provider Tax. The first provision provides for a blink-on/blink-off of the tax depending on the financial structure of the Health Care Access Fund. The second provision provides for the repeal of the Provider Tax beginning January 1, 2020.)

Took steps to prevent welfare fraud by strengthening welfare eligibility requirements and placing greater photo ID requirements and restrictions on the use of EBT cards for alcohol and tobacco purchases.

This is just some of the real reform in health and human services that we were able to accomplish that greatly brought down the increase in the curve of spending for HHS.

State Government

We actually increased the spending for Veterans Affairs and Military Affairs by 2.7 and 6 % respectively.

Require E Verify program to check immigration status of prospective hires that contract with the state.

Established a Sunset Advisory Commission to review state agencies, improve operations and consolidate programs.

Require the Department of Revenue to seek tax fraud prevention measures and increase delinquent collections.

In ending this summary I would like to conclude with the fact that I am the only legislator out of 201 that actually cut their pay. I cut it by 3% and I did this over a year ago.

I am also one of the first to volunteer not to take pay or expense reimbursement during shutdown.

I also introduced the following legislation during this special session;

A bill for an act

relating to state government; providing that legislators do not receive compensation during a period of government shutdown; proposing coding for new law in Minnesota Statutes, chapter 15A.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA:

[15A.23][No compensation during government shutdown.] (a) Notwithstanding any law to the contrary, a legislator must not receive salary, per diem, or an employer contribution for insurance premiums during a period of a state government shutdown.  For purposes of this section, “state government shutdown” means a period after July 1 of an odd-numbered year in which certain government agencies and programs are not operating because one or more of the bills enacting appropriations in the following areas for the period beginning July 1 of that year have not been enacted:  E-12 education; agriculture; environment and natural resources; health and human services; state  government; jobs and economic development; transportation; judiciary; public safety; and aids to local government. 

(b)  For legislators to receive compensation, this section does not require bills to be organized in the manner specified in this section, provided that appropriations are enacted covering all of the topics listed in this paragraph. For legislators to receive compensation, this section does not require funding for any particular agency or program, provided that a bill has been enacted covering the general subject areas specified in paragraph (a).

Basically, what this means, is that if we do not finish on time and go into Special Session or Shutdown, legislators will not receive salary, expenses or state paid health insurance assistance. This and other disincentives that I’m planning should help legislators “feel the pain” and hasten a successful end to their deliberations.

As always, you can contact me thru e mail or my personal cell number anytime you’d like.

Rep Tony Cornish

Box 128
Good Thunder, Mn. 56037

Cell Number: 507-380-5018

E Mail rep.tony.cornish@house.mn