House GOP wants new money for roads, bridges, tax cuts

Minnesota House Republicans released an updated budget Thursday that would keep state spending at current levels so they can use a projected $900 million surplus on tax cuts and roads and bridges.

But the wide gulf between Republicans and DFL Gov. Mark Dayton and the DFL-controlled Senate on spending for infrastructure, curbing racial disparities and expanding rural broadband access makes political stalemate a possibility in a year when the Legislature can keep the machinery of state government moving without taking any action whatsoever.

The policy debate of new spending vs. tax cuts during the remaining six weeks of the legislative session will take place against a backdrop of the November election, when voters will get to choose House and Senate members in each of the state's 201 legislative districts.

"We've made a commitment to do some significant, meaningful tax relief and to invest some of that money in our road and bridge infrastructure, and we hope that Democrats will listen to the public like we have and join us in those efforts," House Speaker Kurt Daudt, R-Crown, said at a news conference.

No such cooperation is forthcoming, said House Minority Leader Paul Thissen, DFL-Minneapolis, who said the Republican budget is a "recipe for gridlock" because it does not do enough for college debt, pre-K, local government aid, outstate wastewater treatment plants, oil train safety and a list of other DFL priorities.

Although Thissen said his caucus believes that doing what is best for Minnesota will translate into electoral success in the fall — the DFL needs to flip seven seats to get back in the majority — a political stalemate likely would work to the advantage of the House DFL, which could argue that House Republicans did not deliver on promises of tax cuts and road improvements.

Most problematic for a major deal is the bonding bill, a long-used form of borrowing for statewide building projects that requires a supermajority to pass and therefore votes from both parties.

Thissen said the Republican plan for a $600 million bonding bill would get no DFL votes. Dayton has proposed a $1.4 billion bonding package, and Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, said in an interview Thursday that the Senate plan would be similar in funding if not identical in composition.

Rep. Jim Knoblach, R-St. Cloud, chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, said Republicans were right to limit new bonding because debt service is the fastest area of new state spending and should be curtailed.

Daudt cut down the Dayton plan with sharp language: "At some point, somebody needs to say, 'Governor, do you know how to do simple math? And, can we use the resources for what people would expect us to use them for?' "

Given the shrinking surplus, House Republicans will be forced to scale back plans they pushed last year for $2 billion in tax cuts and a 10-year, $7 billion road plan that would fix 15,500 lane miles of road and 330 bridges statewide without raising the gas tax, unlike a DFL gas tax proposal that passed the Senate and had Dayton's support.

Daudt offered hints Thursday about his tax-cutting priorities, mentioning reductions for Social Security recipients and military retirees and property tax cuts for farmers — all loyal Republican constituencies.

The DFL criticized the House GOP's spending on outstate broadband high-speed Internet access as insufficient, but Republicans said their two-year, $35 million plan is more than what the DFL passed when it controlled all levers of government two years ago.

To help pay for that new spending, House Republicans proposed an unspecified $9 million reduction in government operations, which they said is doable after a significant increase last year.

Bakk, a Capitol veteran, said he was not surprised by the House GOP plan. His comments signaled the possibility of a session in which ultimately no significant measures are passed. "There isn't the kind of urgency that we have in budget years, so it's a much different environment," he said.

He dismissed the GOP proposal, at times sounding like a fighter taunting his opponent before a match.

"There's some significant risk to House Republicans if they're willing to just go home and go to the campaign trail without investing in the public infrastructure," he said, before adding free — and unsolicited — advice to his House GOP counterparts: "I think they as a caucus gotta to start to think that through."

Staff writer Ricardo Lopez contributed to this report.

J. Patrick Coolican • 651-925-5042