Minnesota House Republicans clashed with Senate DFLers on Monday after an attempt to rework a proposal to extend unemployment benefits for laid-off steel workers and provide tax reductions for businesses.
Hours after the House Ways and Means Committee passed measure to give laid-off steel workers another 26 weeks of unemployment benefits, Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk said he would never accept the measure because it was still bound to unemployment tax cuts for businesses.
"The speaker knows full well I'm not going to pass the two-in-one bill," said Bakk, DFL-Cook.
Senate DFLers were adamant that the unemployment benefits measure be separated from the proposal to cut business taxes. DFL Gov. Mark Dayton and many legislators had been hoping to pass the unemployment benefit extension in the first days of session, but the fight over the tax cuts is dimming hopes for a quick resolution.
Bakk confirmed that DFLers told Republicans that they could support giving Minnesota businesses a one-time tax credit of $258 million from the unemployment insurance trust fund (an earlier GOP proposal called for $272 million in tax cuts) and providing further relief when the fund's balance rises above a federal threshold of financial health.
Those changes were included in the bill that passed with bipartisan support in the House panel on Monday.
House DFLers said they feel a strong urgency to bring relief to the Iron Range, where more than 2,000 miners and many others have been laid off in the past year.
Rep. Tim Mahoney, DFL-St. Paul, said he would vote for the measure "because we are under the gun … we have 6,000 people who are suffering on the Range."
