Five New Year’s resolutions for Minnesota government

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As we approach 2025, now is a good time to reflect upon where Minnesota is and where it needs to go. Although many of us have given up on New Year’s resolutions in our personal lives — my failure rate is simply too high — Minnesota government should nonetheless embrace ambitious resolutions for 2025. Here are four New Year’s resolutions for our state’s government:

Diets are common in the new year, and Minnesota government needs a prolonged one. Last week’s news of an upcoming deficit of $5 billion — coming on the heels of a previous surplus just two years ago of $19 billion — is as disturbing as it was predictable. It was caused by the immensely reckless 2023 legislative session, in which Gov. Tim Walz ensured that no Democratic constituency or pet project was left behind, and spending surged by 38%. Reaching back further, over the past decade Minnesota’s economy has grown by just 22% and its government spending has grown by over 130%.

Math is undefeated, and it is math that will now force budget cuts. We need to take a hard look in particular at every bit of new spending embraced over the past two years (e.g.: I love Duluth, but do we really need a $200 million rail line?), and we can’t continue to ignore the hundreds of millions of dollars lost to preventable fraud during the Walz administration.

Second, Minnesota cannot respond to the upcoming deficit by raising taxes. Faced with a deficit created by his policies, Tim Walz’s refusal to rule out tax hikes recently was outrageous. Minnesota already ranks as the fourth-highest taxed state in the nation. Minnesota doesn’t have a revenue problem. It has a spending problem.

Instead of hiking taxes, Minnesota should massively cut taxes by eliminating the first income tax bracket. Eliminating this bracket would make the first $50,000 of income for a couple tax free (eliminating the current 5.35% tax rate). This would translate into ongoing savings of up to $2,500 per taxpayer, putting $4 billion annually back into the pockets of Minnesotans. In this era of massive inflation, this tax relief would ease the financial burdens on everyday people and make our state more attractive for workers and businesses alike.

Third, our state still has an immense violent crime problem. There have been 83 homicides in Minneapolis so far this year, already several more than in 2023 and nearly 160% higher than in 2019. Murders are likewise persistently high in St. Paul. We won’t have good statewide numbers until January, but those we do have today demonstrate that in the post-George Floyd era too many lives are being cut short and too many families and communities broken forever by violent crime.

We have come to this point through a series of terrible policies (the movement to defund the police foremost among them) and the terrible leadership of public officials who have excused violent crime and demonstrated continued hostility to law enforcement. One step in the right direction would be to reform our recall statutes.

Hennepin County voters ought to be able to fire Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty right now, well before she is up for re-election in November 2026. Her hostility to cops — demonstrated in spades in her unethical, unlawful and failed prosecution of hero state trooper Ryan Londregan — and her continued reluctance to ensure violent criminals are adequately punished makes our state more dangerous every day.

But under current state law, it is nearly impossible to remove a public official so long as she isn’t actively committing crimes, however unfit she may be. We need to change state law to make it possible to recall those prosecutors and judges who are not willing to do their jobs and hold violent criminals accountable.

Finally, one of the lessons of the 2024 election is that Americans are fed up with woke policies taking over schools, workplaces and government.

After years in which our Legislature, our governor, our state agencies and our schools have spared no expense to embrace every woke policy imaginable, it’s time to de-woke Minnesota government.

In education, this means ending divisive programs that push students apart based on race. Instead, schools must focus on teaching math, science and reading.

The same principle applies to hiring for state jobs. Minnesota needs to abandon race-based quotas and preferences, ensuring candidates are hired based solely on merit and not racial categories. Across government agencies, every program rooted in identity politics should be removed and replaced with policies that benefit all Minnesotans equally.

Minnesota is still a good home, but at this moment its government costs too much, delivers too little and is often just plain kooky. Let’s resolve to change that in 2025 and beyond.

Jim Schultz is president of the Minnesota Private Business Council and was the Republican nominee for Minnesota attorney general in 2022. Follow: @JimForMn.