Paul Thissen: Innovation in Action

Thissen Correct that Republicans Raised Property Taxes

Cities and towns across the state are weighing whether to increase their property tax levies. Complicating the question is a new program included in the latest budget meant to reduce the property tax burden for some homeowners.

House Minority Leader Rep. Paul Thissen says the state’s new approach to property taxes won’t provide relief.

“The bottom line: Republicans eliminated a program that provides $538 million each biennium in property tax relief and replaced it with a program that provides $0 in property tax relief,” Thissen wrote in a recent e-mail to constituents.

Thissen’s claim is correct.

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PoliGraph: Thissen’s millionaire claim correct

Republican leadership wouldn’t compromise with his party on Gov. Mark Dayton’s plan to temporarily raise taxes on Minnesotans wealthiest, “even though it would only affect 7,700 people, and even though only half of those people are Minnesota residents!” Thissen’s claim is basically correct.

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DFL House leader Paul Thissen wasted no time using the final budget agreement to solicit cash from voters.

The day after the deal was signed, Thissen penned a fundraising letter, claiming that Republican leadership wouldn’t compromise with his party on Gov. Mark Dayton’s plan to temporarily raise taxes on Minnesotans wealthiest, “even though it would only affect 7,700 people, and even though only half of those people are Minnesota residents!”

Thissen’s claim is basically correct.

The Evidence

During the campaign, Dayton maintained he’d raise taxes on the state’s wealthiest to close the budget gap. Once he took office, that plan narrowed. In the final throes of the budget battle, Dayton offered to raise taxes only on Minnesotans making more than $1 million in taxable income annually, and only through 2013.

Republicans roundly rejected the idea, as they have all of Dayton’s efforts to increase taxes; they contend that tax hikes will hurt small business owners and potentially prompt people to leave the state.

Thissen points out that half the people who would have been taxed don’t live here.

According to the Minnesota Department of Revenue, 7,700 millionaires are expected to file with the state for tax year 2011. About 3,900 of those returns are coming from year-long Minnesota residents.

The rest are from part-time or out-of-state filers. The former are people who move in the middle of the year and pay taxes in Minnesota and another state as a result. Non-residents are those who make money in Minnesota, such as income from a business or rent, but live somewhere else.

The revenue department can’t say precisely how many returns are from part-time residents and how many are from non-residents, but estimates that most are from the latter group.

The Verdict

Thissen said that half of the millionaires Dayton’s new plan would have taxed don’t live in Minnesota year-round. For the most part, he’s correct. According to the revenue department, about half of the 7,700 returns from millionaires come from people residing elsewhere.

SOURCES

Letter from Rep. Paul Thissen, July 21, 2011

Minnesota Public Radio News, Dayton puts two new offers on the table, by Catharine Richert, July 6, 2011

Interview, Carrie Lucking, spokeswoman, House DFL Caucus, July 26, 2011

Interview, Minnesota Department of Revenue, Tax Research Division, July 26, 2011

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/polinaut/archive/2011/07/poligraph_thiss_1.shtml#comments

Thissen Column: Beg Borrow and Steal Budget Hurts Minnesota

Grand Forks Herald, July 25, 2011

The longest shutdown in state history is over. Thank goodness.

As the smoke clears, it is fair to ask what the new Republican majorities accomplished — other than missed deadlines and a painful state government shutdown — in their first year leading the state Legislature. The answer to that question, unfortunately, is nearly nothing other than a beg, borrow, and steal budget that jeopardizes the future of our state.

Let’s look at the facts. This was supposed to be the “jobs, jobs, jobs” session. All too many are struggling these days: 200,000 still are without jobs, and many of those lucky enough to have one are facing pay cuts and still are struggling just to make ends meet.

Unfortunately, the Republicans did not lift a finger to support good-paying jobs for middle-class Minnesotans.

They chose instead to attack job protections, and the budgets they proposed actually will cause layoffs — including many in the health care industry, one of the only parts of the Minnesota economy that is growing right now.

The Republican beg, borrow and steal budget also continues the failed financial shenanigans of former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, balancing the budget on the backs of middle-class Minnesotans.

We’ve paid more and gotten less for far too long. Yet instead of defending our wallets, the Republicans raided them — resorting to the old pass-the-buck plan of cutting aid to communities across Greater Minnesota, which means residents will be paying increased property taxes and getting less police and fire protection.

And they are solving a $5 billion state budget deficit by borrowing $1.4 billion and leaving a multi-billion dollar deficit two years from now. That is the height of fiscal irresponsibility.

So, if the Republicans weren’t standing up for middle class families, who did the Republicans work for this session?

Corporate special interests — those who donated hundreds of thousands to Republican campaigns to gain legislative majorities — got to keep their special tax breaks that allow them to hide their profits overseas.

Millionaires also did very well, thanks to the Republicans. In fact, the Republicans were so adamant that the wealthiest Minnesotans not be asked to play a role in solving our historic budget deficit that they took our state to shutdown in order to protect them from paying the same amount of taxes that middle class families pay — not even temporarily.

Not even in order to prevent historic cuts to our state colleges and universities, or cuts to nursing homes and support for seniors and the disabled.

By the way, only 7,700 people would have been affected by the so-called “millionaire tax” — and just half of those even are Minnesota residents. Talk about priorities.

Republican legislators are not working for us. Their budget begs for money from seniors who can’t afford it, borrows from ourselves at a terrible rate and steals from our future by shifting funds for our children’s schools.

It’s a budget that protects millionaires in Wayzata at the expense of folks in Worthington, Willmar, and Wadena.

Those aren’t DFL priorities, and they certainly aren’t Minnesota values. We deserve legislators who will put our kids, our schools, our seniors and middle-class families first.

And that’s exactly what I and my DFL colleagues will continue to do as long as we have the honor of serving Minnesota.

http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/210670/

Rep. Thissen Included in 100 “Top Influencers” in Minnesota Politics

“The state Representative didn’t win the Democratic endorsement for governor but surprised many with his showing at the party convention. He’s expected to make waves in the Legislature and could run for higher office in the future.”

Campaigns and Elections Magazine, October 2010

Rep. Thissen Takes on Irresponsible Governor in National Press

“I think it’s largely political theater to advance his presidential ambitions,” said State Rep. Paul Thissen, a Democrat who is chairman of the chamber’s health-care and human-services committee. “We may miss out on a few hundred thousand dollars of federal money but…the damage he can do is going to be over in four months.”