Rep. Stensrud: Worthy Bills Suffer Vetoes

Dear Neighbor,

We passed the Tax Relief and Job Creation Act on the House floor earlier this week. It was designed to help make Minnesota more economically competitive, but the governor vetoed this bill. 

The Tax Foundation ranks Minnesota’s business climate 45th-worst nationally in a recent report. This must change and our bill would bring improvement. Our goal is to encourage businesses to stay here, expand here, move their operations here and create more jobs for Minnesotans.

Components in the bill (H.F. 2337) the governor vetoed include property and sales-tax relief, investment in innovation and small businesses, and job-training and hiring incentives.

One provision permanently freezes the automatic inflator on the statewide levy for commercial/industrial properties. This will allow businesses to keep more of their money to invest in employees and growth, instead of suffering under our state’s burdensome, regressive taxes.

Another measure provides an upfront sales tax exemption on capital equipment purchases for all small businesses. More than $50 million per year will stay in the hands of our small-business job creators.

Our bill also incentivizes investment in start-up companies and research-and-development endeavors. It permanently increases Angel Investment Credit by $5 million for the duration of the program. It also increases the research-and-development tax credit by 24 percent to help make Minnesota a more attractive place to do business and create high-paying jobs throughout the state.

A top priority of ours this session was to make Minnesota a better place to set up shop and this bill would get us pointed in the right direction.

This is the latest in a series of bills the governor has vetoed. Wednesday he nixed a bill designed to fix a glitch where a newly drawn district line runs through a retirement community in Edina. The new border puts neighbors in the same building in different districts. The same mistake occurred 10 years ago, but similar legislative action remedied the situation.

The governor also recently vetoed bills which would legalize a greater array of fireworks, allow school districts to look beyond seniority in personnel decisions, repay delayed K-12 funds, and prohibit union dues and fees from being deducted from state child-care subsidy payments. He also issued a symbolic veto of a bill requiring voter ID at the polls.

We are still working to find resolution on a capital investment bill which funds construction projects throughout the state. We also are continuing to discuss the Vikings stadium issue in search for a solution worthy of widespread bipartisan support. The plan is to vote on both bills Monday and I will keep you posted.

Kirk Stensrud (42A)