Hello from St. Paul,
This week, I heard about a resident who paid nearly $1,000 for registration tabs for his vehicle. If he lived in Wisconsin, he would have paid $85.
You can thank Democrats for this. There is literally no one else to blame.
In 2023, when Democrats had total control of the legislature and the governor’s office, they changed the vehicle tab fee formula and effectively raised your rates by 20%. And now every driver is paying the price, as the impact of these Democrat decisions are starting to be felt.
A bill was heard in the Minnesota House Transportation Finance Committee recently that would bring Minnesota’s vehicle tab fees back to pre-2023 levels. The bill debated by the committee would have dropped the rates on both newer and older vehicles. Doing so would have provided nearly $1 billion in tax relief for drivers, and likely hundreds of dollars in savings to you.
All Republicans on the committee supported the measure. All Democrats voted against it.
SNAP BENEFITS BILL HIGHLIGHTS NEED FOR REFORM
When millionaires can access state food assistance programs, your state might have a program abuse problem.
This week, Minnesota millionaire Rob Undersander testified before the House Children and Families Finance Committee about the need to reform the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in our state. Realizing his income was low due to his retirement, he decided to see how easy it would be to gain access to SNAP benefits. He got right in. Learn more about his story here.
Because we now have a proven fault in our system, one of my colleagues brought forward the “Stop Welfare for the Wealthy” Act recently, which would tighten up SNAP eligibility by closing a loophole that currently allows individuals with significant financial assets to qualify for benefits.
Minnesota’s SNAP payment error rate has more than doubled, from 4.1% (2013) to 9% (2024), resulting in about $77 million annually in improper payments. New federal policy requires states with error rates above 6% to share in SNAP benefit costs, with Minnesota’s current error rate higher than 6%, these new changes in federal law put Minnesota at significant financial risk. The legislation debated would put Minnesota’s error rate under the 6% threshold.
To the surprise of no one who has been following activity in the Minnesota House this session, all Republicans supported strengthening the program’s integrity, and all Democrats voted against it.
SNAP exists to help people who cannot afford to eat. When it has been proven that people can scam the system, you should put guardrails in place to ensure that only those who need assistance should be receiving it. Every dollar stolen by a fraudster is one less dollar going to a family that can’t put food on the table, and that is just plain wrong.
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT WANTS ANSWERS ON NON-CITIZENS ON STATE VOTER ROLLS
CBS News is reporting the Minnesota Secretary of State's Office has received a grand jury subpoena ordering it to turn over certain individual voter records, as part of a federal investigation into whether non-citizens are registered or have unlawfully cast ballots.
As a member of the Minnesota House elections committee, I am very pleased to see the federal government act. As you may recall, we learned earlier this year that Hennepin County has had thousands of challenged voters on its rolls since the 2024 election. We have asked Secretary of State Steve Simon to testify before the committee all session long, and he has not once attended.
In my opinion, let’s determine if our election system is truly spotless and secure, and if it’s not, let’s fix it before November.
Read the story here.
BILL INTRODUCTIONS
I introduced a pair of bills this week. The first (HF4765) will help protect individual landowners from having their land annexed from them. The second (HF4669) allows local and county governments to opt out of unfunded mandates forced upon them by state government. Unfunded mandates are devastating city and county governments and school districts, and in many cases, forcing them to raise your property taxes to meet their state obligations. Under my bill they wouldn’t have to comply unless the state provides funding for it.
In liberty,
Drew