ST. PAUL – With first-quarter unemployment insurance payments coming due, Rep. Steve Green, R-Fosston, is renewing his call for House Democrats to reverse the tax increase he said they unnecessarily caused to take effect last month.
Green said, with a surplus of around $10 billion, Minnesota can more than afford to fill its Unemployment Trust Fund to solvency, repeal the tax increases on employers, and stop Minnesota from having to borrow $50,000 a day from the federal government.
“It is a shame House Democrats caused our employers to suffer a tax increase at a time the state has a record surplus,” Green said. “There is broad, bipartisan support for taking care of this issue, yet House Democrats continue to stand in the way.”
The Minnesota Senate passed a bill to refill the UI trust fund Feb. 14 on a broadly bipartisan 55-11 vote. Gov. Walz, House Republicans, Senate Republicans, and Senate Democrats all have expressed support for replenishing the UI trust fund, but inaction by the House Democrat majority has caused legislation to stall. It’s been two months since a UI bill has received a House committee hearing and Democrats have blocked subsequent efforts to bring the subject to the floor for a vote.
House Speaker Melissa Hortman, D-Brooklyn Park, downplayed the original March 15 deadline prescribed by state officials, insisting that lawmakers had until April 30, when tax bills are due, to act. But now that date is approaching, and Democrats have excluded UI repayment funding from the proposed budget they recently released for this session. If the trust fund is not repaid, it would result in 10 years of higher taxes on employers Green said.
“It was bad advice for Democrats to tell businesses in March they could delay their payments because the real deadline was April 30, especially since the majority still is showing no interest in resolving this issue,” Green said. “The money is there. All the House needs to do is pass the Senate’s bipartisan bill to make this tax increase go away and spare our employers from a completely unnecessary tax burden.”
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