It’s absolutely official. In case you were uncertain about the number one priority of Minnesota House Republicans, it’s big businesses.

A story in the Star Tribune this morning dug into the Republican Tax Bill, and what they found is not pretty.

Minnesota House Republicans keep saying their Tax Bill puts middle-class families first, but the middle class tax cut is temporary while big, permanent tax breaks kick in for big businesses by phasing out corporate property taxes completely.

The Star Tribune writes:

While initial costs are pegged at $453 million over the first two years, eliminating the business property tax would cost $1 billion during the second two years and nearly $1 billion a year when fully kicked in.

The article finds the biggest winners of this enormous tax break to be- you guessed it- a handful of enormous companies and landowners, including the Canadian family that owns Mall of America, Hilton Hotels, and large property owners from Bethesda, MD and Chicago.

If this isn’t a bait and switch, I don’t know what is.

This is particularly frustrating since the Republican House just voted this week to cut MinnesotaCare, which provides affordable healthcare to working families making between $8-$12 an hour. They also recently voted to shortchange public schools with a 1% funding increase that doesn’t keep up with the cost of inflation, which many have said could lead to cuts and layoffs.

So instead of providing affordable healthcare to working families and properly funding schools to keep teachers in classrooms, Minnesota Republicans are hoping to give an enormous tax break to a handful of big businesses, many of which with owners located out of state.

And at a time when Minnesota has a $2 billion surplus.

That is absolutely the wrong direction for Minnesota. We should be investing in our state with early learning programs, affordable healthcare, safe roads and bridges, and properly funded schools, not giving enormous tax breaks to big businesses. Minnesotans deserve better.