As progressive leaders in the Senate presented their priorities for 2015 earlier this week, so did Republicans in the Minnesota House.
But unlike the goals laid out by the progressive majority in the Minnesota Senate, which emphasize the middle class, children’s education, and improving the economy, the Republican agenda focuses on the opposite: tax cuts for businesses.
It’s a bit of a broken record at this point. Members of the GOP are known to favor giving tax relief to big business instead of middle class families, and the bills revealed today are no exception.
Republicans took the first chance they had to pledge their allegiance to corporations by making their very first bill a proposal to big businesses and their wealthy owners.
The astounding part about the GOP’s misaligned priorities is that businesses in the state aren’t complaining about the current taxes. In fact, businesses are more worried about finding skilled workers–something that could be addressed by better preparing high school students for the workforce, as proposed by the progressive Senate–than any sort of concern with taxes.
When you consider that multiple outlets have been discussing the business-friendly environment in Minnesota, it begs the question: why do Republicans insist on giving more and more breaks to their special interest friends while working families are struggling to get by on their current wages?
The other main issue on the legislative agenda is transportation. Republicans campaigned on improving the conditions of our roads and bridges, especially in Greater Minnesota, where work is extra necessary to keep everyone safe. Now that they’ve been elected to office, their solution for “improving” our transportation system is to require the Minnesota Department of Transportation to rework its budget. In other words, MnDOT is expected to simply ignore the reports that say we need $6 billion just to maintain the current safety of our roads and bridges or somehow find $6 billion in their current budget.
Yet again Republicans have shown that once they have legislative power, they use it to cater to rich corporations and backtrack on campaign promises to middle class families.
