Last night, House Republicans passed their 2016 Omnibus Education bill. The bill included no new investments for early childhood education, nothing to reduce class sizes, and nothing to address the growing problem of student debt.

In fact, Republican leaders gave the budget area NOTHING (literally $0) to work with this session, despite a $900 million surplus. What’s a better investment than Minnesota’s students?

According to the House Republican tax bill: big businesses.

Republicans have chosen to invest ZERO in education this session, and they’re setting up their campaign to run on “fiscal responsibility.” But their tax proposal, which waits in conference committee, would dole out billions in tax breaks to the owners of big businesses like the Mall of America instead of putting working families first.

Minnesota has long been a leader in education, but our kids won’t stay competitive if Republicans continue putting corporate special interests ahead of them. Last session, Republicans under-invested in schools, finally compromising with Governor Dayton and the DFL Senate to budget enough to allow schools to keep up with inflation.

Throwing Minnesota kids crumbs while big businesses get ahead isn’t what has made Minnesota great. We should be prioritizing a better future for all of our kids, our schools, our college graduates and our working families, not just the wealthy.