Hello from the State Capitol,

 

Is it fair that senior citizens pay taxes on their Social Security income after paying into that system for their entire lives?

 

I don’t believe it is, which is why I’m authoring legislation that would eliminate state taxes on Social Security benefits for all seniors.

 

Minnesota is one of only a handful of states that continues to tax Social Security benefits. During the 2017 session, we approved a bipartisan tax relief law that addressed Social Security. It provided nearly 284,000 senior citizen tax filers with tax reductions and eliminated the state income tax on Social Security benefits for 72,000 of them. This bill would finish the job by ensuring all Minnesota senior citizens would have state taxation of their Social Security benefits eliminated.

 

With a nearly $18 billion surplus, it’s clear Minnesota has collected far too much from Minnesota’s taxpayers, and it is the perfect time to act on behalf of Minnesota’s seniors.

 

The bill has been referred to the Minnesota House Taxes Committee.

 

ONE HOUSING PROPOSAL WOULD ECLIPSE CURRENT STATE BUDGET ALLOCATION BY 1600%

We’re hearing far too many ‘spend first, ask questions later’ proposals this year thanks to the appetite of House Democrats to radically increase spending in our state. Last week I heard a real doozy in the Minnesota House Housing Finance and Policy Committee.

 

The bill would provide $4 billion in grants to help people to purchase a home.

 

The current budgeted amount for housing programs in our state: $250 million.

 

To date, we do not have budget targets for each area within state government. Yet Democrat leadership is misleading communities with proposals such as this that they won’t come close to fulfilling. Keep in mind, this $4 billion would only be spent for people interested in single family homes; it wouldn’t address multi-unit housing that also must be dealt with moving forward.

 

It’s totally irresponsible to bring up a bill of this magnitude forward when the committee has no idea how much it will have authority to spend in all areas of housing for the upcoming budget cycle. But some Democrats appear to think it’s OK to ask for a 1600% raise.

 

Have a good weekend,

 

John



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