Budget offers are traded and discussions continue
Tuesday started with an brief meeting between Governor Dayton and legislative leaders. After a brief exchange of when conversations would continue, the parties gathered back together again at 1:30 in the Governor’s Cabinet room in the State Capitol.
Governor Dayton and Republican legislative leaders met for half an hour, where Dayton presented a new budget offer including less spending and more tax cuts than his original proposal.
Dayton’s proposal included $208 million more in tax cuts and hundreds of millions of dollars less in spending on education, health and human services and other areas. Dayton came down about $50 million from his original higher education recommendation. However, Republicans criticized Dayton for asking to pay for roads with a license tab fee increase — a proposal Daudt believed “has been off the table for some time.”
Republican Counter
Later in the afternoon, Republican leaders came back to meet with the Governor to present their counter proposal.
A major move by Republicans was in the area of taxes – down scaling their offer to $875 million – a significant shift from their original position of $1.1 billion. Leaders raised the higher education target to $175 million – still $90 million from the Governor’s earlier offer that day.
In a promising sign, the Governor and leaders did agree on the Agriculture Finance target, the smallest of the budget bills which covers the MN Department of Agriculture and other farm-related measures.
Negotiations are scheduled to resume Wednesday at 10:30 a.m.
Questions? Contact the Government Relations Team:
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