And there is another $1.1 billion of federal money yet to be spent.
Gee, mask mandates and vaccine access doesn’t hurt the economy as much as Republicans say it does. Though obviously rebound from quarantine is clearly a factor.
$870 million has to go back to the rainy day fund.
About a billion has to be repaid to the federal government.
Maybe replenish the unemployment fund instead of a new payroll tax.
The rest is up for grabs.
And as for the Republicans, what else: “GOP lawmakers want to cut taxes.”
Of course.
And the rural red areas would like some more of that sweet tax money raised in the big blue cities to be sent their way.
Next year basically everybody is up for election and the Republican prospects for governor are parsing their words carefully to not specifically mentioning tax cuts, but they will get there. And maybe incentives to foreign companies to help them do some mining near the Boundary Waters. The toxic pollution will be somebody else’s problem in 25 years.
It’s too bad that Trump and Pence made several visits to Minnesota which energized their base enough to hold onto the state senate in 2016. The senate was not up for election in 2018, which would almost certainly have given the DFL control. The governorship being in an off-year election also helps the Republicans since liberal turnout falls when the presidency isn’t on the ballot.
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Anyway. Despite Republican games in the senate, the state is doing OK.
(and I do mean games. The Republican controlled senate has not confirmed any of Walz’s appointees. Once named the appointee can perform the job, but can be rejected at a later date. Everytime Walz calls for a special session the Republican senate brings up one of his appointees and rejects them. There are several issues Walz should call a special session for, but doesn’t because he doesn’t want to replace a cabinet member. Last year just before the Republican controlled senate killed the appointment of Nancy Leppink as head of the Department of Labor during a special session (two years after nomination), Republican House minority leader Kurt Daubt tweeted “Looks like the senate is executing a prisoner today.” The Republicans have hinted that if a special session is called they will knock out the state Health commissioner, because she supported mask mandates. Knocking out the health commissioner during a pandemic is absolutely a republican thing to do. Anybody remember who the US Surgeon General was during the Ebola crisis of 2014? There wasn’t one. The Senate Republican were filibustering Vivek Murthy.”
Newt Gingrich would be proud.
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