Main Street

Word on the Street: Hot in Minnesota

Chase Brandau – Minneapolis, Minnesota

A lot of us have been sweating lately in Minnesota – but not just from record heat. Since the 2011 legislative session ended without a deal on the budget, Minnesotans across the state were left wondering: will we balance the budget fairly, or will it be done on the backs of working families?

Last week, after the shutdown ended and a budget deal was worked out, we had one answer to this question: GOP lawmakers would rather cut critical services and keep kicking the can down the road than ask millionaires to pay $1 more in taxes to keep Minnesota the kind of state we are all so proud of.

What a disconnect. Working America organizers have been talking to Minnesotans about balancing the budget fairly since January, and the overwhelming majority of people we talk to support an approach including new revenue by asking the rich to pay their fair share. When we ask Working America members what their biggest concern is, they say ‘jobs’ or ‘education’—not spending cuts to pay for tax breaks for a few of the wealthiest Minnesotans.

In Southern Minnesota, Winona, Le Crescent, Albert Lea; throughout the Twin Cities and in St. Cloud, in central cities like Grand Rapids and Park Rapids and as far north west as East Grand Forks—people we talked to across the state expressed deep concern about cuts to education, healthcare, community services and rising property taxes. Ninety percent of the members we talked to expressed frustration with the fact that these cuts are being done to protect the top two percent from paying an equal share in taxes.

Over half our members were so fired up that they took action, many for the first time in their lives, by picking up their phone and calling their legislators: parents, students, retirees, workers and the unemployed exercised their strength in numbers, to the point where their legislators literally unplugged their phones.

Heat waves in Minnesota? For lawmakers who choose the richest two percent over working families it’s bound to get hot again; their morally bankrupt defense of the rich is no longer being tolerated by the “Other 98%” of us they keep forgetting about.