Budget Balanced, No Tax Increases
The 2010 legislative session ended with a bipartisan agreement on how to balance the budget.
As the House Republican Minority Leader, Zellers took part in the negotiations with other legislative leaders and Governor Pawlenty at the end of session to build the agreement.
“My top priority in our discussions was to not raise taxes on families and businesses, and I’m proud to say we achieved that goal,” Zellers said.
We also succeeded in reducing government spending for the first time in Minnesota history. Our state government is spending $200 million more per month than it takes in, which is clearly unsustainable and irresponsible. We have to get that under control, and I think we made a good start at doing so this year.
But we have to do more. Over the next two years, government revenues are expected to grow 10 percent, but spending is going to grow by a whopping 24 percent!
To solve government’s spending problem we have to look at more than just spending less. We have to do better at spending the money we have; we need to put in place real structural reforms.
Zellers proposed several reform ideas – the Sunset Commission, 15-by-15, etc – that Democrats didn’t accept, and ones that were achieved, like the GAMC reform that will save taxpayers $700 million.
“Passing major reforms like this is never easy,” Zellers said. “But the budget problem has more people opening up to changing the way government works.”
We will continue offering ideas for making government work for the people, not the people funding more waste of their tax dollars,” Zellers said. “And above all we will protect taxpayers.”
