ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - Republicans who control the Minnesota Legislature on Tuesday challenged Gov. Mark Dayton by forging ahead with their own budget plans, setting the two sides on a collision course with just two weeks remaining to finish a new, two-year spending package.
The Democratic governor and GOP leaders entered the session’s homestretch with a mountain of differences over how to spend a $1.65 billion budget surplus, from the size of spending - Dayton pushed for $46 billion while Republicans’ plans called for nearly $45 billion - to the amount of tax relief and smaller, controversial policy changes scattered throughout the GOP bills. The two sides had been meeting for more than a week to chip away at a compromise, and Republican leaders had expressed little interest in sending Dayton their own budget bills for a sure veto.
But Republicans at least temporarily abandoned the negotiating table after the latest round of private talks on Tuesday. Both the House and Senate started passing budget bills, kicking off a flurry of final votes on budget bills that Dayton has suggested he’d veto.
Democrats warned Republicans against plowing ahead without first striking a deal with the governor.
“If we choose conflict over collaboration … we almost certainly send this legislative session into overtime,” House Minority Leader Melissa Hortman said. “I can guarantee we will not find an agreement if we stop talking to each other.”
It’s a bid to pressure Dayton to move their way in a final compromise, with more for tax cuts than the $300 million sum Dayton has proposed and a smaller overall budget than Dayton’s two-year, $46 billion package. But there is a long list of differences dividing the two sides behind the big dollar figures.
While Dayton has proposed a $175 million expansion for a preschool program that launched this year, the Legislature’s budget would zero out that program, shifting that money to a more general “school readiness” fund that school districts could tap to continue their existing preschool offerings.
An environmental budget has raised Dayton’s ire by also delaying the fall launch of his marquee water quality measure requiring buffers between farmland and waterways by two years. Republicans are looking to go big on tax cuts - lining up more than $1 billion in property tax reductions for farmers, reduce estate taxes and offer tax credits to college graduates with loan debt - while Dayton has outlined just $300 million in tax breaks.
Republicans weren’t shy about their goal of building the case to the public that it’s Dayton - not the Legislature - holding up a timely resolution.
“The people sent us here to get our job done. Our job is to pass our bills,” Republican House Majority Leader Joyce Peppin said.
Dayton decried the maneuver and said he’d veto every single bill if that’s the tack GOP legislative leaders take.
“Their actions will make it much more difficult for them to fulfill their Constitutional responsibility to send me budget bills, which I can sign, by May 22nd,” he said in a statement.
It’s not the first time Dayton and a GOP-controlled Legislature have clashed. Dayton and Republicans deadlocked over how to solve a $6 billion budget deficit, bringing the state to a 20-day government shutdown in 2011.
Earlier Tuesday, it appeared legislative leaders could stave off a messy conclusion. The two sides traded several offers on the budget, narrowing the roughly $1 billion gap that separates their overall budget proposals.
But Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka said those talks weren’t moving fast enough.
“We are extremely disappointed and frustrated that negotiations have stalled after some early positive signs,” he said.
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