LIVE: Minnesota Legislative Recap With Sens. Kupec & Rasmusson

Abortion. Gun control. Marijuana. Taxes. Education. A budget surplus. The Minnesota legislature tackled all that and more in a busy session.

Abortion. Gun control. Marijuana. Taxes. Education. A budget surplus. The Minnesota legislature tackled all that and more in a busy session.

The legislative session wrapped up this week, and local lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are telling us how they think the big changes will impact people in our region.

DFL State Senator Rob Kupec of Moorhead says he thinks lawmakers did more this session than most people expected. He and Republican Senator Jordan Rasmusson of Fergus Falls both highlighted the state’s budget.
Minnesota came into the session with a budget surplus.
Minnesotans will get rebate checks out of some of that surplus.
But local lawmakers disagree with how the Democratic majority used that extra money this year.

Sen. Rasmussen says it was an, “Expensive session for Minnesotans. We started off with a $19 billion surplus and ended up having under Democrat control $9 billion in tax increases and so about a 38% increase in our state budget, so I was disappointed to see there wasn’t real, permanent tax relief for Minnesotans this session.”

Sen. Kupec adds, “It was an aggressive agenda. I think it was more than anybody was expecting in terms of that. I will say that a lot of that budget surplus was one time, and I think we do have some tax relief too. There’s about $4 billion in tax relief, especially towards property tax relief.”

Senators Kupec and Rasmusson touched on a wide variety of topics the legislature covered. See their full conversation in the video above.