It’s Our Surplus: Give It Back!

Minnesota’s budget surplus has grown to $17.6 billion! This is getting ridiculous!

State spending is at an all-time high.

The rainy-day fund is full.

Our taxes are 6th highest in the country.

It’s time to GIVE IT BACK!

Reasons to give back the surplus:

  • Since $12 billion of the surplus is already in the bank, Gov. Walz and the legislature should immediately pass an income tax rebate to return thousands of dollars to every Minnesota family now, not next May.
  • The cost of living in Minnesota is too high — from gas prices to groceries to childcare to housing. The state should return this overcollection of income taxes immediately.
  • $6 billion of the surplus is structural — meaning it can be used for permanent tax cuts.
  • State spending is at an all-time high after increases of 8% in 2019 and 5% in 2021, including huge increases to K-12 education each year.
  • The current budget is scheduled to grow another 10% in 2022-23 to $52.3 billion!
  • Minnesota’s tax rates are the sixth highest in the country. In fact, our lowest rate would be the highest rate in 24 states!
  • The state’s savings account ($2.656 billion) is at an all-time high and one of the strongest in the country. 
  • School districts, cities, counties and the state all received (and spent) billions in federal aid for the pandemic.

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Help us spread this message across the entire state, and fill the inboxes of Minnesota legislators with feedback from YOU!

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State Spending is So Wasteful

$250 million to free food fraud, $1.3 million to pay kids to play outside, and $3.1 million in grants for self-love and strippers… the state has so much money that this is what it spends your hard-earned tax dollars on!

Click here to learn more about the Golden Turkey Award.

Latest News

Poll: Minnesotans want their money back — Minnesotans prefer tax cuts and rebates to spending in the latest Thinking Minnesota poll.

Where does the money go? — State government in one pie chart. It’s worth reviewing where all the money goes.

Don’t spend millions on an advertising campaign to attract residents, just cut taxes! — the state government proposes spending $4.5 million on an advertising campaign to lure out-of-state workers to Minnesota.

Minnesota’s $9.3 billion dollar surplus is largely due to higher forecast income tax collections This surplus is going to come from the pockets of ordinary, hard-working, and hard-pressed Minnesotans in the form of income tax payments.

The surplus is huge because our taxes are high — A heavily progressive individual income tax system coupled with extraordinarily high rates are a big contributing factor to the size of the surplus.

Research

Minnesota’s record-breaking $9.3 billion budget surplus should be given back to the people who earned it: ordinary, hardworking Minnesotans.

Click here to read the full report.

It’s a fact — Minnesotans are leaving for states with lower taxes.

Click here to read the full report.