Aric Putnam's exit interview?

Recently, a loyal reader of this blog wrote a letter to Aric Putnam, my friend's state senator. FYI- Putnam is also my state senator. I've received permission to share my friend's letter with my readers in the hopes of showing my readers Sen. Putnam's spin. Here is the full text of my friend's letter:

Dear Name Goes Here,

Thanks for writing. The surplus is a big issue these days. I know it might seem like the surplus is due to over taxation, but it isn’t really. The surplus is a balance relative to a forecast. We thought we were going to have a certain amount of money, so we spent a certain amount of money, but we didn’t take care of all our needs- just some of them that we thought we could afford. It turns out we got a lot more than expected, not because tax rates were increased or too high, but because our forecast was off. We thought the pandemic was going to do some real damage to the state’s coffers and people’s incomes, so we were frugal. But some people made a lot of money off the pandemic. So, when they paid their taxes, we had more in the bank than we anticipated. Hope that makes sense.

I know the governor has a proposal to return a bunch of the surplus in the form of checks to taxpayers. I don’t think that’s a bad idea. But there is a wrinkle in here. If we don’t use some of the surplus, taxes will go up. We owe the federal government 1.3 billion dollars for our unemployment insurance trust fund. We need to pay that down or taxes will go up. That’s federal law. Nothing we can do about it. I’m the chief author of the bill that would use some of the surplus for that purpose. So, while it would be politically easy to give all the surplus back, and that’s a promise you’re going to hear from other people, the situation is much more complicated. It would be irresponsible not to spend part of it. I want us to remember that this is one time money, and we need to think long term rather than just at what’s easy.

Thanks much for writing.

Aric

Sen. Putnam's letter doesn't pass the spin test. For instance, Sen. Putnam's letter includes this line:

We thought we were going to have a certain amount of money, so we spent a certain amount of money, but we didn’t take care of all our needs- just some of them that we thought we could afford.

TRANSLATION: We thought we overtaxed you just a little so we just overspent a little. There was no way of knowing that we'd overtaxed you that much. If we'd known that the surplus was that big, we would've spent more to pay off more of our special interest allies.

Then there's this nonsense:

We thought the pandemic was going to do some real damage to the state’s coffers and people’s incomes, so we were frugal. But some people made a lot of money off the pandemic. So, when they paid their taxes, we had more in the bank than we anticipated.

The pandemic did "some real damage" to "people's lives." It didn't do much damage to Minnesota's coffers because the people are chronically overtaxed.

A budget surplus of $7.7B didn't happen accidentally. It happens when people are taxed too much. The late Harold Hamilton once wrote that there are 23 states whose top marginal income tax rate is lower than Minnesota's lowest marginal rate. Minnesota's bottom tax rate is 5.something. To think that almost half the states have lower top tax rates than our lowest rate is proof that we're overtaxed.

That also means that Minnesota's economy isn't as strong as it should be. This TV segment shows just how overtaxed we are:

The $7,746,000,000 projected surplus doesn't include $1,000,000,000 in American Rescue Plan money that must be spent in the next year. If you aren't getting the picture that we're taxed too much, then I'm not doing my job. Either that or you're a socialist.