It's Budget Forecast Day at the Capitol on this fine Thursday. Any guesses on how big that surplus is now? We'll find out soon enough. Here's the Digest.
1. Poll: Many young voters don't think their generation is better off. "An MPR News/Star Tribune Minnesota Poll shows that 45 percent of Minnesotans aged 18 to 34 don’t think their generation is better off than their parents. Forty-two percent of young voters surveyed believed they were better off than their parents’ generation and 13 percent were unsure. The poll interviewed by telephone, primarily cellphone, 500 randomly selected registered Minnesota voters between age 18 and 34. The poll has a plus or minus 4.5 percentage point margin of error. Health care was a primary issue among the young voters surveyed — 52 percent said people like them don’t have access to quality, affordable health care." MPR News
2. Thinking about inflation as new economic forecast is announced. "In February of 2002, then Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura vetoed an emergency plan crafted to get the state out of a $1.9 billion budget deficit. In doing so, the Independence Party governor said the plan built by House Republicans and Senate DFLers had two flaws: One was that it relied heavily on one-time funding; the second was that it 'wishes away inflation,' Ventura wrote. That wasn’t vintage Ventura bluster. The deal included a decision to omit inflationary increases in state spending for future budget periods, even while retaining such estimates for future tax revenue — a move that made the next budget appear balanced when, in fact, it might be littered with red ink, which Ventura pointed out. ... When the Minnesota Office of Management and Budget presents its forecast for the current and next two-year budget periods on Thursday, it will estimate how much things will cost and how much money current taxes will raise. But knowing that the upcoming spending estimates do not include inflation — even if many of the revenue estimates do — has to be taken into consideration in budgeting, since the outlooks can look rosier than they actually are, feeding spending desires as well as tax cut plans." MinnPost
3. Minnesota farmer testifies before Congress on trade war. "Minnesota wheat and soybean farmer Tim Dufault summed up his reaction to the Trump administration’s trade war with China. 'We are now nearly two years into a trade war that we were told would be good and easy to win,' Dufault told the House Ways and Means Committee hearing Wednesday. 'Time and again, we have been told to hold out for a deal that would make all the pain worth it. And while you would be hard-pressed to find a farmer who would disagree with the fact that China has been a bad actor, farmers have shouldered the pain for a strategy that has seen only one minor tariff reduction and several tariff escalations.' Dufault, who represented the group Farmers for Free Trade as well as himself, was among several speakers assessing the effect of the trade war and the first phase of a new trade agreement that calls for China to buy $80 billion more in U.S. agricultural products over two years." Star Tribune
4. Minnesota House passes insulin, primary voter privacy bills. "The Minnesota House has taken early action on two of the session’s key issues. Lawmakers passed legislation Wednesday night on a 75 to 52 vote to provide insulin to Minnesotans who are unable to afford it. They also passed a measure to protect the privacy of voters who participate in the state’s presidential primary. The vote on that bill was 72 to 55. ...The insulin bill would require drug manufacturers to pay a new fee. Eligible patients would gain access to emergency insulin and long-term supplies. ... The primary privacy bill would allow a voter’s data to go only to the political party that the individual voted for. Other political parties would not get the data." MPR News
5. Minnesota Supreme Court issues mixed ruling in case over media coverage of Cold Spring officer shooting. "The Minnesota Supreme Court has upheld aspects of the St. Cloud Times and KARE-TV reporting in a suit centered on their coverage of the 2012 shooting death of a Cold Spring, Minn., police officer. Ryan Larson, the man whom police falsely suspected of killing officer Thomas Decker, sued the two news outlets for defamation. The suit stems from their coverage of a press conference held one day after the killing in which law enforcement announced Larson’s arrest and identified him as a suspect. The police would later release Larson without charging him and clear him as a suspect. Authorities later said another man who killed himself was the probable shooter. But the damage, Larson has said, was already done. Larson went on to file suit in district court against the newspaper and television station, alleging that their coverage included false statements that harmed his reputation. At the time, KARE was still owned by USA Today publisher Gannett, which still owns the Times. The company spun off its television businesses as a separate company in 2015." Forum News Service | 