Minnesota Democrat and Republican legislators tried to do the right thing on the first day of the session by passing extended unemployment benefits for laid off workers on the Iron Range.

Unfortunately, their parties, mistakes in judgment and their own propensity to score political points got in the way.

The approval of the unemployment extension benefits was likely going to be a simple, bipartisan and non-controversial vote. But when Rep. Pat Garofalo, R-Farmington, proposed tying reductions in the unemployment insurance taxes on business to the bill, the old partisan lines in the sand appeared.

Garofalo told The Free Press Wednesday that it was not his intent to scuttle the unemployment benefits bill. He thought he had bipartisan support for the business tax reduction. And indeed, Gov. Mark Dayton had proposed in his budget a bigger reduction in the business unemployment tax payments in 2013.

But the debate picked up steam and rancor on the DFL side when Garofalo proposed his tax cuts. That led DFLers to frame the issue as the GOP holding up unemployment benefits to laid-off workers unless businesses got a tax cut.

Because a supermajority vote was needed, the majority House GOP failed in its effort to pass the bill. That made it it look like DFLers voted against the unemployment benefits.

That led the DFL to describe the GOP as heartless and inflicting pain on laid-off mine workers by making them wait for their unemployment checks due to a desire to gain “political chips” for cutting taxes.

Even the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce thought tying the two bills together was an ill-conceived move. Chamber President Doug Loon told The Free Press Wednesday that it was “unfortunate” the issue turned into a “political football” and “it wasn’t our doing to connect them.” While he said he wasn’t going to make a judgment on who was to blame, he noted it will slow the process down for getting both bills through.

Garofalo conceded his mistake in not talking to the DFL leadership on the proposal ahead of time. He told The Free Press he miscommunicated. That’s a fair assessment and we take Garofalo at his word.

But it still seems prudent to keep the issues separate and have an up or down vote on both.

The outcome, of both extension of benefits and reduction of taxes, will likely be bipartisan passage.

And there’s justification for passing both. The unemployment insurance fund balance is at about $1.7 billion. Garofalo’s plan calls for returning about $272 million of the balance to employers, which he notes will go to all employers, big and small, who pay the tax. It will not impact funding for other programs because all the money in the fund comes from businesses. If the fund gets depleted, business taxes go up to replenish it.

Dayton had proposed nearly the same plan in his 2013 budget, but the fund was only at $1.2 billion when Dayton proposed a $350 million reduction.

The Senate passed on Thursday the unemployment benefit extension without attaching the reduction in business taxes. Sen. Majority Leader Tom Bakk says that would be a bad precedent and we agree.

The House will likely come together to pass it as well. We hope it’s sooner rather than later.

The bottom line is that both parties could have avoided all this rancor and starting out on the wrong foot if they had just taken a breath and communicated in reasonable, respectful manners.

Moving forward, it would be best to pass both bills with bipartisan support in separate up or down votes.

 

— Mankato Free Press, March 10