Capitol View: February 11, 2013 Archive

Where are the 4th bracketeers?

Posted at 10:22 AM on February 11, 2013 by Paul Tosto (1 Comments)
Filed under: MN Legislature, Mark Dayton

Gov. Mark Dayton's plan to generate $1.1 billion in new taxes from the state's highest earners the next two years is controversial. Politically, though, it ought to be a pretty easy vote for most of the state's lawmakers.

More than 70 percent of those who would pay the higher income tax are concentrated in the Twin Cities metropolitan area -- overwhelmingly in Hennepin County where most state lawmakers are, like the governor, DFLers.

The map below shows just how concentrated. Mouse over the dots and you'll get the information for that county.

We took county by county data from the governor's proposal and mapped it. These are the returns of people with taxable income above $250,000 for those married and filing jointly, $200,000 for head of household and $150,000 for a single taxpayer.

Six counties -- Cook, Kanabec, Lake of the Woods, Lincoln, Mahnomen and Red Lake -- counted 20 or fewer potential fourth bracketeers. The Revenue Department would not provide an exact count for those counties, so they don't show up on the map.

The data aren't perfect. They show 2010 figures with 41,612 returns from full-year taxpaying residents. Current estimates put the total number of prospective fourth bracket returns at 53,600, thanks mainly to growth in incomes between 2010 and 2013.

Revenue Department researchers, though, say the distribution in the 2010 county data is proportional to the geography of those who would be affected now.

Looking at the map, you'd be hard pressed to find any politician who'd pay much of a political price for supporting the fourth bracket.

While many Republicans might oppose the new tax tier for philosophical reason, they wouldn't suffer much backlash from the fourth bracket voting block.

Poll numbers back that up. A recent KSTP / SurveyUSA poll found 65 percent of Minnesotans back Dayton's proposal for more taxes on the top 2 percent; 30 percent oppose it.

Here's one more way to look at the lopsided spread. In the map below, the reds denote counties with fewer than 300 tax returns that would fall in the new bracket. Yellow is for counties with 300 to 1,000 potentially affected while the green means more than 1,000 fourth bracketeers.

Again, if you're a state lawmaker, you might have serious philosophical and economic concerns about seeking another $1 billion every two years from the state's top 2 percent. Geographically, though, most lawmakers shouldn't have to think twice.

Dayton signals support for Mayo Clinic plan

Posted at 2:12 PM on February 11, 2013 by Tom Scheck (1 Comments)
Filed under: MN Legislature, Mark Dayton

Gov. Mark Dayton gave the strongest indication yet that he intends to help the Mayo Clinic with its expansion plan in Rochester. He made the comments during a speech to an audience of Democrats in Oakdale today.

"How we get there? We have to negotiate," Dayton said. "But do we need to get there? I'm absolutely certain we do."

The Mayo Clinic is lobbying the Legislature for $585 million in taxpayer money to make improvements to Rochester. The Clinic says it needs the public improvements to support its plan to expand in the southeastern Minnesota community. Mayo Clinic officials have pledged to spend more than $3 billion over the next 20 years to expand their Rochester campus. They say they expect more than $2 billion to follow in private investments but say they need the public's help in building things such as roads, parks, transit and other improvements to support the expansion.

The Clinic's plan to finance those improvements would rely on a portion of future money raised from income, sales and corporate tax revenues in Rochester. The legislation would create an economic development authority to determine exactly how the funds are spent.

Several lawmakers expressed concern that the proposal is unprecedented and could lead to many other communities calling for a portion of their tax base be directed to infrastructure improvements.

Dayton said he isn't sure what the final plan will look like, but he said it's important that Mayo's vision of a Destination Medical Center be realized.

"I certainly don't want to see it happen in Arizona or Florida," Dayton said of Mayo's expansion.

DFL Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk says he supports the Mayo Clinic plan in concept but would like to see the city of Rochester and Olmsted County contribute more than $20 million to the plan. DFL House Speaker Paul Thissen says he isn't sure whether there's support for Mayo's plan but said something is likely to get done this year.

The House Jobs and Economic Development Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on the plan on Feb. 19.