Minnesota: Not As Rich As They Thought

posted at 3:28 pm on September 19, 2010 by Mitch Berg

Mark Dayton, former Senator and scion of the Dayton’s department store fortune, is running for governor in Minnesota. For months, he attacked his GOP-endorsed opponent, the Chris-Christie-like Tom Emmer, for “not having a plan”.

This past week, Emmer released the final details of his high-level plan to balance the state’s budget (currently slated to have a $6 Billion deficit). It is, obviously, sparking much debate in Minnesota.

But Mark Dayton’s “plan” - which is mostly built on the idea of “taxing the rich”; even the TV ads say so – oddly is getting less scrutiny.vvDayton Says: “Taxing the Rich” will raise four billion dollars.

In vetting Dayton’s plan, the MN Department of Revenue says:

This proposal adds a new top bracket at a rate of 10.95% starting in tax year 2011. The 10.95% bracket is set at $150,000 for married joint filers, $75,000 for married separate filers, and $130,000 for single and head of household filers. The new bracket is not adjusted yearly for inflation although the bottom brackets are adjusted for inflation in keeping with current law. The tax year impact is as follows:

And the end result, according to the MNDoR?

Tax Year Impact (in millions):

TY 2011 $752,800

TY 2012 $813,600

TY 2013 $879,100

So while Mark Dayton promised that “taxing the rich” would raise $4 Billion, almost closing the gap (but not quite; Dayton’s budget proposal (PDF document here) ends with the curious line “That leaves me $635.4 million to go”), in fact Dayton’s tax hikes will raise no more than $1.7 billion.

In other words, cranking the tax on “the rich” to a confiscatory 8 to 11% (actually 10.95, but let’s be honest here…) brings in less than half of what the Dayton budget “plan” says it will.

But even that is over triple the tax hike that the completely DFL-dominated Legislature could pass at the height of Obamamania; the Minnesota Senate passed a $400 million hike by one vote, long before anyone in Saint Paul associated “Tea Parties” with anything but Earl Gray.

Mark Dayton’s budget is DOA, even if he is lected, and even if the GOP doesn’t flip one of the two chambers back to GOP control.

The media isn’t reporting it that way yet, of course.

Cross-posted at Shot In The Dark.

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