Minnesota State Senator Tom Neuville

I received an email from Senate staff regarding the results of the “non-scientific” State Fair Poll regarding the proposed constitutional amendment that will likely be on the ballot next year.

The Senate booth polled mostly metro citizens (nearly 80% of respondents). The question was the same as proposed for the ballot next year. 55% of respondents favored a 3/8th cent increase in the sales tax dedicated to environment and arts funding.

In contrast, the House of Representatives Booth had 50% more respondents and the question was simple to understand. Only 42% favored the Amendment in the House poll. If this result is accurate, then the Constitutional amendment will fail by a large margin.
It is my belief that the inclusion of dedicated arts funding will lose votes for the Constitutional amendment statewide. People favor dedicated funding for preserving wetlands, wild life habitat, clean water and other environmental activities. This is because there is a common understanding that the State has a fiduciary duty to preserve its natural resources. The same cannot be said for arts funding.

Here is the email from Senate Staff, describing the State Fair Polls.

 
Dedicated funding: Both the Senate and House booths at the State Fair asked the public what they thought about dedicated funding for the arts and environment.

*****The results are telling…

*****The House had 6,619 respondents and the Senate had 4,452, even though the booths were adjacent to each other in the same building. The Senate questions are much longer in their poll than the House questions. The Senate question is word for word on how the question would be on the ballot on November of 2007 (Conference Committee bill language on SF 6, HF 2285).

*****A total of 79.94 percent of the respondents to the Senate poll stated that they were either from Mpls/St. Paul or the metropolitan suburbs.

Senate Question posed at the state fair on dedicated funding: Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to dedicate funding to protect our drinking water sources; to protect, enhance, and restore our wetlands, prairies, forests, and fish, game, and wildlife habitat; to preserve our arts and cultural heritage; to support our parks and trails; and to protect, enhance, and restore our lakes, rivers, streams, and groundwater by increasing the sales and use tax rate beginning July 1, 2009 by three-eighths of one percent on taxable sales until the year 2034?

A. Yes. 55.08% (2452)
B. No. 36.10% (1607)
C. Undecided/No opinion. 8.83% (393)

House Question posed at the state fair on dedicated funding: Do you support a proposal to amend the state constitution to raise the state’s sales tax by three-eighths of 1 percent and dedicate the money to environment and arts funding?

Yes 41.7% (2,762)
No 48.7% (3,223)
Undecided/No Opinion 9.6% (634)

Special thanks to Dan Mueller, Senate Fiscal Analyst.

I received this letter (see below) from a constituent. I thought the letter raised some good questions concerning the number of truly uninsured people in our country.

The Health Care issue is important to me. I have introduced my own version of Redesigning Minnesota’s health care system, and presented this proposal to the Health Care Task Force this summer. Linked Here. The Wall Street Journal recently wrote about the inequities in the health care delivery system. This article supports the rational behind my bill.
Even people who have health insurance today are concerned about skyrocketing costs of maintaining their coverage. As “baby-boomers” approach the age to qualify for Medicare, there is a sense of insecurity as to whether the health care delivery system in our country can be sustained.

Legislators and others will be reshaping our health care system in the next few years. Minnesota will be considering a Constitutional Amendment next year which would create a Right to health care. However, it’s important that we base our decisions on accurate information and data. The 2007 Census Report may not be the best data to rely upon.

Here is the letter from my constituent. I invite your comments.

A letter writer to the Star Tribune is quick to quip, the latest
government figures are out: 47 million Americans without health
insurance, nearly one-sixth of the country.

The writer was referring to the August 28, 2007 Census Report which
reported 47.0 million were uninsured in America.

Ever since the U.S. Census Bureau released its August 26, 2004 report on
the nation’s uninsured population, politicians have used the data to make
health insurance policy decisions, and single-payer activists have used
the data to lobby for government-mandated or administered national health insurance.

By the Bureau’s own admission, however, the data they reported
was incorrect: The number of uninsured was greatly overstated.

So while, Census Bureau officials have acknowledged the uninsured number
is inflated because the Bureau reports as “uninsured” those adults and
children who are eligible for Medicaid and the State Children’s Health
Insurance Program (SCHIP) but are not enrolled. Individuals such as the
letter writer use this once again inaccurate data to get a gut reaction.

A lot of times, being uninsured in Minnesota or America is often a
matter of choice. Most uninsured people either can afford health insurance or
qualify for government-sponsored health care programs; they just choose
not to enroll.

According to the 2006 Census report there are 8.5 million uninsured
people who make between $50,000 and $74,999 per year and 9.3 million who make
more than $75,000 a year. That’s roughly 17.8 million people who ought
to be able to afford health insurance because they make substantially
more than the median household income of $46,326. Another 10 million people
were reported who did not work at all.

A closer look reveals the Census data included more than 10.231 million
people who are not citizens.

Thus when you subtract non-citizens and those who can afford their own
insurance (28 million) but choose not to purchase it, about 19 million
people are left less than 7 percent of the population. But there are
reasons to believe that number is incorrect as well.

While the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) reported
Medicaid enrollment at 51 million in 2002, the Census tabulated only 33
million, a difference of 18 million people. This same kind of undercount
happened again in 2003: The CMS reported 2 million people became
eligible for Medicaid, but the Census Bureau recorded only a 350,000 increase in
Medicaid enrollment.

This is no minor statistical snag, as the Census Bureau reports there
are more than 15 million “uninsured” individuals in households with less
than $25,000 of income. Many of these individuals meet the income test for
Medicaid or SCHIP eligibility, but they are not technically enrolled. However, as soon
as a person, who is eligible for Medicaid, but not enrolled, enters the health care system through a hospital or clinic, he or she is automatically enrolled into the Medicaid plan.

Therefore, counting this population as “uninsured” distorts the data significantly,
since these individuals can enroll at any time and have their medical expenses paid whenever they require health care.

The social policy implications of this over count are important because
the inflated numbers send the wrong message to politicians. Given that
no one who is eligible for Medicaid can be correctly described as
uninsured, spending millions of dollars to enroll these people would do no one any
good at all. These folks are not uninsured.

Data from three federally sponsored national surveys–the Survey of
Income and Program Participation (SIPP), the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey
(MEPS), and the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS)–also seek to
make an accurate count of the nation’s uninsured population.

All three surveys conclude that at any given time during a year, being
uninsured is a much smaller problem than we are led to believe by the
Census data alone. For example, only about 30 percent of the non-elderly
population who become uninsured in a given year remain uninsured for
more than 12 months. Nearly 50 percent regain health insurance within four
months.

Writing in response to the 2004 Census data report, Dr. Kirk A. Johnson,
senior policy analyst for the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage
Foundation, highlighted the problem of taking the statistics at face
value. The Bureau’s numbers may make for eye-popping headlines, he
noted, but, “When it comes to health insurance, the Census Bureau’s own
statisticians argue that SIPP [Survey of Income and Program
Participation] provides a better measure of health insurance coverage than CPS
[CurrentPopulation Survey]. In a recent research report on the differences
between CPS and SIPP in this regard, Census Bureau statistician Shailesh
Bhandari changes from month to month, SIPP may be closer to the truth.

“In short,” wrote Johnson, “the CPS data provide an incomplete picture
on poverty and health insurance in America. Policymakers would be well
advised to look to other data, such as SIPP, to gauge what actually
happens to people who fall into poverty or lose their health insurance.
Only then will public policy be fully informed, and America can truly
have an intelligent debate on how to better address these problems.”

The fact is that the Census has repeatedly over the years underreported the number of people covered by health insurance meaning that more people have insurance than the report suggests. The Census also underreported the number of people covered by Medicare and Medicaid.

The Census Bureau’s own admission that the CPS “is not designed
primarily to collect health insurance data” speaks directly to the issue that the
methodology used to collect this important information is not up to the
task.

Moore, Clinton and Obama have used the lie about 40-some million
uninsured Americans to promote universal health insurance plans. Moore asserted in
his film that providing health insurance to everyone is a moral and even
religious obligation.

The issue of uninsured American is simply too important for its public
face to come from an indifferent and inaccurate survey and be swallowed
whole by politicians who don’t take the time to stop and evaluate
implications of their policy decisions that are driven by rhetoric and
incomplete facts and not by sound policy based on a factual review and
analysis.

Governor Tim Pawlenty sent a letter to Senate majority leader Larry Pogemiller and Speaker Margaret Anderson-Kelliher today outlining the conditions for a special legislative session.
The Governor is concerned about calling a special session before there is agreement on the entire agenda. If the Governor called a Special legislative session without such an agreement, the legislature could do anything it wished, and could stay in session for as long as it wished. This creates a high probability that the special session would become a vehicle for partisan politics.

Most Minnesota citizens are willing to see the legislature called back to deal with the I-35 Bridge collapse and flooding in Southeastern Minnesota. But they don’t want to see legislators engaged in partisan debate on issues for which there is no consensus.

A copy of the Governor’s letter to Legislative Leaders can be viewed at the link below. The Governor is right to insist upon a stipulated agenda before he calls a special session of the legislature.

PawlentyAug28th-1.pdf

The 2007 Legislative Session finished at 12 midnight on May 21. It was a flurry to finish voting on the Tax and transportation bills in the House of Representatives.

The Governor and Legislative leaders were not able to reach final agreement on the tax and budget bills. An over-ride attempt on the tax-laden transportation bill failed by about 5 votes. However, from comments that I have heard today, it appears that no special legislative session will be needed. This could be dicey. The Governor has major objections about one or two provisions in the Tax bill. But, he can’t get rid of them with a line item veto. If he vetoes the entire bill, cities would lose Local Government Aid increases which are in this bill. (For Northfield it would mean a loss of about $350,000).

The Governor will use the line item veto liberally (no pun intended .

Most of the other bills will be fine until next February when we convene again. The K-12 Education bill was not to my liking, and I voted against it. The bill increased statewide funding by $791 million, which is a 7% increase. However, the general ed formula increases only 2% the first year and 1% the second year. For Northfield, It’s about $550 per student over 2 years. By contrast, Minneapolis get about $1300 per student increase. Most of this is caused by special education formulas. The disparity between the school districts I represent and Minneapolis got larger with this bill, and I don’t think it’s fair. More money should have been put on the general formula, or in equalization aid.

There won’t be an income tax or gas tax increase. The metro sales tax for transit didn’t pass either.

I’ll prepare a more detailed summary of the Session and post it next week, after I recover from the long hours and catch up on my “other job” in the Northfield law office.

It was a productive session overall. I rate it as a 7 out of 10 as a first impression. Of course, we still have to study what was in all of the budget and tax bills that we passed yesterday.

I am writing this post at about 5 pm.(from the Senate floor) during debate on the Omnibus Education (K-12) Budget Bill. This major bill, which comprises about 43% of the state general fund budget, was passed out of Rules committee late last night (without paper copies even available to committee members or the public). The bill was given it 2nd reading at about 7 am. this morning, and now we are debating final passage.

Our staff and members of the Education committee have not had time to even study everything which is in the bill. Apparently, there were secret meetings between House and Senate DFL’ers over the past week. A conference committee which had been appointed earlier has not met for about 2 weeks because the Senate leadership failed to set budget targets for the education bill.

Earlier today, we passed other budget bills (Higher Education, Jobs and Economic Development, State Departments, and Health and Human Services Budget bills) which were passed in the same manner by the DFL Rules committee last night. We are also going to vote on a new Omnibus Tax bill later today that was moved to the Senate floor in the same manner.

The Governor and Legislative leaders have not agreed on Budget targets, and this has caused the DFL majority in the Senate to create new budget bills (out of unrelated House files), which they intend to send to the Governor in a “truth or dare” scenario. If the Governor vetoes these bills, as he did the first set of budget bills, we will have yet another special session.

The Governor has been very public about his position that a 10% increase in the biennial budget is a large enough, and that he won’t support any tax increase to fund state spending. It’s disappointing that legislative leaders have not engaged in negotiations with the Governor sooner. Even if we can reach a compromise on budget targets now (only 5 days left in the session), the process has been closed off to the public and minority members. The House of Representatives will not even have the chance to offer amendments to any of these bills.

I’m not surprised. Senate Republicans have been asking Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller when he was going to disclose budget targets. Senate rules provide that targets should be made public at the end of April. It was never done.

Much of what is happening is “inside baseball”. It’s procedural stuff, which is hard to explain to the general public. But the failure to maintain a fair process reduces trust levels among legislators, and causes an awful lot of frustration.

The Legislature has passed all of its budget bills except for Transportation, K-12 Education and the Tax Bill.

In effect, we have been spending money from the State’s check book, without knowing how much money was in the bank. Several of the Budget bills have been signed by Governor Pawlenty including:

1. Agriculture and Veteran Affairs (with several line item vetoes)
2. Public Safety, Corrections and Courts
3. Environment and Natural Resources (with several line item vetoes)

These bills generally spent less than the Governor’s recommended budget level.

The Governor has vetoed other major spending bills, mostly because the bills spent more than the state’s projected revenues, or because they included policy provisions which the Governor considered to be “Poison Pills”.

Sometimes it’s helpful to read the Veto messages issued by the Governor. The messages explain why the Governor vetoed such major bills. I’ve attached the veto messages next to the Budget Bills which the Governor has already vetoed. The higher education funding bill will most likely be vetoed later this week as well.

Here are the bills that Governor Pawlenty has vetoed:

1. State Agency Funding Bill Veto message linked here. (May 7, 2007)

2. Bonding Bill Veto message linked here. (May 1, 2007)

3. Jobs and Economic Development Veto message linked here. (May 7, 2007)

4. Health and Human Services Veto message linked here. (May 8, 2007)

5. Higher Education     Veto message linked here.   (May 9th, 2007)
The Governor told the Legislature what he would sign and what he would veto. Now he is keeping his word. Significantly, these bills spent much of the State’s surplus. In my opinion, the Senate and House majorities are trying to keep the K-12 Education bill until the end in order to justify the tax increases they want for Education. I think we should have decided what’s in the bank before we began spending from the checkbook. I will vote to uphold the Governor’s vetoes.

On Friday, the State Senate passed Conference Committee reports on several Budget Bills, including:

1. Environment and Natural Resources Budget Bill;

2. Economic Development Budget Bill;

3. State Government Budget Bill (which includes funding for the legislature, governor’s office, Dept. of Revenue, Employee Relations, Finance, Administration, and others;

4. Public Safety and Judiciary Budget Bill (this is the conference committee that I sat on which funded Courts, Public Safety, Corrections, Human Rights, Police Officers Board, Fire Marshall office, and others);

The Governor also signed the Agriculture and Veteran Affairs Budget bill on Friday, and will sign the Public Safety,Courts and Environment Budget Bills early next week. However, the Governor will most likely veto the Economic Development and State Government Bills. These bills included too many “poison pills” including:

a. A definition of “significant relationship” for purposes of state government domestic partner health insurance benefits;

b. Elimination of most of the Governor’s deputy and assistant commissioners;

c. Creation of a statutory “continuing resolution” appropriation authority which would continue funding state government when the legislature didn’t pass a budget on time;

d. Creation of a State “Poet Laureate” , which the Governor finds unnecessary;

e. Too much spending on the wrong projects in the Economic Development bill;

f. Banking too much savings on a Department of Revenue enforcement program, which is designed to collect unpaid income and sales taxes;

We also had a lengthy debate in the Senate about Budget targets. Pursuant to a Joint Resolution between the Senate and House, we should have set our Budget and Tax “Targets” by April 27th. A budget “target” is an agreed amount or cap for spending on each of the designated budgets. Generally, the legislature and governor stipulate on the budget  “target”  before the conference committees finalize their work.

But, the targets are not yet announced for the Higher Education, K-12 Education and Tax Bills. This makes it harder to know whether all of the other bills are properly funded, since we don’t know what amount the DFL controlled legislature wants the final state budget to be.

Most likely, this is an effort to link Education spending with an income tax increase. The DFL will suggest that anyone who opposes the tax increase, is not supporting necessary increases in education spending. This strategy is laying the groundwork for yet another special session, since the DFL knows that Governor Pawlenty will not sign a bill with an income tax increase. Legislative Republicans will uphold his veto.

The finish line for the legislative session is in sight. The question is, will there be overtime again?

I’m posting this at 5:50 pm on the Senate Floor. We’ve been sitting here for almost 2 and 1/2 hours visiting and discussing everything except the bill we started out debating, which was the Omnibus Public Safety Budget bill.

The bill became controversial because of a provision relating to “bad faith” claims by insureds against their insurance companies. The provision was supported by the Minnesota trial lawyers. The Insurance industry and the Governor opposed this policy provision and a veto of the entire Public Safety bill was likely. So, I made a motion to send the bill back to conference committee. It failed by 2 votes. But the discussion caused the majority leader to call for a 10 minute recess to discuss the issue further. The 10 minute recess lasted more than 2 and 1/2 hours.

So, as I was sitting in the Senate retiring room, eating popcorn with colleagues, I recalled the song about sitting on the dock of the bay ….. wasting time. Actually, the time out was a good opportunity for Senators to reconnect with each other. This doesn’t occur often enough around here during the hectic final days.

Good News ( now 6:10 pm)! The Senate just re-considered my motion to send the bill back to conference committee and passed it. We will remove the controversial provision from the conference report, and consider the issue as a separate bill. I will assist in crafting the compromise language between the trial lawyers and the insurance lobbyists. I hope that we can reach agreement which is fair to all sides.

The last four weeks of the legislative budget year are usually the busiest of times for legislators.

I have been appointed to the Public Safety and Judiciary Budget Conference committee. We met every day last week to discuss financial and policy issues involving our state prisons, the courts, Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Lab, the Sentencing Guideline Commission, Human Rights department, and others.

The Senate DFL Majority gave our committee a budget cap (or target) which is $6 million less than proposed by Governor Pawlenty. The last Senate offer to the House (delivered on Saturday night) underfunded the Department of Corrections by about $5.5 million and the BCA Lab by nearly $10 million. The BCA lab cannot keep up with criminal forensic analysis demands and has requested 20 new scientists. As of now, we are funding less than 10.
There is enough money to pay for public safety needs in the Governor’s budget. But, the Senate Majority has moved more money to education and public health care programs, and less for other state budget needs.

This is the time that the Governor and legislature have to be talking and compromising. I’m not sure that the Governor will sign a bill which under funds our state prisons, and crime lab by this much. Let’s hope that legislative leaders will be able to reach agreement on new targets with the Governor. There is still plenty of time to reach a compromise.

The legislature will be passing many of the budget bills this week. I will start sending out my email newsletter with more details and insider information this week. If you would like to be added to my email newsletter list, please contact my senate office.

Walter Williams, a nationally syndicated columnist, has written a piece, entitled “Phony Science and Public Policy”, which supports the arguments I have been making this legislative session on both the global warming and smoking ban issue. Here is a link to the article.