If you’re like us, we’ll bet you’ve been ambushed in recent days by friends, relatives, former neighbors, all asking the same question: what is Tim Walz is really like.
Judging from the glowing media reports since Vice President Kamala Harris selected Walz to serve as her running mate, it appears that Gov. Walz created a nearly perfect utopian state that must have been in ruins prior to his election as governor.
While Minnesotans may disagree about the trajectory of our state, it is important to arm ourselves with the relevant facts about what has and hasn’t occurred during the Walz administration.
Let’s start with taxes and government spending.
Better yet: don’t take our word for it. The CATO Institute produces an annual “Governor Report Cards” rating of all 50 states from a “small-government perspective.” It’s hard to imagine how Gov. Walz can explain away a fiscal grade of “F” except to say that there’s lots of room for improvement.
The CATO Institute’s most recent report card was issued before the governor and legislature squandered our $17.5 billion dollar budget surplus and yet saw fit to raise a significant number of taxes that we’re all just starting to pay.
The CATO Institute had this to say about the Walz administration: “From a small-government perspective, his tax policies have been particularly glaring. He has repeatedly pushed for tax hikes on high earners and businesses, which has seemed more like an effort to punish taxpayers than to fill any real need for more budget revenues.” And that’s just for starters…