Reporting on State Politics and Government
Reporting on State Politics and Government
Capitol View Digest reporting on state and politics and government
| | The Daily Digest for August 19, 2019 | | Posted at 6:36 a.m. by Bill Wareham |
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Good morning and welcome to a new week. Get it started right with your Monday Digest. 1. Court loss could cut state's trust tax revenue. Minnesota’s tax agency estimates a $100 million short-term exposure from a court loss over the way it had taxed certain trust accounts for decades after a ruling the state can’t appeal any further. The estimated fallout was documented publicly for the first time in required notice the state prepared in anticipation of an early August bond sale. The Department of Revenue confirmed to MPR News that it expects to collect $33.4 million less each year in trust-related taxes and, in the next two years, potentially award $66.8 million in refunds, plus interest, for taxes that were already paid. Department officials wouldn’t provide the analysis used to produce the estimate, but said they estimate between 500 and 1,000 trusts per year are potentially affected by the decision. All of it stems from a long-running dispute over the way Minnesota classified “resident” trusts for tax purposes. (MPR News)
2. Police use-of-force panel meets following protest. A day that started with protest ended with an hourslong discussion of procedure and policy as a new state panel on police use of force met for the first time Saturday at the Minnesota Capitol. The 16-member working group was announced last month and led by Attorney General Keith Ellison and Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington. "The purpose of the group is to reduce police-involved deadly force encounters," Ellison said as the meeting fully got underway after noon. "Whether or not such an encounter is deemed to be justified or not — the goal is to reduce them, to reduce any interactions where we lose people." The scope of the panel includes how such incidents are investigated and prosecuted, and potential policy and procedural changes that could reduce deadly encounters. The makeup of the panel drew pushback from the start, as protesters — including family members of Minnesotans who died in encounters with police — filled the meeting room and prevented the hearing from beginning at its scheduled 9 a.m. time. They said the panel needed representatives of families affected by police shootings, and that the group was too heavily skewed toward lawmakers and law enforcement. (MPR News)
3. American Jews caught in middle of Trump-Omar dispute. A rabbi in St. Louis Park, Minn., was more than six thousand miles from Jerusalem when he heard the Israeli government decided to bar two Muslim members of Congress from making an official visit to the Jewish state. But within minutes, his phone was flooded with calls from congregants, local Jewish agencies and lay leaders who plunged into what had become a familiar routine: Figuring out how to respond to yet another political battle over their congresswoman, representative Ilhan Omar, and Israel. “There was very much an attitude of, ‘oh, here we go again,’” said Rabbi Avi S. Olitzky. “The pendulum keeps swinging left and right, left and right. It’s dizzying and exhausting and distracting. Emotions are raw.” For months, American Jews in Ms. Omar’s district and beyond have found themselves enmeshed in a deeply uncomfortable debate over the growing distance between traditional liberal American Jewish values and the political realities of an Israeli government that’s embraced hard-line policies and a deep alliance with President Donald Trump. (New York Times)
4. Trade war costing Minnesota consumers, businesses. As the U.S. trade war with China expands, American consumers already are feeling the sting and it stands to get worse. Virtually all economists agree that retail price increases by national players such as Minnesota-based Target Corp. and Best Buy will quickly follow if President Donald Trump acts on threats to apply new tariffs to $300 billion worth of Chinese imports. Last week, Trump dropped some products from his latest tariff list “based on health, safety, national security and other factors.” He delayed imposition of 10% tariffs on other products from Sept. 1 to Dec. 15. The move was meant to offer temporary relief to worried stock market investors and businesses that depend on Christmas shoppers for their livelihood. But the stock market crashed anyway based on signs of recession in the bond market and concern over the trade war. Analysis from financial consultants Gordon Haskett Research Advisors shows cost increases already have taken hold in a typical shopping basket of 76 regular items from Target and Walmart. Target’s shopping basket cost roughly 5% more in June than it did in October 2018, Gordon Haskett said. Despite the president repeatedly saying that the Chinese are paying the protective tariffs imposed by his administration, “the money is coming from Americans, not the Chinese,” said Robert Kudrle, an international trade specialist at the University of Minnesota. “Essentially, the president is pitting Americans against each other.” ( Star Tribune)
5. 3M pollution still a liability around the nation. 3M’s pollution problems in Minnesota appear to be receding. But nationwide, they are rising like the floodwaters of the Mississippi River. An estimated 35 federal bills take aim at 3M Co.’s chemical pollution, and 41 states have complained that it’s in their groundwater. Wall Street analysts have downgraded 3M’s stock, citing potential legal liabilities of up to $6 billion. 3M, they fear, is about to be injured by its own creation. “From a legal standpoint, this is like an octopus — lots of arms, lots of outcomes, lots of issues to decide,” said Nick Heymann, an analyst with the advisory firm William Blair & Co. ( Pioneer Press) | |
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