Rep. Downey's Constituent Update Filled with False, Misleading Claims

Last Friday, Representative Keith Downey provided his constituents with a  recapping the 2012 legislative session. The update, however, is filled with several false and misleading claims—everything from understating the impact of budget cuts to overstating poll results.

Context (and in some cases facts) is needed to set the record straight on Rep. Downey’s claims. He begins by talking about the accomplishments of the Republican-controlled legislature:

Thought it would be good to provide a bit of an update and some perspective on what we've accomplished over the last two years.

Rep. Downey and legislative Republicans have little to tout by way of accomplishments. Rep. Downey and the extreme majority did raise property taxes by cutting a homeowner tax credit, borrow billions from our children and shut down the state to protect corporate tax breaks at the expense middle-class Minnesota families.

In fact, in 2012, the Republican-controlled legislature accomplished so little they set a record for the fewest number of bills signed into law since 1869, despite working at the State Capitol for the second-longest number of calendar days since statehood — becoming the biggest do-nothing legislative session in modern Minnesota history.

Rep. Downey continues:

Well, as everyone is aware we faced a significant budget deficit a year in half ago — $5.1 billion when all forecasting was done…. In the end we had a balanced budget and fortunately we were blessed to have a $1.2 billion surplus now. So, we went from a $5 billion deficit to a $1 billion surplus and I think we can all take heart in that.

What Rep. Downey and many of his Republican colleagues don’t say is that Minnesota faces a projected $2 billion deficit in the next 2 years as a result of the short-term budget gimmicks Republicans fell back on to balance the budget. This doesn’t include the additional $2 billion the legislature owes our schools.  As a result, Minnesota is still $4 billion in the hole as a result of the short-sighted gimmicks of the Republican legislature.

Rep. Downey then talks about the priorities of the Republican legislature:

Secondly, we took a look at the entire state budget and tried to set priorities … focus on the things that are most important to Minnesotans, most important to us in this tough economic time...

For the last two years, Rep. Downey and the Republican-controlled legislature have focused on anything but the most important priorities to Minnesotans. In fact, Republicans have consistently focused on the wrong priorities – like divisive constitutional amendments.

Another eyebrow-raising claim made by Rep. Downey comes later in the video when talking about the drastic cuts Republicans made in the Health and Human Services budget:

The second major area where we were able to realize significant budget savings was the Health and Human Services arena… I don't think we realized any compromise or sacrifice in terms of what we're providing. I don't think we let down a lot of folks in terms of the spending priorities that we were focused on...

In the final budget agreement that ended the Republican-forced state government shutdown, $1 billion was cut from the Health and Human Services budget, primarily through cuts to those who care for seniors or people with disabilities.

While Rep. Downey might like to think Republicans didn’t “sacrifice” important services or “let down” Minnesotans who rely on life-dependent services — Rob Gendreau knows differently.  Rob suffered a traumatic brain injury.  His mom now serves as his full-time personal care attendant. Not only did Rep. Downey and the cuts his Republican colleagues voted for put many of the services Gendreau relies on in jeopardy, but they even cut his mother’s only source of income by 20 percent.

Rep. Downey continues, this time overstating poll results:

Polls around the state indicate that people are a little tired of the, "gee we either have to raise taxes or we have to cut spending" debate.

This is false. In fact, polls show that a “strong majority” of Minnesotans prefer the balanced budgeting approach of both increases in revenue and spending reductions.

Rep. Downey then highlights both tax bills the Republican legislature sent to Governor Dayton in the 2012 session, both of which were vetoed. In 2011, the extreme Republican legislature cut millions of dollars in Local Government Aid [HF42] and eliminated the Market Value Homestead Credit [HF 20, special session] — raising property taxes and making life harder on middle-class families. But instead of offering tax relief for homeowners and renters in 2012, Republicans doubled down and focused on even bigger corporate tax giveaways.

Unfortunately, both of the Republican tax bills did nothing to create jobs or offer tax relief for the homeowners and renters.

Rep. Downey continues:

Overall when you think about how tough our budget situation was — our ability to prioritize education, fund it adequately and attack some of the areas of reform that we need, I'd say overall it was a positive.

Sadly, school administrators, teachers and students from around the state would disagree. Minnesota ranks 47th in the nation in class size, which means only three states have larger class sizes, and Minnesota is among the top 10 states making the deepest cuts to education. Rep. Downey even voted to cut funding for special education by $48 million. [HF934]

Rep. Downey continues on education funding:

One of the things we have to come back to and correct is the accounting shifts that we imposed on the school districts. We did make some progress paying those back, the legislature again proposed paying back more of those shifts, the Governor disagreed and vetoed our bill.

Again, Rep. Downey fails to tell the true story.

Last year, instead of producing a balanced budget to close the state’s long-term deficit, legislative Republicans chose a short-term fix and borrowed $700 million from our schools and children, leaving them with a $2 billion IOU and no plan to pay it back.

This year, Democrats, including the Governor, supported paying back our children responsibly and in full with revenue raised by closing corporate tax loopholes that allow corporations to hide their profits overseas and avoid paying state taxes.

But instead of closing corporate tax loopholes to pay back our children, Rep. Downey and his Republican colleagues chose to raid newly filled budget reserves, which was not only fiscally irresponsible but would’ve only paid back our children a fraction of what they’re owed.

While Rep. Downey’s video certainly says a lot in 15 minutes, not very much of what he states is factually accurate.