Good morning, and welcome to Wednesday, the 81st anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Wow, the state budget surplus has grown.MPR’s Dana Ferguson reports: Strong tax collections and lower-than-projected spending have boosted Minnesota’s projected budget surplus to $17.6 billion, Minnesota Management and Budget said Tuesday. Minnesota remains susceptible to headwinds beyond its borders. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, high inflation and the Federal Reserve’s moves to raise interest rates have weakened the state’s real GDP outlook, while job growth is expected to slow amid an expected mild recession, Laura Kalambokidis, Minnesota’s state economist, said following the release of the budget numbers. Still, Minnesota Management and Budget Commissioner Jim Schowalter said the state was well positioned to manage a downturn. Minnesota’s rainy day funds are brimming and expected to get topped off again with surplus money, as required by law. “Minnesota remains in a strong financial position with a solid labor market,” Schowalter said. “Despite the headwinds that I mentioned earlier, inflation, high interest rates, slowing growth and continued concerns around COVID, Minnesota remains resilient and our budget outlook bright.”
You know who had a good day yesterday? Tim Walz.Brian Bakst has a look: “Oh by the way, the Vikings are 10-2. Look at that. Pretty good day. And no strike,” Walz said. “So good work.” The governor’s victory lap might be understandable, given the past few months were filled with campaign critiques of his stewardship of the state, including its finances. Now he’s on the doorstep of a second term, has lots of money to work with and can count on newly empowered DFL allies in the House and Senate. Voters, he said, want results. “So I think there should be some relatively high expectations that this is an effective legislative session that addresses the issues most important to them but also has a vision around addressing the big issues like climate change and health care access,” Walz said. There is no shortage of plans on the governor’s to-do list. “I’m excited,” he said. “Now's the time to lower costs for families, now's the time to reduce and get some money back in their pockets. Now's the time to make sure that those classrooms are funded with the things that they need to do to make our kids the best qualified workforce in the world.” Walz is also discussing tax rebate checks of up to $2,000 per family, child care tax credits, Social Security tax exemptions and property tax buydowns.
The Minnesota Nurses Association and more than a dozen hospitals in the Twin Cities and Twin Ports reported tentative agreements on new three-year labor contracts Tuesday, averting a walkout by thousands of nurses that was scheduled to start in just days.MPR’s Michelle Wiley reports: The union said it has reached tentative deals with Children’s Minnesota, North Memorial, Allina Health, M Health Fairview and HealthPartners in the Twin Cities, as well as Essentia Health and St. Luke’s in Duluth. It’s recommending that its members vote to ratify the agreements, and has called off the strike that was scheduled to start Sunday. The union said the new contracts include pay raises of 18 percent over three years for Twin Cities nurses, and 17 percent for nurses in the Twin Ports. It also said the agreements contain “unprecedented language” giving nurses a say in staffing issues — something Mary Turner, president of the Minnesota Nurses Association and a nurse at North Memorial, said was the “most important part.” That includes language that would “prevent reductions in staffing levels without consensus between nurses and management; help protect nurses from discipline when they raise concerns about unsafe assignments; and to trigger reviews of staffing levels by nurses and management in response to key measures of patient and nurse wellbeing and outcomes,” the union reported.
A key deadline hits next week for the release of government records regarding the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.MPR’s Tim Nelson reports: It’s the latest round of a decades-long battle over full disclosure of what the government did and didn’t know about Kennedy’s murder and his killer, Lee Harvey Oswald. The 1992 President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act required all the records to be collected and nearly all made public. It also created 5-member the Assassination Records Review Board to weigh disclosure of the most sensitive information, like secret government informants and agents. The only living remaining member of that board is U.S. District Court Judge John Tunheim, who presides from a bench at the Minneapolis federal courthouse. He spent his first two years as a judge wrapping up the ARRB’s 1998 report on the records. They’ve since been released in dribs and drabs in 2017, 2018 and 2021. “This would be an important move for transparency and finality to the ordeal and the information that we redacted I have largely seen. It doesn't contain bombshells of any kind. But it is important to tell the American people that everything has been released,” Tunheim said.
The Associated Press reports:Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock defeated Republican challenger Herschel Walker in a Georgia runoff election Tuesday, ensuring Democrats an outright majority in the Senate for the rest of President Joe Biden’s current term and capping an underwhelming midterm cycle for the GOP in the last major vote of the year.
Former President Donald Trump’s company is guilty of tax fraud.NPR reports: A jury in Manhattan has found former President Donald Trump's company guilty of a long-running criminal tax fraud scheme that lasted into his presidency. Though Trump and his company have repeatedly faced criminal investigations, this case marks the first time his company has been charged, tried, and convicted on criminal charges. Trump built his political brand, in large part, on his claim that he was an aggressive and successful businessman. In all, the jury found two entities controlled by Trump guilty on 17 counts of criminal tax fraud and falsifying business records. The maximum penalty is $1.6 million. "This was a case about lying and cheating, false documents to the aid of evading taxes for the benefit of individuals and the corporation," Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg said, speaking with reporters after the verdict was delivered.
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