This is not what reform looks like: Faribault paper calls out legislators on end of Homestead Credit

Last week, House Tax Czar Greg Davids provoked controversy after West Central Tribune staff writer Carolyn Lange reported in Key lawmaker says tax credit elimination is right decision that the Preston lawmaker claimed that the idea belonged to Governor Dayton.

Not so, Dayton insisted.  Bluestem summed up the kerfuffle yesterday in Mr. Accountability: Greg Davids not ready to take hit on homestead credit property tax change.

Today, the leans-right Faribault Daily News editorial board notes in its summary of Elimination of Homestead Credit simply shifts burden:

The issue
The Legislature eliminated the Homestead Credit and instead replaced it with the Homestead Market Value Exclusion.

Our view
Although the move has been touted as “reform,” it’s not. It’s simply shifting more of the burden of paying for local services onto the local taxpayers.

The editorial concludes:

Since the session ended, some legislators have been hosting town hall meetings, calling the exclusion program “comparable” to the Homestead Credit, and a positive sign of “reform.”

Don’t let them fool you. It’s not. Faced with the choice between drastic cuts in spending (when cuts have already been in the lexicon of local government for several years now) or raising taxes just to maintain the budget they had a year ago, the choice will be obvious for counties and cities all over the state.

That’s not reform. It’s another refrain of the same old song: kicking the burden back to local government and using less state money for the direct benefit of the tax-paying public.

Now, Bluestem wants to be clear: although the Tax Czar thinks this move is the right thing to do, Greg Davids didn't utter his remarks at a town hall, but at Tuesday meeting with local elected officials in Willmar.

Thus, we're curious which self-diagnosed "reformers" in the Minnesota legislature have been making this claim. Are they in the Faribault area?

Across the state in Marshall, Independent editor Pers Peterson takes a good long look at how the issue wll play out in that area in A taxing situation. Highly recommended.