Business leaders applaud Minnesota budget stalemate - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal:

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Gov. Tim Pawlenty and DFL legislative leaders failed to reach abudgegt deal, leaving Pawlenty to erase the remaining $2.7 billionm budget gap using unallotments. There will be spendin g cuts, the governor says, but no tax increases. “Givebn the economy, I think coming out of the sessio n without additional burdens being placex on job providers is anenormous victory,” said Charlise Weaver, executive director of the Minnesota Business Late Monday night, the DFL-controlled House and Senat passed a bill that woulsd balance the budget with $1 billion in tax increases and a one-timer accounting shift.
The bill included tax hikes for the liquor and creditcard Pawlenty, however, said he’ll veto the bill. “On the budget, certainlyg we fared pretty well,” said Tom vice president of government affairs for the Minnesotqa Chamberof Commerce. “The variety of tax increasee that were proposed by the Legislature did not thanks in large part tothe governor, and we’rre pleased with that outcome.
” The governor's stanc drew criticism from the Internationapl Union of Operating Engineers, which representsw 13,000 members in Minnesota and the "Minnesota’s working men and women will soon feel the pain of thesew massive budget cuts," said Local 49 businessz manager Glen Johnson in a statement, predictinbg that big employment cuts from schools and the like would follow the veto. Officials from the Nationapl Association of Industrial and Office properties a commercial and real estate development were pleased the session ended without increasingv statewide generalproperty taxes, something that had been discussede earlier in the session.
But sincse state aid to Minnesotwa cities could be among the items that gets cut by NAIOP members are still worried that locapl property taxes might rise as cities try to balance theirtown books. NAIOP leaders also were pleased that a proposeddlaw didn’t pass that woulc have given cities the authority to establish transportation or street-improvement districts to raise revenue for a variett of things ranging from transit stations to streetr lights, said Kaye Rakow, director of public policg for the Minnesota Chapter of NAIOP.
The proposed law wouldr have allowed cities to create districts withoug having to demonstrate specific benefits for thelandownerse (as they must for special assessments). The legislative session was a “defensive” one for smalkl businesses, said Mike Hickey, executive directo r of the National Federation ofIndependent Business’ Minnesota “We’re real happy we didn’gt have a massive tax increasd during a terrible recession. I thinkk that would only make things and it was a source of a lotof battling.
” But businessees groups didn't record any major proactive victories either, said Bloisd Olson, an executive vice president at Tuneim Partners in Bloomington and former co-publisher of Politics in Minnesota . "Thew real question is: Did we do anything that is goinv togrow jobs? I think the jury' s still out," he said. The Chambefr had supported proposals calling for business tax cuts or othe r incentives that would have helped spureconomif development. "I think most of those ideaws got left onthe table," Hesse said.