Fiscal Fitness

Fiscal Fitness is the MCFE blog. Check here regularly as we highlight national policy development and new research relevant to ongoing state tax and fiscal policy debates, provide our take on reports and studies released by agencies and other organizations, react to articles and editorials -- in short offer our thoughts and perspective on anything that captures our interest (or gets our dander up).

2024 

• Sessions End: 2024 Tax Bill Stripped for Parts, Reassembled as Legislative Death Star (5/20/24)

• Minnesota Teachers Fundraise for Forensic Audit of Pension System (3/19/24)
  

• The 2024 Session Isn’t Getting Off to a Great Start (2/9/24)

•  Feeding an Unaccountable State Government?   A New Disturbing Allegation in the “Feeding Our Future” Scandal (2/5/24)

2023

• Initial Forecast Reaction: "You Say Potato, I Say Potahto" (12/7/23)
• Tax Deal Reached
• Tax Conference Committee Update: 5/15
• Tax Conference Committee Update 5/14: The Mother of All Tax Bills Begins to Take Shape
• Conference Committee Update 5/12: All is Most Definitely Not Sunshine and Rainbows
• Worldwide Post Mortem
• Tax Conference Committee Update 5/9
• Conference Committee Update: Senate Retracts Its Support for Worldwide Combined Reporting
• Initial Reaction: Senate Omnibus Tax Bill
• Initial Reaction: House Tax Bill
• Initial Reaction: Budget Targets
• Reaping the Whirlwind of Honest Budgeting
• Pension Commission Hears Report on Plan Health: The More Things Change...
• A Closer Look: The Governor's 2023 Budget Proposal
• A Bill to Create the Perception of Chronically Inadequate Tax Revenues

2022

• Instant Forecast Reaction: "Sweet Fancy Moses"
• New Release: How Does Minnesota Compare?
• Would a Full Exclusion of Social Security Income Keep Minnesotans Here?
• Same Stalemate, Different Venue
• Supplemental Budget 2.0-In for a Penny, In for $9.25 Billion
• February Forecast: Whatever Goes Up Must Come Down...But Not Yet
• $73 Billion...So Far

2021

• Minnesota's Economic Forecast: Decision-Making in a Time of Plenty
• What Minnesota's "Best States for Business" Rank is Telling Us
• The Sudoku Puzzle in Minnesota's FY 22-23 Budget
• Feds to the Rescue?
• New Report: Comparison of Individual Income Tax Burdens by State
• New Release: "How Does Minnesota Compare?"
• A Flip to "Plenty" Still Comes with Plenty of Budget-Creating Challenges
• Leave the Economic Forecast Alone
• Governor's Budget Released-Familiar Session Plot Line to Commence

2020

• Federal Aid Underneath the Tree
• Forecast Whiplash
• Comparison of House and Senate COVID Relief Fund Distribution to Local Governments
• COVID Economic and Process Update
• Legislature Passes Covid Response, Federal Aid Projections, UI Trust Fund Not as Robust as Portrayed
• Governor Releases Supplemental Budget 2.0
• Federal and State Fiscal Responses to Coronavirus
• The Forecast Inflation Debate: There's More Here Than Meets the Eye
• How Does Minnesota Compare-A Federal Government Reliance Postscript

2019

• 2019 Edition of "How Does Minnesota Compare?" Released
• New Release: Comparison of Individual Income Tax Burdens by State
• Tax Incidence Karma
• New Release: Minnesota's Prices of Local Government
• Battle of the State Finance Commissioners
• Time for an LGA Renaissance? (Part 2)
• Time for an LGA Renaissance? (Part 1)
• New MCFE Issue Brief on Determining the Fate of the Minnesota Provider Tax

2018

• 2018 Edition of How Does Minnesota Compare Released
  
• Credit Rating Agencies: Color Them less Than Impressed
• A Special Session for Tax Conformity Would Do More Harm Than Good
• Rubbing the Magic Lamp of Foreign Earnings
• A Predestined Emergency
• Curb Your Enthusiasm
  
• MNLARS and the People Problem
• State and Local Fiscal Benchmarking Studies Released
• Impacts of the TCJA on Minnesota Individual Income Filers
• A "Once a Generation" Challenge Awaits State Tax Committees

2017

• Implications of GOP Tax Plan on Minnesota Taxpayers
• An Annotated Rebuttal to State Pension Plan Directors' Star Tribune Commentary
• No, Minnesota Government Has Not Gotten Cheaper
• Apocalypse Not-Thanks to Local Control
• Minnesota Individual Income Tax System Now Most Progressive in the Nation
• State Agency Budget Fight is Symptomatic of a Bigger Problem
• Minnesota's Pension Debate: More "1984" than 2017

2016

• A Profile in Shamelessness
• How Should We Measure and Define Public Pension "Trouble"?
• Can Government Be Too Transparent?
• Is the "Drafting Error" Justification for the Tax Bill Veto Legit? You Make the Call!
• The Fate of the 2016 Tax Bill Rests on Two Really Quirky Issues
• Even After the Sticks and Stones, Minnesota Commercial Property Tax Burdens Rank High
• State Business Property Tax Relief: What the Tax Incidence Study Really Says
• Another Salvo in the Tax Flight Debate
• Minnesota's Most Fiscally Sustainable Cities
• The New Homestead Property Tax Burden Report: "Do You Deserve a Break Today?"

2015

• Add "Self Reliant" to the List of Minnesota's Endearing Economic Qualities
• A New (and Better) Study Informing Minnesota Business Tax Competitiveness
• Some Questions for the LGA Fan Club
• On Commissioner Raises and Government Excellence
• The Pitfalls of Dedicated Revenues: State Auditor Edition
• Minnesota Findings from Our 2014 50-State Property Tax Comparison Study
• The Price of Highway Excellence is $12 Billion (Give or Take Several Billion)
• The "Devil's Dictionary Guide" to the End of Session
• Other Messages in the 2015 Tax Incidence Study
• Can Value Capture Make a Dent in our Transportation Funding Needs?
• What's the "Price of Local Government" in Your County?

2014

• The Big Crowd Out
• Creative Government Budget Fixes: Self-Loansharking Edition
• Why Local Aids Are Never a Magic Bullet for Controlling Property Taxes
• Having Our Cake and Eating It Too?
• More Adventures in Property Tax Misunderstanding and Misreporting
• Going Dutch
• The Pitfalls of Social Engineering Through the Tax Code
• Choose Your Very Own Tax and Spending Reality
• How Other States' Pension Crises Impact Minnesota's Own State and Local Budget Debates
• The $10 Billion "Non- Issue"
• Public Corruption, Transparency, and the Payback of Being a Good Government State
• Next Up: OPEB
• On-line Lottery Debate Raises Bigger Tax Policy Questions
• Redistributing Taxes Just for the Heck of It
• MCFE Releases New Educational Guide on Public Pensions in Minnesota
• "A Gigantic Financial Tapeworm"
• A Tale of Two Pension Reports
• Do MNsure's Problems Reflect Bigger Government Workforce Problems?

2013

• A National Postscript on Minnesota's 2013 Tax Changes
• Putting Truth into "Truth in Taxation"
• Another Captain Renault Moment for the Minnesota Property Tax
• Why Investment Returns Tell You Absolutely Nothing About the Sustainability of Public Pensions
• Tax Climate Groundhog Day
• Business Taxation, Special Sessions, and the Jet Stream
• Wanted: Better Reporting on Labor Contracts
• Finding Refuge on the Iceberg that Sunk the Titanic
• Sifting Through Pension Rhetoric In Search of Pension Truth
• Minnesota Retains Title of "Least Miserable State"
• Trust But Verify
• New MCFE Issue Brief: "Minnesota's Troubled Price of Government"
• Another Chapter in the Annals of Pension Chutzpah
• Three Property Tax Memes That Can't Go Away Soon Enough
• Minnesota's "Price of Government": Where Theoretical Income Turns into Personal Income
• $1.4 Billion for a Problem that Doesn't Exist
• Stanford University: Property Tax Hatred is Good for You
• Welcome to the Minnesota Center for Fiscal Excellence