Dale Wetzel reports:

Gov. John Hoeven wanted the Legislature to boost North Dakota’s general fund spending by 24 percent. So far, for its majority Republicans, that was just a place to start the bidding. 

When lawmakers return to the Capitol on Wednesday after a midsession break, they’ll have to find a way to reconcile some of the mammoth spending increases and tax cuts that wriggled through the House and Senate in the session’s first 32 days.

So far, the two chambers have endorsed proposals that would boost state general fund spending to $2.68 billion over two years, which is an increase of almost $692 million, or 34.8 percent, from current spending levels. Hoeven’s budget proposal suggested a mere $2.47 billion.

Lawmakers have also approved tax cuts, exemptions and other breaks that would reduce state general fund revenue collections by $201 million over two years, including a sales tax exemption for heating fuels, an income tax cut for married couples, tax reductions for pull tabs and bingo cards, and an overhaul of state oil taxes.

This is insanity! The taxpayers paid in $500 million too much and the legislature comes in with $692 million.  I haven’t seen too much legislation that is impresive on the spending side or the tax cut side.  Where has this money been diverted to?  I guess mostly to existing government programs that are always in dire need of something! Whatever.

There are two choices for the state; spend the excess tax revenue or return it to the taxpayer. I think the surplus should be returned to those who paid it.  After all it is their money in the first place. However with our modern complex tax system, where everything is taxed, at different rates and levels I don’t see a “fair” way to return the excess tax revenue to those who paid without losing a large percentage of it figuring out who gets what, and how much.

So the debate should and I think already has shifted to “What are we going to spend the money on?” Every state agency has asked for an increase to their budgets, or money for deferred maintenance or improvement projects. 

Many of these requests are probably warranted, but in these “boom times” I think ND is creating a budget that it cannot maintain in the future.

What I would like to seen done with the state surplus is a proposal that would benefit all the residents of North Dakota.  A proposal where it doesn’t matter if you own your own house, or rent an apartment, and it doesn’t matter if you have 10 kids or none, or if you make a million dollars or none. What kind of proposal could that be?

I would like to invest the surplus in wind energy production.  It’s no secret that our appetite for energy is growing and our means of production are diminishing.  North Dakota could be the leader in energy production and the main supplier of electricity for the rest of the nation, and export some to Canada as well. North Dakota ranks first in the union for wind energy production potential.  Electricity is the future in clean energy. 

So what’s the problem?  The problem is infrastructure. North Dakota doesn’t have enough of it.  Once electricity is created it has to be used, or it has to be transported where it can be used.  The state needs to build the infrastructure where it is possible to send mass quantities of electricity out of state.  Curently if we do produce it we are limited to the amount that can be sent out.

Secondly the state needs to partner with a company like MDU where farmers (who never have enough money) can generate electricity with a wind turbine on their land and sell it to MDU, which in turn can sell it to their customers or new customers.  The legislature should be working on a program where the number of wind turbines vastly increases.  Whether that is in tax breaks, subsidies, I am not sure. 

If the state can jumpstart this industry, it will add high paying jobs, and tax revenue for the state.  With the new tax revenue is when the legislature should consider some more appropriate program budget increases and additional tax breaks for ND residents.