‘I Can’t Stop Those Pointless Policies Coming From Washington’: Tim Walz Slams Trump’s Tariffs

Forbes Breaking News

During Wednesday's Minnesota State of the State, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) discussed Trump's tariff policies.

Transcript

00:00I know it's being worked on this chamber and earlier this year I issued an

00:03executive order to strengthen our state's capacity to investigate fraud by

00:08establishing a centralized fraud and financial crimes unit at the Bureau of

00:12Criminal Apprehension. I have a proposal before this chamber to use artificial

00:16intelligence to sniff out and catch the bad actors before they get their hands

00:21on the money and a proposal to increase criminal penalties for theft of public

00:25funds by 20 percent. Bottom line, I believe that when criminals try to steal

00:30public funding you don't cut the funding you stop the criminals and that's

00:34exactly what we do.

00:49We're also working to approve the efficiency and customer service across

00:53state agencies. It's not enough to just spend taxpayer money responsibly, you

00:58should also be spending it effectively. We've already made some strides in that.

01:02I look at just a little thing a couple weeks ago shopping at Cub, I can stop at a

01:07kiosk after the checkout and in three minutes I can renew the tabs for my car

01:11right at that spot. You don't have to go to the DMV, it saves us money, it's more

01:15efficient for you and it's government meeting people where they're at. People

01:19deserve more bang for their buck and that's exactly what this budget will

01:22deliver.

01:29Look, we're not the only ones that are undergoing scrutiny and looking at our

01:32budgets. Families across this state are sitting down at their kitchen tables

01:36trying to figure out how they're going to afford the president's tariff tax and I

01:40can't stop those pointless policies coming from Washington they're making

01:43everything more expensive but we can do a few things here to make those

01:46difficult conversations around that table just a little bit easier. This year

01:50I'm proposing an unprecedented tax cut for working people, a reduction in the

01:54statewide sales tax. We've never done this in our state's history but I will

01:58tell you it feels like there might not be a better time to do this. And make no

02:01mistake about it, unlike the president's tax cuts for the very wealthy, our tax cuts

02:07are fully paid for. We're doing it by closing loopholes that the wealthy used to

02:11avoid paying the taxes in the first place.

02:21Yes, and we're going to do this. Finally, we're going to ask the big health

02:25insurance companies to start paying their fair share with a reasonable

02:29increase

02:33a reasonable increase it hasn't been raised in decades on the surcharge that we

02:38already asked HMOs to pay. Even as the administration pushes for nearly one

02:44trillion dollars in cuts to Medicaid, which would shift the cost to states

02:48like Minnesota, we're making sure that that burden doesn't fall on working

02:52families, it can fall on the insurance companies.

02:56And we got about four weeks. We're going to get time to go through this line by line

03:04together, hammering out a final proposal that allows us to move forward as one

03:09Minnesota and the best place for kids to grow up. This budget was not written to

03:15please everyone. It was written to bring everyone to the table. And when we get there,

03:20we're going to have disagreements, no doubt. My progressive friends might have wished

03:25we were cutting a little less. My conservative friends might wish we were

03:29cutting a little bit more. My wife wishes that I would take the pay raise that was

03:33offered, but I turn it down.

03:34But this is how government's supposed to work.

03:38It's not supposed to be one old man sitting in the Oval Office sending out

03:42middle-of-the-night tweets that shot markets into freefall. It's not supposed to

03:46be a bunch of 20-somethings unelected showing up at federal agencies and firing

03:50everyone. It's not supposed to be chaos and destruction.

03:57It's supposed to be good people elected by their neighbors with differing opinions

04:02coming together to negotiate in good faith. Our legislature is narrowly divided,

04:08but I believe we can unify around those ideas. Security, opportunity, freedom. I

04:13believe we can continue to make Minnesota the best place to live, work, and raise a family.

04:26And I think we got a chance. I think we got a chance, and I believe we can show people,

04:31folks across the nation who are watching, that we can still work together to improve lives.

04:36Let's show the world what servant leadership really looks like. Thank you, and God bless each and every one of you,

04:42and God bless the great state of Minnesota. Let's get to work.

04:45Let's get to work.

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