Minnesota legislative Republicans are dropping their call for about $200 million in tax cuts in hopes they can avert a government shutdown and get DFL Gov. Mark Dayton to abandon his call for $1.8 billion in tax increases.
"This is a major compromise," said House Speaker Kurt Zellers, R-Maple Grove. Both he and Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch. R-Buffalo, said relinquishing the tax cuts, a bedrock campaign promise, was a tough move that some of their GOP colleagues do not support.
Gov. Mark Dayton will share his reaction at 3 p.m. Thursday.
Although it was hard for Republicans to give up their call for tax cuts, the limited time offer -- it expires on Monday at 5 p.m. -- does not increase overall state spending from their bottom line $34 billion goal. Dayton wants to spend about $2 billion more.
Their continuing stalemate may lead to government shutdown if they cannot come together by the end of the month.
But Republicans said their offer Thursday was an example of how hard they are working to avoid that.
Koch and Zellers said there were "extremely" tough conversations inside Republican circles about dropping the measures to cut taxes. Koch said that her number two -- Deputy Senate Majority Leader Geoff Michel -- told her that he may not vote for the measure when if it came to the Senate floor.
"I'm going to get that vote," she said with a smile.
