For the House survey, polltakers generally prefer budget cuts over tax increases as a budget solution albeit by a slight margin. (See related article in our newsletter this week…)
           

A more scientific poll was released at the end of August, right before the Minnesota Great Get-Together. The findings were part of the Minnesota Leadership and Role of Government Survey co-sponsored by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and Tunheim Partners, a strategic communications firm in Minneapolis. The poll surveyed likely voters in the November 2010 election.

With this poll, once again, the majority of respondents said state government should not raise taxes. Sixty-three percent advocated cutting overall government spending to balance the state budget. However, more than six out of 10 also said they’d be willing to personally pay more to improve services like K-12 outcomes, long-term care, and ensuring Minnesota’s infrastructure. (This is important to note, especially since a separate question has only 3% believing that ensuring seniors have access to long-term care facilities should be a top priority.) This disconnect - between revenues and expenditures - is not surprising - nobody wants to pay more of their own hard-earned money to something that is intangible, or worse yet, to something wasteful. But, people are willing to pay more if they can see the results - if they or people they care about will directly benefit. 

What is more difficult to “sell” is why new revenues (AKA tax increases) will be needed just to keep pace with the costs of providing long-term care AND the aging population - not making great improvements, just keeping pace. A few public policy folks “get it” and we just need to be sure we take advantage of our expertise to get others tuned in as well. 

One of my tasks during the past few weeks has been to meet with various candidates for governor to provide them with information and to offer to help them “tee up” older adult services as a key area needing care and financing reform. One of these gubernatorial candidates, Representative Paul Thissen (DFL-Mpls), “beat us to the punch” by putting together his own campaign YouTube video on the age wave.  Click here to watch the video. 

I am not specifically endorsing Paul by including his campaign link here, but I do want to give credit to this one candidate who is highlighting an issue that is not the most popular. Feel free to send it to your own legislators, or use snippets from it to pass on your own messages, or make your own video-message for your website. If you need background data, we have it all on our website advocacy page or you can call us.