Eggs For The Omelet
By Mitch Berg
The Warehouse tax is going to cause all sorts of damage – and some GOP legislators want to do something about it:
Reps. Tim Kelly of Red Wing and Pat Garofalo of Farmington said lawmakers must act soon because the looming sales tax on warehousing services is already prompting businesses to delay planned warehouse expansions.
But the DFL could scarcely care less:
But a spokesman for the Democratic-Farmer-Labor governor dismissed the request as “a stunt, not a solution.
“The Legislature is coming back more than a month before this tax would take effect, which is more than enough time, if revenues permit, to review and possibly revise this tax,” Bob Hume, Dayton’s deputy chief of staff, said in a statement.
Hume is speaking like a bureaucrat and party stooge who thinks the private sector is the same of a hip club in Northeast Minneapolis.
The tax is already killing jobs!
Kelly said two large Red Wing businesses are delaying expansions because of the tax, and the prospect of losing those new jobs calls for quick action.
Stephen Lawrence, president and CEO of Lawrence Transportation Services in Red Wing, said a 6.5 percent sales tax on his company’s services would put them at a competitive disadvantage with firms in neighboring states, none of which has a warehousing tax. He said his business is considering building facilities in Wisconsin.
Governor Dayton was apparently waiting for Alida Messinger to tell Carrie Lucking what he was supposed to say about this.
June 28th, 2013 at 2:25 pm
Businesses are considering the financial benifits of bailing out of Minnesota, while back in the free world Boeing is doubling down their $Billion investment in South Carolina.. http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/2013/04/09/boeing-to-invest-1-billion-to-expand-south-carolina-787-factory/
Better still, not one, stinking, union thug anywhere on the horizon.
Better still, a second arms manufacturer is relocating here from The People’s Republic of Connecticut. Welcome Stag Arms SC!
June 28th, 2013 at 6:19 pm
“The Legislature is coming back more than a month before this tax would take effect, which is more than enough time, if revenues permit, to review and possibly revise this tax,” Bob Hume, Dayton’s deputy chief of staff, said in a statement.
Only in the Unreality-based Community (aka the DFL) is this considered a reasonable response. You tell me do businesses plan on taxes so that they can make a change in physical facilities in a single month? Honestly, no sensible company who would see their entire profit margin vaporized by this tax increase would gamble on waiting until the DFL can finally get around to thinking about what they did.
June 28th, 2013 at 8:06 pm
Nerd, I thought the same thing. The DFLers have so little understanding of how a business works and how decisions are made. They think it is week to week, and then the changes occur overnight. A couple of years ago, someone put our a report on Minn legislators professions. Most Republicans has real world jobs. Most Democrat Minnesota legislators had only gov’t office as their careers.
Now, Red Wing Shoes said their alternative site is in Missouri. If Scott Walker’s team is on their toes, they will get a package together this week to assist with a new warehouse across the river from Red Wing. That would be a big win for him.
June 29th, 2013 at 7:13 am
There are democrats who think all we have to do is take care of education so businesses can have trained workers and that makes them pro business. The democrats don’t know they haven’t taken care of education.
So what exactly have they done to make businesses to want to stay here? General Mills claims they can go out and recruit people because they say Minnesota has gay marriage. Yet General Mills is still looking to cut costs or other businesses will eat into their sales which will cost them profits.
So when Red Wing shoes makes that big warehouse in Missouri or Wisconsin good for them yet Democrats won’t make the connection to how they cost Minnesota jobs and tax revenue.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
June 29th, 2013 at 10:46 am
Is Red Wing guaranteeing they will build if the proposed taxes are negated?
July 1st, 2013 at 9:25 am
Will General Mills stay here forever now that we have Sodomite marriage?
July 1st, 2013 at 1:12 pm
Hey Emery: that is a stupid question.
Why? Because they are simply a single example of negative incentives at work.
Do you have a hard time understanding that? I bet you do.
July 16th, 2013 at 8:39 am
[…] about such things) about Navarre packing up shop and heading for Texas. Or Red Wing Shoes and Laurence Transportation moving their warehouse plans across the Mississippi. Or the other warehouses around Minnesota that […]