Written by Kristen Kukowski of RealClearPolitics
Tim Walz has grown the state budget from $44 billion to $70 billion in six years, squandered a $19 billion surplus and turned it into a deficit despite Minnesotans overwhelmingly wanting tax cuts, raised taxes by $10 billion, increased state spending by 40%, adopted California’s emissions standards, created more government mandates and regulations including expensive vacation policies, welcomed illegal immigrants and issued them driver’s licenses, and established Minnesota as a sanctuary state.
The waste, fraud, and abuse of the Waltz administration shows what his leadership can bring to Washington, D.C. He failed to oversee the massive Feeding Our Futures scandal, and another Waltz administration program is under FBI investigation for potential fraud. The program grew 3,000 percent in just a few years.
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Minnesota has followed in California’s footsteps as a bastion of liberalism in the Midwest. Our neighbors have benefited. In two years, Minnesota has lost more than 50,000 residents. Most have moved to Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Dakotas, all of which have much more favorable economic policies and lower costs of living. According to IRS data, Minnesota has lost $2.1 billion in income transfers, and those losses are likely to increase when Walz’s corporate and high-income taxes go into effect.
Two years ago, Tim Walz was running for reelection as an unpopular incumbent governor. COVID-19 and Walz’s response were vivid in our memories. At the same time, Minneapolis and surrounding cities were literally burning after the murder of George Floyd accelerated the movement to defund the police, and our governor failed to provide leadership.
When Walz first ran for governor, he positioned himself as a slapstick member of the legislature, a former educator who made bad dad jokes. Now he has a record. Many thought he would be a one-term governor. What happened is the kindness of the Republican Party in Minnesota.
I’ve worked in Republican politics for a long time, on the Republican National Committee and campaigns in Minnesota and across the country, and I’ve never seen a more futile effort to replace an unpopular incumbent Democratic governor than when Tim Walz was re-elected in 2022.
As governor, Walz held COVID emergency powers for 400 days, wore a blank plaid shirt as Minneapolis burned after George Floyd’s death, oversaw historic crime rates as Democrats promoted a radical anti-police movement, imposed the fifth-highest taxes in the country, and had more people leave the state than move in. And he got re-elected.
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Tim Walz’s nomination for vice president was informed by two lessons learned from the 2022 election.
First, the Minnesota Republican Party almost single-handedly re-elected him using a broken endorsement process that protects him at all costs.
There were plenty of Republicans who would have been highly qualified to run against Tim Walz in 2022. Instead of one of those candidates getting nominated, thousands of the most right-wing Republican delegates nominated a candidate who would not be elected statewide in a convention endorsement process that would allow them to make the decision on behalf of the public.
There was no real primary for the rest of the Republican Party to express their opinion on the candidate because of the gentleman’s agreement that the candidate “honored the endorsement” and dropped out of the primary after the convention. So unfortunately, Minnesota made the wrong choice. Tim Walz is either not as moderate as he pretends to be, or he is automatically classified as an extreme.
The second lesson was the passive-aggressive Minnesota press corps that gave Tim Walz a pass. They let him say two things out of his mouth and pretend he wasn’t. They let the Democrats completely change the size and scope of government in Minnesota without any control.
He should not be treated the same way nationwide as he was in Minnesota. As many of us have said, he will be in the mix of questions from all sides. This is the first time he will be tested.
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Wallace’s approval rating before COVID-19 was 65%, and in 2021 it was under 50%. Today, he’s at 48%. There are a number of reasons why, and they should be investigated for all Americans to see.
Walz and Kamala Harris are having a great honeymoon. I don’t blame them. The national Democratic Party will find out that they have one of the most untested and progressive tickets we’ve ever seen. Walz’s old congressional district is made up of the exact same voters who are against him today, and they vote very similarly to western Wisconsin.
Now let’s see if Donald Trump is disciplined enough to expose this.
Kirsten Kukowski is a former press secretary for the Republican National Committee and served as communications director for former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s 2016 presidential campaign. She lives and works in Minnesota and runs K2 and Company, a public affairs firm.
Reported with permission from RealClearWire.
