Minnesota Has a Massive Surplus – How To Spend It

When a state has a surplus of money. that's a great thing. Minnesota's had it's share of deficits and it shows when that happens. What do we do when we have a surplus?

You might remember back in 1998 we had an interesting choice for a Governor -- Jesse Ventura. Yes, the wrestler Jesse "The Body" Ventura. While he liked to spend money, he also decided to give a good amount of the $4 billion surplus of money back to Minnesota taxpayers. I clearly remember looking forward to my "Jesse Check" in 1999. Sadly, when Jesse left office in 2002, we had a deficit of $4.5 billion.

Minnesota isn't going to make that mistake again, so don't think the money is coming back to us. We have a $1.6 billion budget surplus right now, and many are wondering what the state leaders are going to decide to do with the surplus.

It's likely Minnesota will keep that money close, largely due to our new President Trump, and the unknown of what happens are a nation as well as Minnesota. It's like you having a nice nest egg in the bank, but you have a new CEO who's changing your company around. You leave the nest egg alone for a while as you might need it soon.

We asked some people around central Minnesota what they would like to see happen with the surplus money, and the response was quite interesting!

• Buy all tax paying citizens tickets to their favorite concert (OK, that's weird)
• Add more school teachers and smaller classroom sizes (That's better)
• Send each of us a hundred state lottery scratch-offs (Interesting! Leave it to luck)
• Upgrade our rotting infrastructure - especially bridges (That's no fun, but smart)
• Buy the Vikings and let the public buy team stock (Original! Like the Packers do?)

Well, whatever they decide to do with it, I hope it's somewhat fun. Even if they take a little of it and make it epic. We're citizens here and like to have fun sometimes too!