Our current SD48 State Senator, David Hann, called a press conference April 10, 2015, to dredge up his ethics complaint against Sen Hayden that he started in September of last year.

If you’ve spent time in any organization, you’ve seen how people continue to repeat behavior they’ve been rewarded for in the past. Why do we bring this up in this case?

Let’s look at how Sen. Hann became Senate Minority Leader. He got there through behind the scenes manipulation of a situation that wound up costing the taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars. He was part of the gang of 4 that ousted former Leader Amy Koch for her affair with Michael Brodkorb. You can read more about that situation here.

In addition to the above situation, he has his own ethics skeleton. You can read more about that here.

David Hann · ethics · Sen. Hann

Our current SD48 Senator and friends held a presser before the April 10 State of the State Address announcing a new “Family Surplus” tax cut. We know whenever we read and hear Republican Orwellian language, it’s important to check the facts.

During his remarks about how awful things have been under Democratic control. We’ve done multiple posts about how Minnesota has outperformed our neighbor to the East, which has been under the kind of Republican control Sen. Hann wants to impose.

But, back to this new tax cut bill.  Once again, it’s a percentage across the board on income taxes. Why is that an issue? It benefits those at the top yet again. The Uptake has done a great post on this that includes the video of the conference. Here’s their findings:

• only the progressive (affecting those who are more well off) income tax is included
• someone making $50,000 annually would save $250
• someone making $500,000 annually would save $2,500
• the top 1% of the economy has enjoyed substantially more robust economic recovery from the Republican Great Recession than the 99% of the economy
• more regressive taxes (affecting those who aren’t as well off) like property taxes and sales taxes are, for some reason, not included in the bill he’s carrying

Why are we pointing this out?   The Minnesota Tax incidence Study shows the poor and middle class pay 29.9% of their income in state taxes.  The highest income bracket?  Those folks pay 9.6% of their income.  That’s why Sen. Hann always wants to talk percentages and not real money.

You can see the full post here.

David Hann · GOP warn on the middle class · MN vs. WI · Orwellian language · sd48 · Sen. Hann · Senate District 48 · top 1%

By Ken Martin, Chairman, Minnesota DFL

There is an old saying that a hypocrite is someone who conveniently forgets their faults to point out someone else’s. Republican Minority Leader Sen. David Hann’s editorial last week exposed his blind spot when it comes to the behaviors of his own GOP Senators.

If Sen. Hann believes it necessary to review the actions of parties and individuals when discussing legislative matters then it is just as fair to review the record of the Republicans in Minnesota:

• This past year, Republican Sen. Sean Nienow defaulted on a $613,000 federal government loan and was relieved of $840,000 of debt by the taxpayers when he filed for bankruptcy.  Ironically—at the same time—the senator from Cambridge was attacking government for spending too much money and not living within its means.
• The Republican Party of Minnesota is now in a public spat with some of its vendors, as detailed by a Star Tribune article, for not paying its bills from the 2014 campaign. This is a party that is still over $1,500,000 in debt—but just this week announced a $150,000 advertising campaign telling legislators how to do their job. So much for the party of fiscal responsibility.  (more…)

David Hann · ethics · hypocrite · sd48 · Sen. Hann · Senate District 48

On March 12, 2015, Catherine Reichert with MPR’s Poligraph posted the an examination of the Minnesota Republican Party’s new ad campaign. After review, it was found to be misleading.

You can read her post here.

Minnesota GOP · Minnesota Republican Party · MN GOP ad campaign misleading

Sen. Hann gave the above statements at a May 19, 2014, press conference.  There, he states that there had been no new sign ups through MNsure.

In June of 2014, MPR published an article on Minnesota’s rate of people without insurance dropped substantially due to the new health care law. Here’s a link to this article.

And, here’s a chart from that article:

Looks to us like reality shows that people without insurance got insurance in 2014.

David Hann · MNsure · number of uninsured · Sen. Hann · uninsured