Friends and Neighbors of Southwest Minnesota,
The 2018 election year is here, and I humbly seek your support for re-election. It is an honor to serve you in the Minnesota House, and I hope to continue the good work we’ve done together. Between securing the funding to complete the Lewis and Clark water project, passing historic amounts of road and bridge money, funding the Prairie View Center in Slayton to keep its doors open, and lining up the funding for the new Pipestone dental center, we made sure our region’s interests were addressed during this session.
I have had the distinction of serving as the chair for the Health and Human Services Policy Committee over the last two years. During that time I’ve been able to gain a voice that represents Southwest Minnesota’s values in that area of policy. Healthcare is important to so many, which is why I am relieved to see health insurance rates now decreasing, and I’m excited by what else we can do.
While it still feels like the last election cycle hasn’t ended, we are just days away from another election. I’m asking for your support to continue building on the successes we achieved over the last two years. We know a lot will change in state government with the next election, and it’s important that we keep a strong voice for Southwest Minnesota.
Issues
The Cost of Healthcare
During the last two years, we have stopped the death spiral of health insurance rates skyrocketing by 30-40-or 50% year over year. In many cases, the last two years have actually seen decreases in health insurance costs. We’ve made progress, but we are not done. To build on our work, we need to continue the reinsurance pool for only two more years while we modernize our medical health records statute and eliminate the regressive sick tax that we pay just for going to the doctor.
Letting Farmers Farm
If we really want to work with the ag community and get cleaner water throughout our state, we need to do a better job of listening to understand. The approach for several years now is to force rules and regulations instead of working with property owners and farmers – particularly on nitrate rules and buffer strips. If the state worked to understand more instead of working to mandate, we could get common sense laws passed that let farmers farm and still produce cleaner water. It’s all about the approach.
Simplify Our Taxes
Moving closer to federal conformity on the estate tax and full conformity on the Section 179 depreciation should be done quickly and early on during the next legislative session. We got very close on both during this last legislative session and it needs to be done to help family and small town businesses grow and have something to pass on to future generations.
This content was originally published at http://www.joeforhouse.com/