Don’t Let The Camo Hat Distract You From Tim Walz’s Radical Record

Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., was largely unknown to voters across the country when Vice President Kamala Harris selected him as her running mate, so his record is coming under national scrutiny for the first time. Unfortunately for Walz and the Democrats, his record as governor of Minnesota is every bit as bad as that of the Biden-Harris administration, if not worse.

When the George Floyd riots began in Minneapolis in May 2020, Walz dithered. For four days, while Minneapolis and other cities burned, Walz refused to call out the National Guard. By the time the riots were finally brought under control, the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct station had been stormed by rioters and burned, along with many other buildings.

The result is a crime wave that continues to the present. Throughout its history, Minnesota had always been a low-crime state. But as a result of Walz’s anti-law enforcement policies, the rate of serious crimes in Minnesota now exceeds the national average. For the first time, Minnesota is officially a high-crime state.

Walz’s tenure has been equally destructive of Minnesota’s economy. Historically, Minnesota has been a relatively high-income state. Its per capita gross domestic product has always been higher than the national average. But that, too, is no longer true. Walz’s anti-business and anti-growth policies have taken their toll, so that beginning in 2023, Minnesota’s per capita GDP is below the national average. Walz has performed the remarkable feat of making Minnesota an economically below-average state.

Gov. Tim Walz Raised Taxes as Most Governors Cut Them
Did this clinch Harris’ decision to pick him as her running mate?

August 6, 2024, By: Jared Walczak, taxfoundation.org

Most states have cut taxes at least once since 2021, with a renewed emphasis on tax competition taking hold in red and blue states alike. Twenty-eight states have cut individual income tax rates, fifteen states have cut corporate income tax rates, and other states have cut sales tax rates or focused on property tax relief. Under Gov. Tim Walz (DFL), Minnesota has been an outlier, one of the few states to raise taxes in recent years—despite the state posting large surpluses.

With her selection of Minnesota Gov. Walz as her running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris has chosen from a pool of prospective candidates—sitting governors—that seems obvious but has not historically been well-represented in the second slot on presidential tickets. Former President Donald Trump’s selection of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and Sen. John McCain’s choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin may suggest that governors are gaining ground as vice presidential nominees, but before that, stretching back a century, the only others are Spiro T. Agnew, Earl Warren, and John W. Bricker.

Governors bring executive experience. They also bring policy records that are more concrete than those of legislators, in the sense that a governor’s signature or veto makes (or prevents) law in a way that one vote in Congress rarely does. Observers will doubtless scrutinize Walz’s record as governor to get a sense of what policies he may favor at the federal level and what that may say about the Harris-Walz ticket.

Whereas other potential running mates charted moderate courses on state taxation, with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro advocating for the acceleration of cuts to the Commonwealth’s high-rate corporate income tax and signing legislation improving its structure (specifically by better aligning treatment of net operating losses with national standards), and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear signed a bill authorizing an individual income tax rate cut (albeit after vetoing a larger prior-year package that set those rate cuts in motion), Walz has presided over several tax increases, focused on businesses and high earners.

This makes Walz an outlier among contemporary governors, though perhaps not an outlier in his own state, which has a tradition of progressive fiscal policy that runs from the early 20th-century Progressive era through such progressive stalwarts as Eugene McCarthy, Walter Mondale, and Paul Wellstone.

Under Walz, Minnesota became the only state to impose a surtax on the long-term capital gain income and other net investment income of high earners (all other states tax long-term capital gains at ordinary income tax rates or even preferential rates).

Walz also signed legislation partially phasing out the benefit of standard and itemized deductions for high earners, and later had to sign legislation fixing a drafting error that accidentally reduced the standard deduction for all taxpayers in what would have been an unintended $350 million tax increase.

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And this is the key.

Walz is extremely good at acting like Friendly Uncle Tim or the neighbor down the street who always wears a baseball cap and waves to you as you drive by when he’s mowing the lawn.

This guy is slippery and just as importantly, he’s a wordsmith. There are other terms for it such as slippery, etc. But he knows how to finagle around with his words and make things like abortion on demand sound good.

He liked to wander around on the floor of the state house of representatives, handling out lemon bars and engaging in small talk with the legislators. he’s great at feigning indignation when he’s questioned - making it look like the questioner is the one who is wrong.

He is extremely greasy. Vance had better be ready for it.

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