SE Minnesota News

Minnesota may rank high on the U.S. Prosperity Index, but state House candidate Kenneth Bush said the state needs to overcome being one of the highest taxed states in the nation to give people opportunities.

The Legatum Institute ranked Minnesota third highest in its U.S. Prosperity Index based on economic performance, growth and quality-of-life indicators, The Center Square reported.

“We're going to have a lot more transparency than we've had,” Bush, a Republican candidate for state House District 25B, told SE Minnesota News. “I think taxpayers are going to want to know where their tax dollars are going, and that they're getting a return. Otherwise they're going to say no way. Why are my property taxes going up?”

Out of its 11 pillars of prosperity, Minnesota ranked seventh in education, 14th on safety and security and 16th on business environment.

Prior to COVID, the economy was doing well, according to the analysis.

“We even had a surplus, a budget surplus, and when COVID happened, we ran into a deficit. Obviously that was no one else's fault but the pandemic,” Bush told SE Minnesota News.

A lot of businesses that had shut down under state orders and guidelines are closed permanently.

“Maybe they all should have closed down together as one versus folks in the public policy arena picking and choosing winners and losers,” Bush told SE Minnesota News his constituency has told him.

He said the objective is to bring Minnesota back to prosperity.

“I know that we're doing better than other states, but our neighbors to the west, like South Dakota, they're fantastic," he said.

Bush, who said he is in the new construction and real estate trades business, took a look at mom-and-pop businesses.

“A lot of the folks that are in our business aren't able to provide affordable housing that's adequate enough for people to actually live in and afford, or even square foot wise because of the regulation that's still put in place,” Bush told SE Minnesota News. “So I'm getting it directly from my constituency – the folks that I see every day out on the campaign trail. They feel that our economy was doing fine, but still at the end of the day, we were one of the highest-taxed states in the nation and that's been for some time and we need to change that.”

Bush wants the governor to explain what he’s doing about turning the emergency authority back to the legislature so different constituencies can have their voice heard.

"They don't all have access to the governor like their state representative does where they can actually have someone that communicates their issues, whether they're school issues, whether they're childcare issues whether they are employment issues, these things all matter,” Bush told SE Minnesota News. “You can't have one without the other, it's all economic development.”

Bush said there are also racial disparities that he wants to work on, as well as educational, economic and health care-related disparities. 

Voters want to hear positivity and they don’t want to see fighting, he said. They want to see solutions.

“They want folks in the legislature and their representatives to get along, or figure out a way to accomplish what they said that they've accomplished when they're out campaigning, or even elected,” Bush said.