These lawmakers have the right idea

Published 10:46 pm Sunday, June 1, 2014

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5. A fashinable book about failed system

Here’s a trend worth spreading. In a massive win for common sense, Minnesota has abolished hundreds of obsolete and obscure statutes and regulations. Lawmakers there held an “unsession” to unmake laws.

“It’s no longer a crime in Minnesota to carry fruit in an illegally sized container,” the Twin Cities Pioneer Press reports. “The state’s telegraph regulations are gone. And it’s now legal to drive a car in neutral — if you can figure out how to do it. Those were among the 1,175 obsolete, unnecessary and incomprehensible laws that Gov. Mark Dayton and the Legislature repealed this year as part of the governor’s ‘unsession’ initiative. His goal was to make state government work better, faster and smarter.”

For some reason, lawmakers seem to believe their function is to make laws. And they excel at it. But in this one instance, they recognized that years of accumulated legal hurdles have slowed the economy and eroded freedom.

“In addition to getting rid of outdated laws, the project made taxes simpler, cut bureaucratic red tape, speeded up business permits and required state agencies to communicate in plain language,” the Pioneer Press explains.

Two reforms in particular will help boost the state’s economy.

“Under a new law, the Pollution Control Agency and Department of Natural Resources must attempt to issue environmental permits to businesses within 90 days,” the newspaper reports. “The administration estimates 11,000 of the 15,000 permit requests it receives each year will meet that goal, and more complex permits will be issued within 150 days. Dayton issued an executive order in March directing state agencies to communicate with citizens and businesses in easy-to-understand language. Thousands of state employees have received plain-language training.”

There’s also some significant tax reform — something Texas is sorely in need of.

“A $447 million tax cut bill that Dayton signed in March not only provided income tax relief but also simplified filing returns by making state tax law conform to changes in the federal tax code,” the Pioneer Press adds. “Those revisions ‘made tax forms easier to understand and less time-consuming to prepare’ for more than 1 million Minnesota taxpayers, the governor said.”

More than 30 state task forces and advisory boards were simply abolished.

In fact, only one of the governor’s major proposals failed — one that would have streamlined bureaucratic rule-making processes.

And opponents of that one had a valid point — after working so hard to ditch rules, why should the state’s legislators make it easier for the administration to make more?

Texas could do with some of this kind of thinking.

Legislators could start with reforming the margin (business) tax.

“The margin tax is a very poor part of Texas’ otherwise very stellar tax system,” says Scott Drenkard of the Tax Foundation. “While full repeal should be the goal, virtually any move to limit the tax is desirable.”

Texas can also stand to winnow out the many needless regulations and licensing rules that exist. Sure, we have a Sunset Advisory Commission. But it can only make recommendations.

Minnesota has it right.