Austin resident Dave DeFor is spending his on a plane ticket to New Zealand to see his son.

Tuesday, August 10, 1999

Austin resident Dave DeFor is spending his on a plane ticket to New Zealand to see his son. Minnesota Speaker of the House Steve Sviggum is putting his toward his son’s college tuition. Others will cash their rebate checks for children’s school clothes, "new" old cars, weekends away or an extra house payment. Some will put it in the bank for a rainy day.

The choice is theirs, not the government’s.

"Everyone will have a different decision about what to do with the money," Sviggum said in an Austin stop Monday. "The point is, they can decide how to spend their own money better than the state can."

The average family of four – estimated by Sviggum to have a combined income of $40,000 – will receive a $906 in a one-time rebate in addition to about $300 in permanent income tax cuts passed by the legislature this year. People do not have to file for a rebate, the Department of Revenue will automatically write a check based on an individual’s 1997 income from tax forms already on file. Citizens interested in figuring out their family’s rebate should try the "rebate calculator" at the Minnesota Depart of Revenue website: www.taxes.state.mn.us.

Sviggum made Austin part of a whistle-stop tour to talk about the rebates, and to stress what he felt was more important – the permanent tax cuts. Close to 20 predominantly older Austin residents turned out to hear the Speaker for the Republican-dominated House.

The government is contracting with a private company to mail the rebate checks, and Sviggum said people could expect the checks by Labor Day at the latest. He anticipates the company will start mailing out checks on Aug. 23. Sviggum said the cost of hiring the company to return the money to taxpayers was "not an inappropriate amount;": 1/10 of 1 percent, or $1 million of the $1.3 billion rebate.

"How much did it cost, all those days you debated (how to return the money to the taxpayer), when you could have been talking about something important?" an audience member from Freeborn County asked the legislator.

"… I don’t consider it very fiscally responsible to collect the money from taxpayers and then pay someone to return it," DeFor said.

"That’s where the permanent tax cut should help," Sviggum said. "As important as the rebate was, the permanent tax cut is even more important. I will tell you – the permanent cuts were driven by the House majority … It’s aimed at middle-income, with 1/2 percent coming off the lowest and the highest brackets and 3/4 percent off the middle."

Gov. Ventura was the topic of the first question when Sviggum finished his presentation.

"What’s he like to work with," a gentleman in the audience asked.

"Very entertaining," was the answer from Sviggum, "… but a little bit non-engaged at the moment as far as public policy is concerned."

Other topics introduced by audience members included the following:

– The stadium issue: "unlikely to pass," Sviggum said. "Talk about corporate welfare – using public money to build ballparks for billionaires so millionaires can play in them.

– Illegal aliens: At first assumed by Sviggum to be working in jobs for cash, when local residents explained that several had been found in the employ of Quality Pork Products in Austin – and in possession of different forms of ID – Sviggum said he wasn’t really qualified to comment without more information.

"We did try to address the issue in welfare reform by putting in residency requirements, but the court tossed that out, saying it restricted a person’s freedom of movement," Sviggum said.

– Light rail: "I don’t like it," Sviggum said. "I’d rather put the money into roads."

– The family farm: "I’m a family farmer myself," the Speaker said. "A lot of policies have to be federal policies, but we did pass some significant property tax cuts on agricultural land … and we set aside $950,000 to look into niche markets for farmers."