Governor Tim Walz is lamenting that the legislature still hasn’t passed a bonding bill for state public works projects — although he acknowledges it could not have happened in yesterday’s special session because of conflicts with the sale of bonds approved earlier. But Walz notes that those bonds brought an interest rate of only point-one-five-eight (0.158) percent. “We saved a hundred million dollars… and we could have done that same thing with this bonding bill, which would mean all those water treatment plants and those projects that you care about, all cost hundred of millions [of] dollars less to the state, and we get the boost that it builds to our infrastructure,” he says.
Republicans are withholding necessary votes to pass a bonding bill until the governor gives up his COVID emergency authority. They say Walz is continuing restrictions when COVID-19 is no longer an emergency in Minnesota.