Minnesota leaders: state forecast shows surplus, warn federal cuts could erode reserves

Erin Murphy, Senate majority leader, and Melissa Hortman, speaker of the Minnesota House, said Monday that the state’s February budget forecast shows a current biennium surplus and the largest budget reserve in state history, but they warned that proposed federal spending cuts and worsening national economic indicators could shrink those gains and force difficult choices.

"This forecast tells us that in this present moment we have a stably balanced budget, we have a surplus, we have a stable economy and we have the strongest budget reserve in the state's history," said Erin Murphy. She blamed recent federal policy and market turbulence for eroding the state’s outlook, saying, "Trump and Elon Musk are bragging about their chaos. They're causing it." Murphy also used a profanity to describe Republican congressional leaders, saying they needed to "pull their heads out of…