Taxes co-chair Bakk: "I will not go" for House tax expenditure provisions

PIM just caught up with Senate Taxes Committee chair Tom Bakk (DFL-Cook) outside his Capitol office for a check-in on the status of the remaining taxes conference committee. He says he expects the committee to keep working until sometime Monday. And if it produces another tax bill, adds Bakk, that bill will likely contain cuts to the $3 billion or so in appropriations that fall under the purview of the legislative tax committees. (Most of that sum is made up of aids and credits to local units of government.)

But Bakk is ruling out any agreement over ending a number of exemptions in the current tax code, as proposed in the House omnibus tax bill authored by Rep. Ann Lenczewski (DFL-Bloomington). "I will not go to that menu of tax expenditures the House had," he says. "I just will not do any of those things."