Mathern’s main claim for the upcoming Nov. 4 election is there is much more potential to be developed in North Dakota than what has occurred under Hoeven. Mathern points to energy, taxes and health care as three examples of where more can be done to benefit North Dakota and its residents.
“Our oil production is higher than our pipeline capacity to move crude out of state, which means oil gets discounted,” Mathern said. “So royalty owners, taxpayers, basically lose money in the process.”
He said this loss is happening because a state “Pipeline Authority” has been moving forward.
“We put this Pipeline Authority together because we assumed a pipeline would be built. That hasn’t happened,” Mathern said. “That’s one areas where the potential of North Dakota has not been developed.” Another energy component he points to is an oil refinery.
“I believe an oil refinery should be built. It should be built somewhere in that Bakken formation area, somewhere in that triangle between Dickinson, Williston and Minot,” he said. “And we don’t need any more studies about an oil refinery.”
Mathern created a state Oil Refinery Task Force after the Republican-dominated Legislature turned down a study bill and an action bill during the last session, he said.
“There are private investors willing and able to move ahead for paying for an oil refinery,” he said. “But we need some state leadership to move that agenda along.”
Mathern also feels more could be done with alternative energy sources like wind.
“We have the greatest capacity of wind of any state, more wind than does Minnesota,” he said. “And Minnesota has more developed wind than does North Dakota. We have a Republican governor in Minnesota, we have a Republican governor in North Dakota. But the leadership hasn’t been strong enough in North Dakota to move this forward.”
Mathern said wind energy and other alternatives shouldn’t be developed just to meet the global appetite.
“It is for providing North Dakota, and especially rural North Dakota, the opportunity to rebuild and repopulate,” he said. “That money is new money into rural North Dakota. New money into rural North Dakota translates into more people.”
Unfortunately, he said some of the existing wind farms are owned by out-of-state corporations.
“I believe we need to develop that energy on the basis of owned by North Dakotans, owned by farmers, owned by communities, so that the profit stays here and it doesn’t get blown out of state, which is what is happening right now,” Mathern said.
As for taxes, Mathern said the state’s $1.2 billion surplus is a reflection of mismanagement.
“Government should be spending about as much as is coming in and it shouldn’t be stockpiling money,” he said. “So that $1.2 billion should have in great part not been taken, or some of it should have been spent on things that are needed, like infrastructure.”
As for property taxes, Mathern believes they should be reduced by 25 percent with homeowners receiving the break.
“John Hoeven’s tax plan is an across-the-board reduction. I say we take the same amount, that we do it on the basis of homeowners, so the property tax gets reduced for the people who live here,” he said. “When you do the across-the-board thing like Hoeven is talking about, essentially you send millions and millions and millions of dollars out of state. Because property owners out of state get that benefit.”
He said it’s the residents of the state who do the things that improve our quality of life here, so they are the ones who should receive the tax break.
Mathern also label’s the governor’s income tax proposal as an across-the-board approach. Instead, his income tax proposal first targets the bottom three tax brackets.
“So the people in the first tax bracket would get a 75 percent reduction in income taxes. These are the people that spend the money, they’re raising our kids, they’re helping their parents, they’re the ones working at the jobs in our communities,” he said.
He said his income tax proposal is a matter of being strategic and better for the state.
“I’ve talked with some wealthy people, in fact millionaires in North Dakota about this income tax thing,” Mathern said. “They tell me they don’t need an income tax break. What they need is enough people in North Dakota to work here and that means middle-class people need that tax break because that will keep them here to a greater extent because they will have more dollars.”
The millionaires tell Mathern they not only need people, but need people who can buy their products.
“That is how a business makes money. It doesn’t make money based on a reduction of income tax,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mathern believes health care in the state is right around the corner from a meltdown like the financial sector is experiencing.
“In health care, again there has been this sort of let the market go, thinking the market really applies to health care. It really does not,” he said. “It’s a different kind of commodity.”
He said there are 22 of 27 rural critical care hospitals in the state that are deficit spending.
“That basically means within five years, they will be out of business,” Mathern said. “That’s the infrastructure of health care that we need to make sure is in place in North Dakota. That needs attention. There are ways to solve this, some of it isn’t that difficult.”
Establishing a revolving loan fund to provide hospitals the revenue they need to complete needed projects and upgrades is one viable possibility, he said. At the same time, these hospitals also need the state to pay its bills.
“Right now they are being paid under cost,” Mathern said. “Medicaid is not paying these hospitals the cost of service for all of the services. Some people say, ‘Well, there isn’t enough money in the budget.’ Well, that really is not the case.”
The state also must make sure that all children have health insurance, he said. Mathern said the dollars are available to do this, but this topic is another that gets hung up in debate. He said state officials instead need to “make a commitment to cover all of the kids.”
Investing in prevention and wellness programs also can reduce health care costs, he said.
“Some of this is pretty simple. It’s like kids getting exercise in school. It’s like giving incentives to people for healthy living behavior, it’s like exercising and not smoking, it’s getting people who have these long-term illnesses to get involved in a program where that is managed better,” he said.
Lastly, there needs to be a program that allows people to purchase health insurance they can afford. He said families will buy insurance and then drop it when they can no longer afford it.
“But if we had some product available to them that was available to them on a sliding fee scale basis so maybe they can’t pay $900 a month for insurance, but maybe they can pay $400 or $500 or $600,” he said. “That keeps these people in the system. They stay well and they keep paying in.”
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