Governor Tim Walz signed into law a $72 billion budget representing a nearly 40% increase in state spending. It cuts billions in taxes, raises billions more with tax increases and boosts spending on everything from education to housing to human services. Many of the new taxes will kick in gradually over the next two years.

Three-quarters of a cent of metro sales tax for transit will be collected starting July 1. Another quarter-cent sales tax for housing kicks in a few months later on October 1. A new 50-cent fee on deliveries over $100 begins July 1, 2024.

The gas tax will be indexed to inflation starting July 1, but the new higher tax won’t be imposed until after January 1, 2024. It’s expected to eventually go up five cents per gallon by 2027.

Former Republican House Speaker Kurt Zellers says he’s still stunned by all the new taxes.

“$18 billion dollar surplus, plus $8.6 billion dollars in new taxes,” he said during an “At Issue” interview Friday. “What went wrong down there that you didn’t have enough at $18 billion that you needed another $8 billion?”

Former DFL state Senator Ember Reichgott Junge says she’s proud of what legislative Democrats and the governor did.

“They legislated for a generation, not the next election,” she said on At Issue. “A rebate, a bigger rebate, would have been the next election. Because what happened over the last decade is because Republicans only wanted minimal government. That’s all we got for ten years. Kicking the can down the road.”

Some of the other signature pieces of legislation will take longer to go into full effect. Although the governor signed paid family and medical leave into law this week, the benefits won’t be available until 2026. Payroll taxes to pay for the benefits also won’t be collected until then.

Meanwhile, the legislature appropriated more than $600 million to start up an agency that will administer the program with up to 400 new state employees.

“Unless you put in the foundation now it will never happen and so I think paid family leave will serve Minnesotans well and they really haven’t seen the effects of all this good work yet,” Reichgott Junge said.

On Tuesday, Governor Walz will sign the recreational marijuana bill into law. Although it will be legal to smoke pot as soon as July 1, you can’t begin growing it at home until August 1, 2023, and it will be another 18 months or so before it becomes available through retail dispensaries. It will take that long to build a regulatory framework for the sales.

“I think there are some problems with that bill as well,” says Zellers. “In talking to some of the legislators…like how you get a license, the folks who are doing the medical part now aren’t eligible. There are kinks to work out in that, too. So hopefully all our friends who are excited about this don’t get overly excited.”

You can see more analysis of the legislative session Sunday morning at 10 on “At Issue with Tom Hauser.”