MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton says he still wants to raise income taxes on the top 2 percent of earners as the Legislature heads into a mid-term election that will shape the second half of his first term.

The Democratic governor told a University of Minnesota audience in Minneapolis Wednesday Dayton that the unwillingness to pay more taxes will be “the death of this country if it’s not corrected.”

Dayton says he plans to unveil a tax overhaul in December, but won’t give more detail before the election because it will “just get mired in politics.”

His top tax adviser, Commissioner Myron Frans, has been on the road holding meetings about the state’s tax system as the administration formulates what Dayton says will be a “broad-based proposal.”

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