Minnesota 2020: Journal

• MN2020 Journal: Where Do We Go from Here?

  Wednesday morning, State Economist Tom Stinson told us what, if we're honest, we already knew. Minnesota's recession-driven economic performance is creating a growing, on-going state budget deficit.
  
  In inflation-unadjusted dollars, Stinson, along with the Minnesota Management and Budget Office, projects that Minnesota will realize a $1.2 billion shortfall' [...]
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  Posted: December 04, 2009, 3:32pm EST
  

• MN2020 Journal: The Cranberry Leadership Solution

  Thanksgiving Dinner is a comfort food, harvest festival triumph. With turkey, stuffing, gravy, potatoes, sweet potatoes, dinner rolls and green beans in cream sauce, followed by pumpkin pie, the meal is very much a sweet/savory culinary experience. It's an unabashed celebration of fat globules which, in turn, makes cranberry sauce [...]
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  Posted: November 30, 2009, 1:45pm EST
  

• MN2020 Journal: There's No Place for Hunger in Minnesota

  Hunger at home should surprise us. Given just the smallest contemplation, hunger should provoke a simmering, disturbed outrage. Discovering hunger's growing incidence mustn't roll off our conscience as studied indifference, not in Minnesota and not in this day and age.
  
  And yet, it seems, it does.
  
  The United States Department of Agriculture's [...]
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  Posted: November 22, 2009, 10:55pm EST
  

• MN2020 Journal: The Big Rock Candy Mountain Crumbles

  The times of plenty have passed. Two weeks on, my kids' Halloween candy bags are near empty. No more M&Ms, mini-Snickers, six-to-a-box Dots or cellophane packets of candy corn. What survives to this point is whatever is least desired. The easy choices were made a long time ago.
  
  Like most parents,' [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 12:17pm EST
  

• MN2020 Journal: Better Footing for Minnesota's Energy Future

  The controversial Big Stone II power plant project collapsed earlier this week, highlighting the considerable energy challenges facing Minnesota. Anyone claiming victory or acknowledging defeat would be, at least partly, wrong. Despite considerable shortcomings, the project was grounded in a very real future need for more electrical power.
  
  Progressives [...]
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  Posted: November 09, 2009, 11:47pm EST
  

• MN2020 Journal: The Flu Doesn't Care About Your Politics

  I've been mulling a paradox. Can conservative, anti-government policy advocates accept publicly sourced flu shots?
  
  At present and for the foreseeable future, flu vaccine demand outstrips supply. This, in itself, is a remarkable development. While flu vaccination rates have climbed over the past decade, more people still choose to skip the' [...]
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  Posted: October 30, 2009, 2:10pm EDT
  

• MN2020 Journal: Lessons from the Old Mapleton School

  Education is a labor-intensive business. Fixed costs-building maintenance, utilities, bond payments, that sort of thing-constitute significant budgetary line items but people are the great expense. Funding reductions, particularly persistent funding reductions, means fewer people are engaged in teaching or supporting teaching. Consequently, education is spread more thinly among a school's' [...]
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  Posted: October 26, 2009, 1:20am EDT
  

• MN2020 Journal: Where, Governor Pawlenty, is Afghanistan, Minnesota?

  I've visited many but not all of Minnesota's 87 counties and, as a farm boy,  I'm pretty familiar with our state's small towns but, no matter how hard I try, I can't find Afghanistan, Minnesota.
  
  This is important because Governor Pawlenty just called for sending more troops to Afghanistan.' [...]
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  Posted: October 19, 2009, 3:19am EDT
  

• MN2020 Journal: Which Side Are You On? Wellness Data and Dark Motives

  Living healthy is a no-brainer. We should eat well, consume modestly, and engage in regular, moderate exercise. It's hard to argue with that. So when the company announces its wellness initiative, lots of people sign up, seeking a healthier life.
  
  Typically, some sort of participant bottom line is established. Weight, body [...]
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  Posted: October 12, 2009, 3:08am EDT
  

• MN2020 Journal: Should I Stay or Should I Go?

  A college education's value is greater than the sum of its parts. All the economic rationalism in the world with its tight Dickensian profit calculations, misses college's life enrichment. Recent public debate, challenging a college education's return-on-investment value, seeks to replace richness with simple riches. If that happens, Minnesota is [...]
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  Posted: October 02, 2009, 3:01pm EDT
  

• MN2020 Journal: Will Conservatives Declare that Hand Washing is "Bad for Business?"

  The flu season is upon us. Despite widespread concern with the H1N1 virus and rising flu rates, I predict that soon and with considerable fanfare conservative voices will insist that hand-washing, mouth-covering and cough-containment are bad for business.
  
  I have no rational basis for my assumption but I'm guided by conservative' [...]
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  Posted: September 28, 2009, 10:39am EDT
  

• MN2020 Journal: Greedhead Health Care Reform

  It's time to speak an unspoken health care reform debate truth: conservative public policy advocates are only interested in policy changes with a clear, narrow self-benefit. They prefer a health care policy that contracts health insurance coverage rather than expands it. Publicly-funded or publicly-directed benefits would only accrue to conservative [...]
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  Posted: September 21, 2009, 11:27am EDT
  

• MN2020 Journal: Peach Salsa and Public Policy for Dinner

  What can state public policy leaders learn from my refrigerator and pantry? Thrift, economy, improvisation, reward and a little obstinacy.
  
  Join me while we tackle dinner and drive public policy change!
  
  Late summer's garden bounty produces a culinary conundrum. With so much good, fresh stuff, dinner can, for a week or [...]
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  Posted: September 11, 2009, 4:30pm EDT
  

• MN2020 Journal: The Hennepin County Conservative Distraction

  When a research study reveals a disconcerting truth, readers can challenge and refute the report's findings or they can fallaciously attack it. I'm always disappointed when an elected official chooses the latter course. I'm especially disappointed when a leader tips into vulgar pandering.
  [...]
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  Posted: September 04, 2009, 8:37am EDT
  

• MN2020 Journal: Vento, Tellefsen and the Science Teacher's Legacy

  Burt Tellefsen was a 21st century man living in the 20th century. He embraced a sustainable lifestyle at odds with the post-WWII, plant fence row to fence row, farming ethos. He was an ecologist, conservationist, field biologist, arborist, physicist, chemist and horticulturalist. He was my high school science teacher and [...]
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  Posted: August 28, 2009, 5:15pm EDT
  

• MN2020 Journal: When Things Fall Down

  It is the unyielding nature of the universe that things fall apart. Molecules destabilize. Mountains crumble. Bleachers collapse. Given enough time, things immutably fall apart as the universe seeks maximum homogeneity.
  
  That doesn't mean we have to like it. Because we are human, we impose order and will on an indifferent' [...]
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  Posted: August 21, 2009, 3:13pm EDT
  

• MN2020 Journal: Health Care and the Social Contract

  To paraphrase legendary Hollywood movie producer Sam Goldwyn, a social contract isn't worth the paper it's written on.
  
  At the risk of killing a joke by explaining it, a social contract is a complex concept, metaphorically explaining the relationship between government and the governed. It isn't formally recorded although elements, such [...]
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  Posted: August 14, 2009, 3:29pm EDT
  

• MN2020 Journal: Ozymandias and Health Care Reform

  How are we supposed to debate health care reform when conservatives are organizing shout-downs?
  
  In a clear national trend, conservative public policy advocates are organizing congressional town hall meeting attendance. That's wonderful. I'm all for people having regular contact with elected officials. But, conservatives aren't interested in thoughtful discussion. Rather, they're' [...]
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  Posted: August 10, 2009, 12:59pm EDT
  

• MN2020 Journal: Tomatoes, Pawlenty and Health Care Reform

  I'm peering through the Minnesota Governor's Mansion security gate, inconspicuously searching for tomato plants. I'm trying to find common ground with Governor Tim Pawlenty but I'm having little success.
  ' [...]
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  Posted: July 31, 2009, 4:25pm EDT
  

• MN2020 Journal: California Learns Wrong Lesson from Minnesota

  State government runs another exorbitant budget deficit while cities and counties make the tough choices -cutting services and raising property taxes- and live with their means. Sound familiar? It should. The State of California is balancing their budget, forestalling the state budget crisis, by taking a play from Minnesota state [...]
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  Posted: July 24, 2009, 11:51am EDT
  

• MN2020 Journal: Speaking Policy Truth to Power

  It comes predictably, an eye-rolling, sure sure, reaction when I explain that Minnesota 2020 is a nonpartisan organization.  Some wait for the knowing wink or head tip, others for my laugh.  If you're expecting my confession, that Minnesota 2020 is a secret partisan advocacy organization, you'll wait forever.
  
  Let me say [...]
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  Posted: July 19, 2009, 2:30pm EDT
  

• Minnesota 2020 Journal: The Sticky Purple Box of Truth

  Does a sticky purple box represent government intrusion or appropriate protection of the public interest? It depends on your viewpoint. Are we fighting the emerald ash borer, scourge of Minnesota's vast ash tree covered landscape or are we fighting communists?
  
  Two months ago, the emerald ash borer, Agrilus planipennis [...]
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  Posted: July 10, 2009, 3:52pm EDT
  

• MN2020 Journal: Schools and the Mother of All Lies

  We're lying to ourselves, Minnesota.  Perpetual schools funding cuts have long and short-term consequences. Until we admit our delusion -that schools can continually absorb decreased revenues without impacting outcomes- Minnesota's future will be a losing bet.
  
  Here's the big lie: that schools can regularly do the same with less, that they' [...]
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  Posted: July 06, 2009, 11:31am EDT
  

• MN2020 Journal: Less Conservatism is More

  It's hard to see anything good coming from Governor Pawlenty's state budget unallotment. Minnesota will be poorer, weaker, slower, and less competitive yet none of this seems to deter conservative public policy leaders bent on realizing "small" government at any cost.
  
  While reasonable people view unallotment as a failure and debacle, [...]
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  Posted: June 29, 2009, 1:22pm EDT
  

• Minnesota 2020 Journal: What We Owe Glen Shaw

  Retired Walnut Grove Schools Superintendent Glen Shaw recently celebrated his 100th birthday.  Reaching his centenary is the least of Mr. Shaw's achievements.
  
  Superintendent Shaw was Walnut Grove's great school builder. During his tenure, 1951-1974, he changed the school's physical face and footprint. He expanded the school's square footage by roughly a [...]
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  Posted: June 29, 2009, 12:55pm EDT
  

• MN2020 Journal: The Charter School Wars

  In the week and a half following Minnesota 2020's report, Checking in on Charter Schools, conservative educational policy advocates attacking us barely paused between breaths. Our rather limited financial accountability research scope, examining Minnesota charter school's public audits, has drawn greater ire than I thought possible. We clearly [...]
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  Posted: June 15, 2009, 5:22pm EDT
  

• MN2020 Journal: What Does Governor Pawlenty Have Against Fireworks?

  A Fourth of July without fireworks is like a day without sunshine. As of a week ago Wednesday, Mankato was looking gloomy. They were facing a fireworks-less Fourth.
  
  Local Government Aid cuts forced Mankato to cancel the community's fireworks display. Facing a $3.3 million dollar cut in LGA, the state-local units [...]
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  Posted: June 08, 2009, 9:43am EDT
  

• MN2020 Journal: You Can't Get There from Here

  My colleagues report a growing number of "Your Federal Economic Recovery Dollars at Work" signs along major highways. This isn't just Keynesian economics although putting workers to work while stimulating the economy is important. No, the larger context is the deferred public infrastructure maintenance and replacement backlog.' [...]
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  Posted: June 01, 2009, 12:38am EDT
  

• MN2020 Journal: The Progressive Path Forward

  Personal responsibility is a progressive value. It is, perhaps, the key progressive value, followed closely by community and accountability. Over the next couple of years, our values will be put to the test.
  
  Why? Because the global economy, not just Minnesota's or America's economies, is in the tank; the housing market [...]
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  Posted: May 22, 2009, 3:39pm EDT
  

• Pawlenty's Policy Sand Trap

  What do Minnesota's elected public policy leaders and the Mars Mission Rover have in common? They're both stuck in the sand.
  ' [...]
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  Posted: May 15, 2009, 4:17pm EDT
  

• Budget Showdown: Who Blinks?

  Question: If State Representative Jim Abeler publicly refuses to vote for a tax increase veto override, where are three override votes, necessary to pass vetoed legislation, found?
  
  The answer: they don't exist.
  
  Abeler, one of six conservatives voting to override Governor Pawlenty's 2008 transportation bill veto, survived conservative electoral ire' [...]
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  Posted: May 08, 2009, 5:15pm EDT
  

• Minnesota 2020 Journal: Swine Flu and My Life with SARS

  An epidemic makes everyone sit up straighter. It commands the public's attention, tests people's resolve and creates palpable fear.  Every time, the lessons are the same: be prepared, take prudent precautions and act swiftly to contain outbreaks.
  
  The chief variable, apart from the disease strain's voracity, is government. A properly funded, [...]
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  Posted: May 04, 2009, 8:40am EDT
  

• Minnesota 2020 Journal: Conservative Public Policy Driving Property Tax Increases

  It's time to set things straight: state public policy leaders are driving up local property taxes. Local government isn't out of control, spending money willy-nilly on foolishness like libraries, police officers, text books or road grading. Property taxes have jumped because the state isn't sharing revenue with local units of [...]
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  Posted: April 27, 2009, 11:31am EDT
  

• Minnesota 2020 Journal: Are Conservative Tax Protestors Greedy, Deluded or Both?

  With the April 15 IRS tax filing deadline, conservative tax protestors once again reared their congested heads, screaming about infringement on liberty. The current version staged "tea parties," invoking an American Revolutionary War triggering flashpoint. We're supposed to see tax protestors as patriots, I guess, rather than oddballs,' [...]
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  Posted: April 20, 2009, 12:58am EDT
  

• Minnesota 2020 Journal: Bill Holm Moved Minnesota Forward

  Bill Holm, the southwestern Minnesota poet, writer and teacher, passed away about six weeks ago. In life and death, he moved Minnesota's public policy debate forward whether we wanted to be moved forward or not.
  
  That's just how he was. [...]
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  Posted: April 13, 2009, 6:15pm EDT
  

• Minnesota 2020 Journal: The School Voucher Shark

  In Minnesota, the ideologically conservative assault on public education is mostly financial. State public policy hardliners are successfully underfunding schools, forcing local property tax payers to foot bills that once were shared with the state.
  
  In other states, however, we catch a clearer glimpse of the conservative arsenal: science curriculum standards [...]
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  Posted: April 07, 2009, 11:46am EDT
  

• Minnesota 2020 Journal: Who Will Win the Budget Showdown?

  Governor Pawlenty released his state biennial budget first, followed by the State Senate majority caucus and then, lastly, by the State House of Representatives majority caucus. They offer three substantially different approaches to tax policy, spending priorities and budget deficit resolution. None provide any [...]
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  Posted: March 27, 2009, 11:51am EDT
  

• Minnesota 2020 Journal: The Politics of Distraction

  Just as the State House, the State Senate and the Governor laid their dispiriting budget plans before Minnesotans, Sara Jane Olson was paroled. Conservatives wasted little time, shoving that story in front of Minnesota's more deeply pressing economic and budget crisis.
  
  A good distraction is manna from heaven.
  
  Before anyone gets [...]
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  Posted: March 20, 2009, 12:50pm EDT
  

• Minnesota 2020 Journal: Mr. President, Don't Take This Educational Path

  President Obama, respectfully, you're wrong. Your teacher merit-pay scheme is bad for Minnesota and bad for America. Instead, we need real progress, real expectations and real funding for our schools. Your program proposal fails on all three counts.' [...]
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  Posted: March 13, 2009, 12:28pm EDT
  

• Minnesota 2020 Journal: Paging Dr. Pangloss

  Minnesota's budget deficit is $6.4 billion. Factoring one-time federal economic recovery dollars, that figure is reduced to $4.6 billion. I don't think I've seen Governor Tim Pawlenty look quite so pleased.
  
  The recent forecast reflects Minnesota's dramatically slowing economy. Declining business revenue means declining tax revenue, a point that Minnesota State [...]
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  Posted: March 06, 2009, 11:34am EST
  

• Minnesota 2020 Journal: Digging Out from Poor Public Policy

  Blizzards reveal Minnesota's best and worst qualities. This most recent storm is no exception. Public policy leaders should take note because blizzards impart lessons.
  
  Bitterly cold temperatures and excessive snowfall allow us to ask the eternal question: why do we live here? That's simple; we live here because we've triumphed over' [...]
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  Posted: February 27, 2009, 10:21am EST
  

• Minnesota 2020 Journal: The Minnesota Legislature's Hegel Problem

  When my car requires repair, I take it to the garage I've been using since the late 80s. They're attentive, skilled and low-key mechanics. They diagnose problems and promptly call with a range of options. Sometimes the answer requires immediately, costly action. Sometimes, it doesn't, like when I asked about' [...]
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  Posted: February 20, 2009, 7:30am EST
  

• Minnesota 2020 Journal: Pawlenty's Loan Shark Budget Solution

  Governor Pawlenty proposes borrowing $983 million against Minnesota's tobacco settlement payments at a $1.6 billion cost. He'd use extremely high cost financial instruments just to avoid a modest tax increase.
  
  What's next? Pawn shops and loan sharks?' [...]
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  Posted: February 13, 2009, 9:32am EST
  

• Minnesota 2020 Journal: My Sky is Blue

  I don't mean to sound impolite but looking up from the State Capitol, what color is the sky? I ask because, clearly, conservative public policymakers see something different.
  
  Recently, the Office of the Legislative Auditor released its Q-Comp evaluation report. After four years and $49 million invested, the result' [...]
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  Posted: February 06, 2009, 8:31am EST
  

• Minnesota 2020 Journal: Pawlenty's Unwelcoming Minnesota

  In Governor Pawlenty's 2011-2012 biennial budget proposal, we glimpse the conservative public policy future. Despite his lofty rhetoric, he's doggedly creating two Minnesotas: one for a wealthy, conservative few and another for the rest of us.
  
  That first group isn't keen to welcome the second.' [...]
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  Posted: January 30, 2009, 8:37am EST
  

• Minnesota 2020 Journal: Seifert's Mother of All Distractions

  That didn't take long. Rather than focus on Minnesota's real issues, conservative state public policy makers have lobbed a "welfare hordes" distraction bomb.
  
  With Minnesota facing a $5.5 billion budget deficit, a deepening recession, and the Governor proposing deficit increasing business tax cuts, State House of Representatives conservative public policymakers wasted [...]
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  Posted: January 23, 2009, 9:27am EST
  

• Minnesota 2020 Journal: Pawlenty's Plan Will Make Things Worse

  If Minnesota's economic recession were a 30-below zero cold snap, Governor Pawlenty's solutions would start by turning off the furnace.
  
  In his January 15, 2009 State of the State address, Pawlenty outlined a policy vision that compounds the present disaster with another, greater one. Facing a $5.5 billion projected [...]
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  Posted: January 19, 2009, 5:17am EST
  

• Minnesota 2020 Journal: Another Dubious Minnesota Milestone

  Teach for America is coming to Minnesota. It's a dubious achievement because it speaks volumes about Minnesota's declining school funding and quality.
  
  Teach for America, the service-based, non-traditional teacher program, works in our nation's poorest and poorest performing school districts. Based on a volunteer service model, it recruits and [...]
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  Posted: January 13, 2009, 2:17pm EST
  

• Minnesota 2020 Journal: Don't Sell the Airport

  Selling the Minneapolis-St Paul airport, a state-owned capital asset, to buy down the projected biennial budget deficit, is a bad idea. More importantly, it's poor public policy.
  
  This proposal, first publicly articulated by State Representative Laura Brod and State Senator Geoff Michel, was referenced by Governor Pawlenty [...]
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  Posted: January 13, 2009, 2:16pm EST
  

• Minnesota 2020 Journal: We Happy Few

  I stood outside recently, entranced by the crisp night sky. It's been stunningly cold so I didn't pause for more than a minute or two but long enough to be awed.
  
  Growing up on southwestern Minnesota's prairies, I loved staring at the winter stars because it taught me to see the [...]
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  Posted: January 13, 2009, 2:16pm EST