How would you describe the state of the state?
Posted at 5:00 AM on February 11, 2010
by Eric Ringham
(28 Comments)
Filed under: Politics/Government
In a tradition with roots going back to 1857, Minnesota's governor delivers an annual speech on the state of the state. Gov. Tim Pawlenty gives his final State of the State address today at the State Capitol. Today's Question: How would you describe the state of the state?
Comments (28)
I listened to the S O S address on MPR. Most of it was standard Reagonomics. What jumped out at me was the concept of the St. Paul and Minneapolis Independent School Districts "turned over" to the respective mayors. If the legislature starts to draft such a measure perhaps they should first consult with the two mayors. I have to wonder if the Guv has asked them. Will the two school boards contiue to be elected? Will the mayor have veto power over an elected school board? Will the mayors create commisions staffed with political cronies to run the schools? The legislature should just adopt the Governor's budget and adjorn early so everyone can get on to campaigning as has the Governor for the last two years. Perhaps the next governor will run the state as something other than an exercise in personal ideology.
Fascinating! Look how many folks have boldly reinterpreted the question from "How would you describe the state of the state?" to "Who's to blame for the mess we're in?"!
The truth is, our politicians represent us -- in more ways than one.
The state is hurting; it needs money to pay for all the services people have decided are important over the years. If people aren't willing to give more to the state, it'll just have to spend less.
I'd start by spending less on politicians (of any party) who take time away from DOING THEIR JOBS to go shake hands and campaign for elections. If I stopped doing my job one year in every four, or took as much time off from it as they do from theirs, I'd be fired. If I use company time to search for another job, I'd be fired. While I'm not suggesting we fire our elected officials (yet), why not dock their paychecks to reflect the amount of time they actually spend on the clock? Who knows, we might be able to fund a few more emergency services people out of the savings!
I have only lived here for three years and I think there are many wonderful things about MN. Things are not great right now, but know what? They are not great anywhere at the moment. I know that MN has always had high taxes but they were also envied nationwide for the quality of their schools, worldwide for the quality of their healthcare and for "Minnesota nice". What happened? The schools are constantly cutting programs, the number of uninsured and underinsured continue to grow and a few years ago people had a bridge fall out from under them while they were trying to go home after work. I do not pretend to know what we SHOULD be doing, but what we ARE doing is not working. It is time for everyone to try to come up with solutions to our collective problems and stop dismissing the oppositions ideas out of hand. Just a thought.
The state of the State, (and the Union for that matter), in a word is: DIVIDED. We are divided, split right down the middle. Haves vs. have-nots, gay vs. straight, GOP vs. DFL, liberal vs. conservative and it goes on and on in every facet of life. Everyone has taken sides and are dead set against the other with no common middle ground. This is true in St. Paul as it is in Washington. There's no such thing as a landslide election anymore. All the politicians are elected by a near 50/50 vote where the deciding ballots would fall within the statistical margin of error in a typical poll. Franken/Coleman is a perfect example. Then we have the media which only widens the divide by fomenting hatred among it's disciples to revile the opposing side, (Rush Limbaugh). Then there's the other side who thinks that everything under the sun is a constitutional "right" and then manipulate the courts to cow-tow to their agenda. We have a virtual civil war in our state and nation today. This division is a problem with it's own solutions. Either the people, (and I mean ALL the people), demand and enforce an end to the root of this division, that is the two-party political system and bring about the restoration of true representative democracy by giving all candidates equal amounts of campaign funding and media exposure. Or we will continue to "elect" our representatives by only 2 or 3 percent of the electorate where the remaining 97 or 98 percent of the ballots cast simply cancel one another out leading to a perpetual election machine with no consensus among those elected other than their own delusions of political job security and where in the end, the tyranny of the courts will ultimately decide what our rights and liberties will be.
MN is a wonderful place that will turn into a mess if we continue to spend beyond our means. We cannot tax ourselves inot prosperity. We can grow ourselves back to prosperity if the St. Pail crowd allow individuals the freedom to do so.
Do you really want to know? No. The State has flipped flopped in fifty years. Everything is opposite. The 24 hour news cycle does not reveal this flaw. A few immigrants are a good thing. Being over whelmed by the new legal racist gender bias quotas is a bad thing.
Hebrews, Africans, Women, Gay homosexuals, Immigrants, and Minorities (HAWGIMs) are the new race based gender biased Minnesota. That means the the old bad evil people are the Christian, Heterosexual, European, White, America born, Males are the new evil monsters in media, at jobs, and in public schools.
The chickens of the failed experiments are coming home to roost. Unwed births are tragically approaching 40%.The Federal Government has funded this social experiment with currency debasement, taxes on income, selling children into debt slavery (currently 12 trillion dollars), and subsidies for failed experiments like Israel, integration, and giving women the easy, fun, indoor, paper work jobs. The solution? Government invades, kills, steals, and lies for loot as it pillages the economy.
This plan has gone on since August 15th, 1971, when the dollar was defaulted on by delinking the fake US Federal Reserve notes with gold. All prices are up 1,000% since then.
We have just had the worst ten year US stock performance in the history of the US. The chickens are coming home to roost. Hebrew affirmative action would help. Hebrews own Facebook, Amazon, Wikipedia, Google, and Twitter. When the solutions are more painful than the problems the solutions, cutting the budgets by 50% and firing 50% of federal employees will be avoided indefinitely. It's when, not if, this system will fail. Protect yourself. No one else can or will. Good luck to us all. What a great time to be alive.
The people are what makes Minnesota great. The State of the state is always the same because the people stay positive and hard working. I am a young person that had no reason to move to Minnesota to start my career. I chose to because the people are the best in the country. Rather then panic and point fingers lets roll up the sleeves and fix the problems, like we always do. Make sure to focus on long term goals rather than short term fixes.
My opinion is to cut government when times are bad but make sure to invest in areas that pay dividends later. Therefore, lets make sure we protect Higher Ed. That's the ticket for future innovation/jobs/growth.
Just an opinion.
It is time for balance and solutions!! Everything needs to be on the table in this time of recession. We may need to cut everywhere and look at taxes too. The upper income groups need to step up and help with higher income taxes that are fairer than we have now. The lower income groups need to help too as they always have in the past. We need to expand the sales tax to services just lower the rate so it not so high, but spread it base to cover more and it can not be revenue neutral this needs to raise more revenue.
I agree with most of the writers that Governor Pawlenty has been a terrible governor. If building a better state is the goal, cutting taxes doesn't work.
In the last two administrations we were told that if we only cut taxes the jobs would come. Instead, having consented to cut taxes, we are losing jobs.
What might work better instead of a tax incentive is a tax reward: Don't give a company a tax break in the misplaced hope that they'll use the cash to hire someone; they won't. Give them a reward after they've hired someone, and take it away if they downsize.
Here's another revenue idea. Lots of parents fund unlimited cell-phone texting for their teens. That's at least $80/month per person. If these folks can afford that luxury for their teenagers, surely they can afford to pay a bit more in taxes for an improved and shared quality of life in this state. Maybe those taxes would fund a job for their texting teen, who could then pay for all that texting himself (or herself).
"Why is Toro building a new distribution center in Tomah Wisconsin?"
You'd have to ask Toro.
I know of a locally headquartered company that is building a new distribution center in Provo, UT. Oh my God! We'd better panic!! Except they're building there in order to serve West Coast customers better. Minnesota can't compete in that category. What I know about Tomah is that its near the intersection of two Interstates (90 & 94) and has reasonable proximity to several of their manufacturing facilities (I think they're still in Plymouth, WI, for instance), as well as to large midwest markets like Chicago & Minneapolis. So I can think of a lot of reasons why Tomah makes sense as a distribution center. Taxes are only one component of the equation.
Do you agree or disagree with my earlier point about what kinds of jobs we should try to attract? Can we build or maintain a thriving economy based on providing the lowest-cost source of jobs around, or would we merely be setting ourselves up to be undercut by other states and/or other countries?
I love these far left liberals that keep calling for more "investment". This is nothing more then a call for confiscatory taxes on the creative class, which should drive more people from the state. Take a look at the number of jobs created in Texas the 4th quarter of 2009, 50,000 jobs. Texas has 0% income tax by the way. These far left DFL supporters believe high incomes and wealth are part of some mythical lottery when in fact hard work and risk taking are the primary reasons for high income and high net worth.
Pawlenty was a GREAT govenor and I hope our next president as the country realizes obama does not have a clue.
Why is Toro building a new distribution center in Tomah Wisconsin?
When's the last time 3M built something new here?
I'm in the construction industry, why then is eastern South Dakota booming in commercial construction?
Garyf, over at Newscut, Bob Collins discusses that study:
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/news_cut/archive/2010/02/is_minnesotas_tax_structure_co.shtml
It's a good read.
http://freedomfoundationofminnesota.com/documents/TaxMigrationStudy.pdf
Taxpayers are leaving. Why work harder in Minnesota?
http://freedomfoundationofminnesota.com/documents/TaxMigrationStudy.pdf
Taxpayers are leaving. Why work harder in Minnesota?
I agree wholeheartedly with Joanna, Donna, et. al. who say that Ventura and Pawlenty have been starving the state of the investment we need to have the quality of life we've enjoyed in the past. We won't be able to keep up with the changing/global economy if we don't make those investments. We will also continue to see the gap between rich and poor grow, which contributes to crime. And don't get me started on the condition of our streets! I can't believe how bad our streets and highways are!
The wealthy and near-wealthy citizens of MN can more than afford to pay higher taxes -- and they should at the very least pay their fair share of taxes, which they haven't been doing for some time. Even I would be willing to pay a little more in taxes, and I'm just scraping by. Many businesses can also afford to pay higher taxes. They normally use every loophole in the book to avoid paying taxes, while they use up state services and infrastructure. Businesses should be given tax incentives for hiring people at livable salaries and for contributing to our quality of life. But we shouldn't let them pay no-or-low taxes just so they can keep swimming in profits.
Pawlenty has been catering to the greedy.
Garyf asks
"Do we want to attract business and jobs or do we want to ..."
I think we all agree that jobs, and therefore the business that build jobs, are critical to maintaining a stable economy. The questions are what attracts business & what kinds of jobs we want to create. For instance, if you're attracting manufacturers who build factories where they can find the lowest-cost employees possible, you're sentencing a portion of your population to having bottom-rung jobs, and perpetually being at risk of another state or country undercutting those costs. In other words, its a race to the bottom for minimum wage, low value-added jobs.
Instead, we should be focused on attracting businesses that create good jobs with a living wage. The best way to do that is to have an educated population that is capable of performing value-added work.
The state of the state is one of crisis, and therefore one of oppurtunity. Given the size of the budget hole, it is time for us to discuss, collectively, what we envision for Minnesota. We became the state we are - with a well-educated populace, supporting a diverse economy that generates good jobs - by investing in our population. Do we want to continue to be this kind of state? If so, how do we make that happen? If past is prologue, we have a better economy than WI, IA & Dakota territory because we invested in our people by building a quality education system that creates an educated workforce that attracts & maintains businesses that need smart workers. History shows that by investing in ourselves & our children, the payback is huge. We must choose to work together, and collectively sacrifice a small piece of today's income to maintain the economy & quality of life we've expected to have in Minnesota, by investing in the workforce of tomorrow.
It is time for a moral reality check.
There are 215,000 officially unemployed in Minnesota and there is only one job opening for every 6 jobless workers. Yet the Legislature has not acted to give our states unemployed the same $2,400 income tax deduction on Unemployment Insurance that even the IRS is offering on 2009 taxes!
How about a retroactive 2009 Bi-Partisan Minnesota income tax cut for the jobless guys and gals, you claim to represent!
A simple amendment to the proposed retroactive Haitian tax deduction bill now before the Legislature would tell Minnesota's Unemployed they matter as much to our Legislators, as the unfortunate citizens of Haiti.
Imagine being MN Nice to our own Unemployed citizens at the same time we are offering needed help to people in the Caribbean.
Any more taxes and we might as well live in Denmark.
We as a society need to conserve and live within our means. Minnesota has allot to be proud of all we need is fare, honest, bold leaders.
DTOM
DMOX, as a transplant from 20 years ago, I agree with you; MN is still relatively better off and a better place to live than other states. But guess what? It used to be much better than it is now, and we are riding on the wave of earlier investments made by the state in education and infrastructure. I'm heartbroken at how the last 2 governers have allowed the state's quality to degrade by starving those investments in our future. We are heading in the wrong direction in so many areas when we could continue to be the national leaders. Deferred maintanence results in bridges falling down. Choking off investment in educations results in a workforce that will not be able to hold those jobs that will bring us out of economic stagnation. We have the resources, the brainpower and initiative to reverse this trend; what we need now is political leadershop that is focused on the state and not on national office. Pawlenty is a failed governor.
Quality of life? When business is leaving? South Dakota advertizes on the radio to attract business. Bloomington based Toro is building a HUGE distribution center in Tomah Wisconsin and NOT Minnesota! 3M hasn't built anything new here in years and is gradually leaving.
Just where do you expect jobs to come from?
How much harder are people going to work if they are taxed more if they work harder?
Horrible, Pawlenty has made this state into the Mississippi of the north. This is what happens when you have a Governor that cow-tows to the special interests groups like the Tax Payer League. No new taxes mean no money for local governments, no money for schools, and no money for infrastructure. Our roads and streets now look like Beirut.
We are at a crossroads. Do we want to attract business and jobs or do we want to tax and spend ourselves in a bigger hole like California, New York, New Jersey and all the other left leaning states.
The State of Minnesota is on life-support due primarily Pawlenty and his acolytes.
Minnesota is on the verge of crashing and burning, thanks largely to the tax cuts of former gov. Ventura and the shameful taxophobia of gov. Pawlenty.
We need a governor with some moral courage, who understands that we can't cut our way to restoring the state's leading positions on education, provision of adequate and necessary services, and overall quality of life.
I know that Minnesota has it's problems, like any state does, but just remember that there are states out there with much MUCH worse problems. See AZ, MI, PA....Having just moved here in the last year, I still see the state with a fresh set of eyes. You have an amazingly diverse & rich economy, a dearth of intellect & education, and forgiving that it's "pothole" season, you have a well mixed transportation infrastructure.
We spend a lot of time, particularly in politics, criticizing & heckling, and I think it's important, before we pick the State of the State apart, to take a moment & remember how good we have it.
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