Growth & Justice Blog

Hide the children, honey, here come the Progressives!

Oh, my. It’s always a treat to have Craig Westover tell me what I think and stand for as a progressive.

No matter what provokes him or how widely he wanders to gather his wooly proof points, he always gets around to the same rant: Progressives aggressively impose their values on others, using the police power of the state to extort from the hard-working class the costs of providing extensive and unearned benefits to every slacker, transit rider, unwed mother and drug addict in creation.

His latest (“The problem with progressives”) might be called a straw man argument, provided one could see past all the mud. In it, he manages to herd Growth & Justice, Mussolini and stalwart Minnesota governors Harold Stassen, Elmer Anderson, Al Quie and Arne Carlson — some of the leaders being honored by our Sept. 3rd  Celebrating Minnesota’s Progressive Republican Tradition event — into a single, muddled group of apostates.

The notion that we are all progressives now — or, if not, we should be — is a dangerous challenge to constitutionally limited government.

Well, that’s Westover’s notion, which he proceeds to pummel into incoherence. Our event has a less sweeping point to make — that a progressive orientation toward governing is an admirable Minnesota political trait historically exemplified in both parties. It has played a significant role in making our state a model for how to achieve honest elections, effective government, a vigorous, community-engaged  private sector and relative economic prosperity.

Minnesota’s progressive tradition is something worth recognizing and celebrating at a time when the political spotlight is on us during the Republican National Convention — and when our standing as a national role model is coming into question.

In fact, progress is a core American value, and progressives represent the optimism and assertiveness of our founding fathers.

A “progressive” is someone who acts on the belief that life can be improved. Progress, whether enjoyed by individuals, businesses, communities or nations, is achieved through change that benefits increasing numbers of our fellows. For example, Harold Stassen’s reform of civil service that cleaned up serious corruption in state employment; Al Quie’s ongoing quest to assure the quality of our judiciary; Arne Carlson’s fiscal discipline coupled with visionary planning and wise investment.

Progressives don’t believe mankind is perfectible, the market is evil, the government is infallible or taxes are mother’s milk. We do believe the world for our children — and other people's children — can be made better than the one we ourselves enjoyed.

To Westover, though, we're totalitarians.

“Progressivism is politics as religion” that strives to aggressively impose values on society. "’Growth’ and ‘justice’ are both desirable,” he lectures, “and the progressive believes this makes them compatible irrespective of the laws of economics.”

Thinking about how to treat others — with justice — ought to engage our moral sense, but that does not mean government must dedicate itself to erasing all differences among people or businesses. Nor that business must tiptoe through every transaction lest it give offense or be accused of exploitation.

Private interests and governments both have the capacity to improve life. Yes, there are ideologues at the extremes who think the world would run better if one or the other were more fully in charge, but that does not represent the Growth & Justice position. Nor does it accurately reflect the mainstream Minnesota view of a balance between limited government and unlimited free markets.

Westover also conflates progressive politics with progressive taxation. A progressive tax strives to achieve proportionality in the overall tax system by taxing income at a higher rate as income increases. A progressive tax is based on a model of justice and fairness — that people who earn less should not pay a higher proportion of their income for public services than people who earn the most, as is the case today in Minnesota. 

There's plenty of room for discussion on this point, but Westover dismisses it as “moral argument, dividing the world into the self-sacrificing good and the selfishly individual.”

It is difficult to know, however, who is on which side in Westover World, considering Westover himself recently wrote: "Taxes as charity rob the giver of the virtue of the freely given gift and the responsibility of judging a recipient worthy of the gift."

No moral argument going on there, surely.

In Westover’s immutable universe, no one who favors progress — Republican, Democrat or Lutheran — can retain claim to their own core principles. We hope — hoping is still allowed, isn't it? — Celebrating Minnesota’s Progressive Republican Tradition will remind people of all parties that it wasn’t always so.

— Charlie Quimby

The anti-government theme and the (alleged) "fall of conservatism''

There’s a temptation in the punditry business to attach too much meaning to the present, to excitedly say "never before,'' and to declare the  "fall of'' and "death of''  this or that.   And in my time I've seen too many premature pronouncements  _ of the death of God, of the decline and fall of liberalism, and even the end of history _ to get too excited.   But George Packer in the latest New Yorker has written an eminently readable treatise  about “The Fall of Conservatism.’’   It was referenced in a Star Tribune editorial Saturday about the Minnesota Republican Party’s state convention, and the Packer piece promises to be prime grist for the mill this summer. 

Packer quotes conservatives themselves who fear that the movement is out of ideas and intellectually fatigued and he draws some amazing admissions  out of Patrick Buchanan about how Republicans consciously and aggressively exploited southern white fury over the civil rights movements to build their counter-attack in the late 1960s.   Packer also does a good job sketching out broader and more defensible non-economic motivations for the rise of conservatism:  concerns about “the chaos of the cities, the moral heedlessness of the young and the insults to national pride.’’ I've always maintained that "liberalism'' got to be a dirty word because of "free love'' and drugs and flag-burning and goofy dalliances with Marxism, not because of its efforts to alleviate poverty and social problems and gross inequalities in wealth and income.

And Packer gets closest to explaining the conservatives' strategic mistake when he cites David Brooks’ analysis about how conservatives overreached with their hostility to government.  “An anti-government philosophy turned out to be politically unpopular and fundamentally un-American…People want something melioristic, they want government to do things.’’  And in the end, because of a very contradictory conservative view of government as limitless when it comes to security and national defense, conservatives after almost 30 years of dominance  “hadn’t made much of a dent in the bureaucracy, and they had done nothing to provide universal health-care coverage or arrest growing economic inequality.’’   Packer goes on to quote conservative David Frum as saying that “smaller government is no longer a basis for conservative dominance.’’   And he points to young conservatives like Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam who are pushing progressive ideas like wage subsidies for low-income workers and tax credits for children with families.    

I don’t want conservatism to fall or die, anymore than I want yin to wipe out yang or night to eclipse day.      And it doesn’t matter what I think because conservatism and the great ideas it stands for _ individual and market freedoms, personal responsibility,  family values, respect for the past, and religious convictions _ will and should always be with us as we try to build a better world.   I just think conservatism needs to return to the healthy accommodation its adherents used to have for other principles _ equality of opportunity, social justice, and a respectful faith that community and the “we” are at least as important as the individual and the “I”. 

Dane Smith

Accentuating the positive about taxes

Over the last several decades, anti-tax terminology has moved from political play books and partisan rhetoric into everyday discourse. For example, "death tax" was introduced into official language in 1982 by President Reagan during a speech in Minnesota. Now, I routinely find it embedded in government web sites and budget line items.

Since death tax is a term championed by those who seek to abolish the estate tax, such use by revenue and treasury departments seems as counterproductive as fast food menus calling their burgers Gut Bombs.

Then there's "burden," a good and useful accounting term that carries excess baggage when the word "tax" is loaded aboard.

At Growth & Justice, we try to avoid such loaded language, although some claim "investment" just means a tax by another name. (Actually, it means "spending" with a "smart" in front of it and a payoff on the other end.) Making taxes a dirty word is a much easier job than accentuating the positive.

As Richard Coniff pointed out this week in the New York Times, the word "tax" itself

comes from the Latin for “appraise” with punitive overtones of “censure” or “fault,” as if wage-earners have done something wrong by their labors. “Dues,” in contrast, is rooted in social obligation and duty.

[...]

Instead of denouncing taxes, politicians would do better to appeal to the patriotic corners of our hearts that warm to phrases like “we the people.” “Taxation” is a throwback to the time when kings picked our pockets. “Paying my dues,” a phrase popularized in the jazz music world, is language by which we can stand together as Americans.

Union members and country clubbers both pay dues, too. But changing the word is less important than establishing the values that reinforce shared purpose and solidarity — and connecting what's paid in with what comes out.

— Charlie Quimby

Religious progressives on the move in Minnesota

New energy from religious progessives is one of the more intriguing developments of the 2008 political season. And perhaps the biggest event this year in Minnesota around that theme will play out over three days  next weekend at the Depot in Minneapolis. Some pretty big national stars will be on the stage.

Featured presenters at the "Voting Justice, Voting Hope" conference (register here) will include Christian leader Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourner magazine and a prolific author, Ray Suarez, senior correspondent on PBS's  News Hour with Jim Lehrer, and Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine.  In addition to the speakers, there will be more than two dozen workshops, ranging from "Reclaiming the American Values Debate"  to "Prophetic Advocacy 101.'' 

Growth & Justice will have a booth at this event and we'll be talking to conference-goers about our research and advocacy for investing in the common good and raising the money fairly for that investment.

— Dane Smith 

Well Said, Mr. Nobles, and Happy 25th

It was about 20 years ago and the Office of the Legislative Auditor was getting attention for a series of tough investigative reports on questionable behavior by public officials and poor performance by state government,  which back then was completely dominated by DFLers at the executive, legislative and judicial branches. I was a reporter for the Star Tribune and was impressed by the competence and toughness of the watchdog agency and its director, Jim Nobles. So I wrote a story about Nobles and conveyed the consensus at that time, held by both parties, that he was an inquisitor of unquestioned fairness and tenacity.   

Fast forward to last week and Nobles was in the spotlight again for his agency's tough analysis of Republican Gov. Pawlenty's JOBZ program and the deteriorating state of the state's transportation system. Britt Robson of MinnPost put together a spot-on Q&A with Nobles, focusing on a question about whether the agency was anti-Pawlenty and whether "truth has a liberal bias.''

Nobles' response was a classic statement of the good-government principles that Minnesota has long prided itself on, and which need to be reinforced as we move toward more investments in education, transportation, health-care access and other progressive goals.

MP: So you don't subscribe to the idea that the truth has a liberal bias?

JN: [laughs] No. You know the only way in which that might be true is that I really believe in the important role government can play. But I also honestly believe that once an agency is given a responsibility, it has to be fulfilled in a very serious and cost effective way. I want to bring good value to government. That tends to make me say government is important, if for no other reason than it is extracting a lot of money from the citizens and needs to use it effectively. So I am not one of those who just throw up their hands at government altogether, say they are just a bunch of slugs wasting our money. I believe we can take money and do good things. But I believe you really have to work hard and set high standards. I would like all of government to work the way I manage this office, with great intensity.

Nobles has been the epitome of grown-up integrity and a force for good in Minnesota's public sector for 25 years. He and his office, which had a good reputation before he arrived in 1983, deserve a salute.

Dane Smith

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Progressive taxes AND real prosperity

Groups such as Minnesota Citizens for Tax Justice have been pointing to evidence since the mid-1980s that fair and progressive taxes do not necessarily hinder economic prosperity and growth. That argument is a central tenet here at Growth & Justice, and we've been a leader making the case for a more progressive tax structure in Minnesota since our founding five years ago. We're not territorial about this distinction or this issue and we're always happy to see other groups take up the fight.   

The latest to weigh in is Minnesota 2020 fellow Jeff Van Wychen, who has also worked with us on tax-and-budget issues, in a study that correlates progressity of taxes with indicators of economic vitality and quality of life.   

In an impressively documented study, Van Wychen shows that:

States with progressive tax systems do at least as well as states with more regressive tax systems in economic performance, business climate, and general livability...Why is this?  One explanation is that states with the most progressive tax systems are better able to finance the educational and transportation infrastructure and the public services that a modern economy requires because they don't shift a disproportionate share of the burden of paying for these investments to households with the least ability to pay.  The loss of high income households due to progressive taxation is offset by an increased ability to pay for public investments.

Despite the careful and understated tack taken by Van Wychen — and a finding only of a "slight tendency'' for states with more progressive tax structures to actually perform better economically — his work drew a sharp critique from conservative Minnesota Free Market Institute Fellow Craig Westover, and a counter-reply from Van Wychen.   

Westover, as usual, poses thoughtful questions and counterpoints but without evidence implies bad faith when he dismisses the study as "little more than (an) attempt to support a partisan position,'' and of "not even trying to get it right.''   

We agree with Van Wychen that if progressive taxes (in shorthand, tax rates that are higher on higher incomes than in states with regressive tax structures) really are bad for business, that evidence should have come through on at least one of his study's six bar graphs representing rankings of states on economic vitality measures.   

Moreover, for two decades, it's conservatives who have been the aggressors on this correlation front (progressive taxation is bad for rich investors) in their relentless crusade to undo the New Deal and the progressive tax structure that created it. And finally,  even Westover acknowledges that Minnesota was near the top on every business and life quality measure.   

Despite our decline in relative tax progressivity since the big income tax cuts earlier this decade, we still rank 11th in progressivity. If any state has done it right in matching progressivity and prosperity, it's us.

— Dane Smith 

Falling behind Wisconsin and Peircing analysis on states' fiscal woes

For years I've worked this friendly Minnesota-centric shtick about how good ol' Wisconsin is our closest relative, a kind of sister state that has a very similar history, culture and progressive instincts.  But the punch line is that they are cheeseheads and Packer fans after all, and just a little behind us for the title of Paragon of Progressive States, and not quite as far above average as a result.

  It's time to drop that routine from the repertoire and to acknowledge that the Badger State is more progressive and far-sighted economically than the Gopher State.  Lori Sturdevant's excellent Star Tribune OpEx piece and Q&A with Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle Sunday provides more evidence that Wisconsin is moving ahead with aggressive efforts to ensure more access to affordable higher education and health-care coverage.   Higher taxes (on cigarettes) and an imaginative partnership with business helps pay for this "human capital investment surge'' to the east, Sturdevant writes. 

When I was doing research in the mid-1980s for the Star Tribune for a fiscal study of Minnesota and other states, Minnesota unquestionably was one of the biggest spending states (and our economy was doing fine).  We ranked significantly ahead of Wisconsin on the bottom line:  state-local taxes and state-local spending as a percent of income.   That hasn't been true for several years now.   Latest figures from the Minnesota Taxpayers Association (not to be confused with the anti-tax League) show that Wisconsin ranks 10th in state-local taxes as a percent of income and Minnesota is 23rd.   On state-local spending as a percent of income, Wisconsin is 23rd and Minnesota is 31st.   Watch for right-wing business interests in Wisconsin to start making exaggerated claims about employers and jobs fleeing to low-tax Minnesota.  Boy that's going to feel weird.

Meanwhile, Neal Peirce, one of the nation's foremost authorities on the states and their governments, has produced a strongly persuasive case for states to reinvest, focusing on nation-state California.   His latest nationally synicated column makes the case and these excerpts get right at it:

Many states have never fully recovered from the sharp cutbacks they made in education, health coverage and child care in response to the economic slump of 2001-2004 that was triggered by the technology stock slump and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. And inflation is driving up the cost of government services.

So should governments just slash their budgets willy-nilly, hoping for a better day?

No. That's the firm opinion of Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto. Levy focuses his argument on California, but it fits most of the country. We have strong growth sectors in Internet services, biotechnology, trade, finance and entertainment. But with a tidal wave of skilled baby boomers soon to retire, our work force will include fast-rising numbers of Latino and Asian immigrants, their children and grandchildren -- many of them lagging in the critical educational skills needed in a high-tech, intensely competitive global economy...

But look at what California has done instead (of investing in education). From 1984 to 2008, it let its per capita spending on prisons increase 126 percent while its per capita spending on its public universities -- once its claim to world fame -- declined 12 percent. "Prisons," the Sacramento Bee editorializes, "are sucking the life out of higher education in this state -- and thwarting the aims of economic advancement and social mobility."

So what's Schwarzenegger's solution? Shorten sentences of 28,000 prisoners, saving $1 billion by the next budget year -- but still go ahead with his program to build 53,000 new cells at a numbing cost of $15 billion for construction and debt service.

A sane California, Levy argues, would raise taxes $7 billion this year, (our italics) recession notwithstanding. The increase would be about one penny out of every $2 that Californians -- whose aggregate income is about $1.5 trillion -- actually earn. The collective family of California, he suggests, can take the one cent from eating out or buying a fancy car and put it into education -- a small enough sacrifice compared to the kinds of tough decisions our grandparents had to make during the Great Depression.

Dane Smith

MNSCU officials at the pulpit, state and church together in a good way

Top officials from the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system (MNSCU) will be going to 15 churches with predominantly African-American, Hispanic, or other racial minority congregations this weekend, to preach about the enormous value of higher education in achieving economic progress. This "Super Weekend" outreach, now in its second year, deserves enthusiastic applause.   

We think it's great because the Smart Investments in Minnesota's Students initiative at Growth & Justice has a goal of a 50 percent increase in higher-ed attainment. That can't be achieved without even more dramatic hikes, percentagewise, for students of color in the completion of  one-year, two-year or four-year degrees. And the current gap between whites and non-whites in high-school graduation is unacceptable. 

“Many parents find it challenging to guide their children through what can be a complicated process of preparing for and selecting a college,” said Whitney Harris, executive director of diversity and multiculturalism for the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, in the MNSCU statement announcing the outreach effort. “We can provide specific assistance for parents in helping their children to succeed in college.”   

MNSCU has more students of color on its state, community and technical college campuses than any other private or public system in Minnesota.

There's another interesting and positive angle here. The frequent claim from the right that progressives and government officials leaders are "irreligious'' or anti-religious is mostly false, or at least grossly exaggerated.   

Human rights and economic reforms throughout American history have been led by progressive women and men who were also strongly religious and observant.  And even today most mainstream church leaders — Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim and otherwise — embrace progressive economic goals of tax fairness and ample and wise public investment for the common good.

But it's fair to say that concern about church-state separation has sometimes led to a reluctance by  government leaders to engage directly with the religious community, to simply talk, to visit.  Efforts like MNSCU's Super Weekend can help close this engagement gap. 

Here's the complete list of churches, times and speakers for Super Weekend.

— Dane Smith

 

Scrimping on the Sesquicentennial: A Sign of the Times

Yet another casualty in our decade-long experiment with downsizing and disinvesting in the public sector — which is an historic deviation for Minnesota — turns out to be the celebration of our own history.

Media reports in recent months have drawn attention to the bare-bones budget for the Minnesota Sesquicentennial, the 150th anniversary of statehood.  Kevin Duchschere's assessment of this sad situation in the Star Tribune on New Year's Day notes that only $750,000 has been appropriated, compared to $8.5 million that Wisconsin spent on its sesquicentennial in 1998 and an inflation-adjusted $8.5 million that Minnesota spent on its centennial in 1958.

Way back last May, Strib columnist Nick Coleman, arguably the most knowledgeable and astute history buff in the state's news media, adjusted for population growth and found that Minnesota is spending 15 cents per person in 2008, compared to $3 in 1958.   The centennial, he noted, got a lot of national attention, and even an appearance at the State Fair by Marilyn Monroe (maybe she practiced her famous "Happy Birthday, Mr. President'' song on us).

At Growth & Justice we try to stay focused on the bread-and-butter issues and the main things, the investments in education, transportation infrastructure, health-care and the environment that we know will lead to shared prosperity. And a birthday party certainly does not qualify as a make-or-break investment.

But this shortchanging is both emblematic of our recent penury and a lost opportunity. Minnesota could have used this occasion to really strut its stuff and draw attention to its great and distinctive history — given that eyes will be focused on us in late summer during the Republican National Convention in the Twin Cities, the first national major party convention for Minnesota since 1892.

But a lot of focus on Minnesota history is probably not a helpful thing for anti-government conservatives. 

The fact is that Minnesota has a uniquely progressive history. It was one of the first states to adopt an income tax, one of the first to invest generously and equitably in public education and other public goods, from care for the disabled to community colleges to state parks. Its leaders, in ALL political parties, were groundbreakers in advancing the cause of suffrage, the economic condition of ordinary farmers and laborers, and civil and human rights.

A strong and early consciousness around history has been with us from the beginning. The Minnesota Historical Society is one of the oldest institutions in the state, and its founding coincided with statehood itself. Keeping history in front of us — and the great wisdom that ignoring it consigns us to repeating its painful lessons — has always been a Minnesota thing.

It's not too late to get this party going, or to improve and enhance it. History lovers should check out the Minnesota Sesquicentennial Commission website to explore ways to contribute or participate. And Growth & Justice is doing its part.

We are organizing a symposium/celebration of "Minnesota's Progressive Republican Tradition,'' to be held at the College Club on Summit Avenue (next to the Governor's Residence) on Sept. 3 during the convention.

— Dane Smith

On WCCO-AM, Talking Presidential Politics (and Growth & Justice)

Writing and speaking publicly in behalf of our fine cause - more and smarter public investment in behalf of the common good, and building a wider prosperity in Minnesota - is  rewarding work. And it's just about my favorite role as president of Growth & Justice, up there with policy research and digging into tax-and-budget spreadsheets. (It's funner than you might imagine). 

But occasionally I'm asked by my former colleagues in the news media to offer my two cents on the broader politics-and-government scene, on the shaky assumption that I might have something useful to say after a 30-year career covering and writing about politics and government for both the Star Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Of course I ALWAYS acccept the invitations to speak about Growth & Justice. And I USUALLY try to accept the requests for political chatter. I figure I can at least get some words in edgewise, during the latter, about the former. I bring this up because I was honored to be asked twice this month to talk on WCCO-AM about presidential politics, with a focus on the Iowa and Minnesota caucuses. On the evening of Sat. Dec. 15, I was on for an hour with my long-time colleage Dennis McGrath, a senior editor at the Star Tribune, and CCO host Esme Murphy, best known as a veteran and versatile WCCO-TV reporter. Didn't get much chance to sell the G&J message on Dec. 15, but every time in and out of the station breaks, our name and description of us as a progressive think tank was repeated.

Today (Friday, Dec. 28) I got an unexpected early-morning call from CCO, again with a request to talk about presidential politics, this time with the delightfully wry Tim Russell (man of a thousand voices, Prairie Home Companion star).  And this time, on prime drive-time airspace, I got a chance to give the brief Growth & Justice "elevator speech'' and spell out our website address. And also I got a chance to raise some serious doubts about the fairness of presidential  candidate Mike Huckabee's proposal to scrap  the strongly progressive federal income tax,  and the Internal Revenue Service, in favor of a national sales tax.

Dane Smith