Growth & Justice Blog

Watch for tax expenditures as the solution in June, despite last week's chain yanking

Two months in to the legislative session, some of the more moderate and independent conservatives were daring to suggest reasonable revenue options, such as eliminating tax breaks and deductions.  But then somebody yanked the chain and gave the order to get back in line.  And that helps explain the letter to Gov. Dayton late last week, signed by all 37 senators in the majority caucus, affirming that they are still opposed to raising taxes to balance the budget.

But let's consider the door ajar, and certainly not locked and bolted, especially on the option of removing "tax expenditures" (basically exemptions, credits and loopholes that favor certain folks or activities within a broader tax type).  The rationale is well established for going after tax expenditures as not only a way to raise revenue, but also as a redesign overhaul that will bring more progressivity and stability to our state's increasingly complex system.

Sound advice on how to think about tax expenditures and ideas for evaluating them and even "sunsetting'' some of them are contained in a report submitted to the Department of Revenue entitled "Tax Expenditure Review Report: Bringing Tax Expenditures Into the Budget Process.'' Among those on the panel that produced the report are our Growth & Justice Policy Fellow, Marsha Blumenthal, professor emerita at the University of St. Thomas, and John Spry, also an economics professor at the University of St. Thomas, whose expertise is often sought by conservatives.  Former Minnesota Finance Commissioner Jay Kiedrowski and Judy Temple, both professors at the University of Minnesota, and each of whom have served on advisory panels for Growth & Justice, are co-signers of the report.

The report calls for establishing a Tax Expenditure Commission to oversee an evaluation process and to define a clear and measurable purpose for each tax expenditure.  The report even calls for a process whereby tax expenditures could automatically expire.  Helpful information about tax expenditure redesign and reform efforts in other states is included.  The report also provides an invaluable tool for amateur budget-balancers, because it lists all tax expenditures and the multi-billion cost to the public for breaks ranging from the home mortgage deduction to the tax breaks given to ministers for their housing, to a very long list of sales tax exemptions on a seemingly random list of services and goods.

The political benefits of removing tax expenditures are obvious.  They plausibly can be described as expenditures that cost the state revenue, not just tax increases.  Removing them constitutes a form of redesign and reform.  And Republican majority members in the House and Senate are to be commended for openly debating the merits of this approach to rasing new revenue.

And finally, it's a hopeful sign that the letter to Dayton was not actually written in blood and the tone remains civil and hopeful.  While the signers affirm they are "opposed'' to tax increases, they also say they are "working diligently...to indentify and develop the concepts for long-term redesign and reform."  And one of the more hopeful signs of possible compromise is that we simply don't hear much at all about ironclad "pledges" not to raise any new state taxes under any circumstances whatsover.   Those were a fixture of all-cuts sessions a decade ago, and many thoughtful Republicans such as former House Speaker Steve Sviggum never signed them, and warned against them.

Dane Smith 

Michael O'Keefe with budget wisdom

Michael O'Keefe was one of the standouts in  a highly respected state cabinet that came together to help neophyte Gov. Jesse Ventura in 1999, and O'Keefe served ably as commissioner of the Department of Human Services, one of the state's largest and most complex agencies.   He's also had a distinguished career as a foundation CEO  (McKnight) and a college president (Minneapolis College of Art and Design), and he has degrees in mathematics and physics.   So when he talks about state budget crisis realities, one really should pay attention.   Here are some of the standout excerpts from his recent interview with the Civic Caucus on the "Hard Realities of Minnesota's Budget Situation."

•  Address the problem with every tool in sight, but do not dig a deeper hole--O'Keefe described how he was in government for "good years," when they had extra money to spend. "Then we hit a bad year. The budget was good before the Legislature got a hold of it. Governor Ventura had actually put together a very reasonable plan that included some taxes and some cuts, and drew down some  state reserves with a strategy to replace them.
• "Offset medical costs by accepting federal Medicaid assistance, and find efficiencies--In the area of health, O'Keefe advocates taking the federal Medicaid money-over $1billion-"because one of our goals of a state is to have a safety net." The state really screwed up when it cut general assistance medical care, he said. Now minor conditions become chronic or more serious and people will show up at emergency rooms that cost someone--the state, the county, insured people-- much more than if they had received preventative care.
• The health care system will need a crisis to change--He has concerns about the system of care, and its methods of payment. "A third-party-payer marketplace is never going to work unless you have substantial restructuring. We have a system that rewards doctors on volume, on throughput," and on the cleverness of their support staff to classify what it is that went on in the exam room. He described a doctor who told him that whenever he performs a service he cuts and pastes a description for the service directly out of the Medicare guidebook, which guarantees he'll be reimbursed. Instead, O'Keefe said, the state needs more systems like Mayo where doctors are paid salaries.
  
• The state may not need two public post-secondary systems--A participant asked whether the state government really needs two higher education systems. "I don't think so," O'Keefe responded. "Take a look at the administrative over-structure-it's huge." O'Keefe described his hope that new leadership at the University and at MNSCU will be willing to engage in a discussion about reducing the aggregate administrative overhead, admitting that it would be enormously unpopular with their constituents but nevertheless needs to be done."
  
• Post-secondary costs are being driven up faster than inflation--Higher education costs have been rising at double the rate of inflation for 25 years, he said, and that's not sustainable. Part of the cost-driver has been on the administrative side, and part because of increased complication caused by increased requirements of the federal government. "But a huge increase has been a market phenomenon driven by students and families: they want more, and they're willing to pay for it."  Expectations have increased. "You can't sell a dorm room with three beds anymore. What students and their families want is an apartment suite with living area, kitchen, laundry etc. And, they're willing to pay for it. Witness private developers who are putting up such style dorms and making them profitable."  O'Keefe recalled many years ago that The George Washington University was considered "middling" in terms of quality. They brought in a consultant whose recommendation was that they double tuition. They increased it by 40 percent in the face of deep concern that  applications would go down; instead they went up by 60 percent. "People were willing to pay more because of the perception of quality implied by the higher tuition."
• Virtual education has significant, widespread potential--To a question about virtual education, O'Keefe said he thinks it has huge potential to bring students rich experiences without having to first bring them together in person. At the college of Art and Design he described a professor who taught via the internet from South Africa. The students were satisfied, he said, with a balance of internet-conferencing, faxing images to each other, and working face-to-face in groups on campus. "I was very surprised; it resulted in a quality experience." Even so, the application of technology has increased costs: "So far when new technologies have been added they haven't reduced costs, as some had promised. I'd argue you have to change the system of teaching for that to happen."

There's substantially more from O'Keefe on the Civic Caucus website,  including a provocative challenge to rethink  whether Minnesota's spending on prisons and lifetime incarceration of sex offenders can be sustained.   We're proud to have Michael on our board of directors at Growth & Justice and as a significant  influence on our policy thinking.

Dane Smith

Round-up of good news and commentary for practical progressives

Here's a round-up of some particularly good fodder for practical progressives in the news recently:   

• Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus is continuing to develop as a thoughtful centrist heir to David Broder and she really hit the mark with her recent commentary (headlined in the Star Tribune, "If taxes never go up, we go down''). Marcus nailed Gov. Tim Pawlenty for his recent statement implying that the U.S. has higher taxes than most other nations, pointing out that our overall effective federal tax rate is much lower than it was a decade ago, and lower than all but Mexico, Turkey and South Korea among the 30 major world economies. Marcus skewered conservatives for continuing to claim that tax cuts actually produce more revenue and for their perennial complaint that "whatever level taxes are at, they are too high.'' Just a couple weeks ago, Marcus took on liberals and Democrats for refusing to acknowledge that some entitlement programs might have to be trimmed.
• One of the most refreshing "good that government does'' stories in recent memory landed on the St. Paul Pioneer Press front page over the weekend. An article headlined "Minnesota air pollution:  It's not as bad as you think,'' emphasized the rather astounding good news that since the landmark Clean Air Act of 1970, emissions from industrial polluters and vehicles have been slashed by 62 percent nationally and by half in Minnesota.
• Refuting a lot of conservative anti-Europe propaganda recently, author Steven Hill placed an op-ed in the Star Tribune pointing out that Japan and Europe and their more egalitarian market economies are doing quite well compared to the United States. Hill is the author of "Europe's Promise: Why the European Way is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age.''
• Finally, we think we offered a strong rebuttal to the false claim by some conservatives that government can't create jobs, or more broadly, that government is a net drain on the economy and can only consume wealth. Our Star Tribune "Counterpoint'' piece reviewed a long history of business-building investment and job creation in the U.S. and Minnesota.

— Dane Smith

Rhode Island tax reform: Less bold than it looks?

University of St. Thomas finance professor John Spry asks whether Minnesota should follow Rhode Island's "bold" tax reform.

Perhaps the real question is whether a bill that unanimously passes both houses is as bold as it looks.

The reforms include cutting the state's top marginal income tax rate from 9.9 percent to 5.99 percent, reducing the number of tax brackets from 5 to 3, and raising the personal income tax standard deduction while eliminating many other tax credits and itemized deductions. Overall, the bill was revenue-neutral and may end up being slightly progressive.

Significantly, Rhode Island has a Republican governor and Democratic majorities in both houses. The tax reforms passed unanimously. Spry says:

this shows how a coalition can be assembled to lower tax rates by widening tax bases. Every Democrat in the Rhode Island legislature was willing to support significant pro-growth reduction in tax rates because he or she recognized the benefits of lower tax rates in today's competitive economy."

It may also show that tax reform is easier when the governor is engaged and the changes don't increase taxes overall or require new program cuts. However, this "reform" does not actually address the state's revenue shortfalls. (Rhode Island's FY11 budget was balanced in part by cutting aid to local governments and paring back some state employee retiree payouts.)

The bill was based on proposals from a 2009 tax reform panel appointed by Governor Donald Carcieri. Prof. Spry served on Gov. Tim Pawlenty's so-called 21st Century Tax Reform Commission, which focused primarily on business tax reform and also called for broadening the sales tax base while lowering rates. But its proposals never got much support from the governor.

We agree with Spry that the changes are positive because they are somewhat simpler and eliminate preferences to make the system fairer. Growth & Justice has long advocated lowering sales tax rates and broadening the base as one reform in Minnesota's tax system.

But will cutting the top marginal tax rates and most of the breaks that lowered the effective rate do anything for substantive for business growth?

We side with the Citizens  for Tax Justice assessment that the economic growth rationale for this bill is misguided. Especially since research is silent on whether revenue-neutral changes in tax rates and tax bases have any impact on growth.  

San Jose State tax professor Annette Nellen says, as we do, that what matters is whether changes in business activity and start-ups actually occur after the change takes place. Before Minnesota drinks this Rhode Island flavor of the tax reform Kool-Aid, we might want to see some evidence that the effects are as advertised.

Prof. Nellen notes another wrinkle in the simplification effect of the reforms — namely, that most tax payers

are likely still itemizing for federal income tax purposes. Also, the number of tax brackets doesn't tie to simplification (unless is it just one bracket) because people use tax tables and tax preparation software to apply the tax brackets.

Fairness and simplicity are relatively easy to measure; economic impact is beyond complicated.

So voters may be best served by frank discussion about how any tax reforms will adequately fund the programs and services citizens want from state government. In Rhode Island, as in Minnesota, that issue has still not been addressed head on, with state lawmakers passing that buck to local governments.

— Charlie Quimby

Unconscionably bad math on government growth

The 66th anniversary of D-Day got me to ruminating on the tremendous sacrifice and the high tax rates that we imposed on ourselves during arguably our finest hours as a nation. It also got me to thinking about the funny numbers flying around these days about our governmental costs and obligations.

The way Gov. Tim Pawlenty and other government-bashing politicos would do the math, our nation now has spent between two and three times more on our war in  the Middle East than we did on World War II.  And using this same childlike finger-counting, the average American family today is 20 times richer than the average family was in 1950. 

This is the falsehood you get if you only count actual nominal greenbacks to make your case. In physical dollar bills, we spent some $300 billion on the largest war in our history, between 1941 and 1945. On the much smaller conflict since 9/11 in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have spent $809 billion in actual dollar bills. Similarly, average family income in 1950 was less than $4,000 and now is about $80,000.

Even amateur students of history and economics knows that this method of counting is ridiculous, and that you have to account for inflation and the size of the economy to get a true perspective of costs and benefits. During the peak year of World War II, total military spending consumed a staggering 37.5 percent of our total GDP. And during the peak year of our Middle East War,  the total military spending as a percent of GDP was 4.2 percent, according to a recent report by the Congressional Research Service.  And we all know very well that a family making $12,000 a year these days is living in poverty, and is not three times richer than the average family in 1950.

And yet Pawlenty and other anti-government operatives have been going around the nation and the state using nominal dollars to claim that state government was growing  on average 21 percent between 1960 and 2002, when he became governor, and that since then  he's heroically got the growth rate down to  2 percent a year. The increasingly strident and unreliable  Wall Street Journal editorial page has reprinted these claims. 

Pawlenty typically cheats, by double,  with artful phrasing on this 21-to-2 claim, and by using biennial growth to describe the previous growth rate. MinnPost's Eric Black has written a superb and detailed piece  explaining how badly Pawlenty is distorting the numbers, including the wry observation that by this way of reckoning, Minnesota National Guard spending alone on Middle East deployments probably would exceed the amount we spent on the entire Revolutionary War (what a bargain, $100 million, according to CRS). Black notes that because of a dreadful decade of economic decline, low inflation and revenue shortages, almost every governor in America these days could claim to be the most fiscally conservative in their history. (Black also refers  to our own excellent op-ed on the subject, several months ago, which makes the case that much of the ACTUAL growth in government through the 1990s was good for Minnesota people and good for business too.)

The ultimate irony is that even without the gross distortions, Pawlenty does deserve to be known forever as Tightwad Tim, the most ideologically pure penny-pinching governor in our recent history.  If you look at the  most comprehensive measure of government cost, the Price of Government figure from Minnesota Management and Budget, state and local government revenues are down from roughly 17.5 percent through the 1990s (a level we think is about right for sound investments in people and infrastructure) to about 16 percent in the aughts. That's about $3 billion less per year — for hospitals, schools and highways — than if we had NOT cut income tax rates permanently in 1999 and 2000 and if Pawlenty had NOT adhered to a rigid no-new-taxes ideology since becoming governor.

But here’s the other shoe dropping, a question that begs asking. 

Are we better off than we were in the 1990s? By almost any measure that is applied for quality of life and business conditions, and for most of the population in the middle and lower-income realms, the answer is "no". The exception, until very recently, might be those at the very top of the income scale. They have a larger share of income and wealth than when the decade started and their state-local effective tax rate is lower, according to the Minnesota Tax Incidence study.    

The Bush-Pawlenty tax-cut decade overall was the worst in memory for most people, with two major recessions, no gains in actual wages for the vast number of families in the  middle incomes, and real losses for those in the bottom two or three deciles. As the Bible says,  a tree should be judged by its fruit, adjusted for inflation and economic growth, of course.

—Dane Smith   

 

Palin v. Kersten: Contradictory messages from anti-tax zealots

The Tea Party movement fancies itself a populist uprising.   The basic theme is that working stiffs and ALL Americans are overtaxed and that ordinary Americans can't possiby pay another penny without becoming slaves to a socialist government.   Sarah Palin herself articulated the message for the umpteenth time at a rally in Boston on April 15, clearly implying that taxes were a big burden on all us regular folks.

Palin said:  "We need to cut taxes so that our families can keep more of what they earn and produce, and our mom-and-pops, then, our small businesses, can reinvest according to our own priorities, and hire more people and let the private sector grow and thrive and prosper."  

But to fight off the sunsetting of  federal tax breaks for the very wealthiest Americans, another set of anti-government zealots (including Minnesota's own Katherine Kersten) was busy last week telling us that half of Americans pay no (federal income) taxes at all.   Only halfway through her column does Kersten back away a little bit and allow that almost all taxpayers pay other kinds of federal taxes.   And Kersten never bothers to mention the hugely important fact that the effective tax rates for state-local taxes are highly regressive, much lower for the top than for the middle and the bottom.

The Palin and Kersten assertions are not only thematically contradictory, they seriously distort these basic truths: Everybody pays taxes and taxes are good and necessary.  Those taxes finance our mostly beneficial governments and provide strategic investments that grow jobs and maintain our quality-of-life.   The overall federal-state-local effective tax rate in Minnesota and the United States has been declining for a decade.  And the wealthy pay a smaller percentage of their income than they did 50 years ago.

For an informed analysis of the "half-pay-no-taxes'' assertion, check out New York Times columnist David Leonhardt's explanation.   He points out that:  only about 10 percent of Americans are so poor they pay no federal taxes, that tax rates for the wealthy have fallen signficantly, that they have a much larger percentage of the nation's total income than they used to have,  and that rich conservative talk-show celebrities probably don't want to pay more for Social Security and Medicare for those ordinary little people on the bottom half.

Dane Smith  

Jason Lewis thinks nobody noticed budget cuts. And taxes are "plunder."

We can't compete with Jason Lewis when it comes to  pushing hot buttons and provoking ideological flamers, left and right.  

Our Feb. 21 front-page Sunday Star Tribune Op-Ex commentary, making a reasoned,  pro-business case for raising taxes, to address our historic budget crisis and to continue investing in human capital and infrastructure,  elicited 36 comments.   Maybe we just weren't wild and crazy and intemperate enough to generate real excitement and panic.  In the piece, Charlie Quimby and I  allowed as how some business tax cuts also might make sense and that government needs to get serious about accountability and redesign. 

 Right-wing talk-show provocateur Lewis's response on Feb. 26, five days later and inside the paper at the bottom of the regular op-ed page,  drew 113 comments as of this morning.   We've gotten some requests to respond and I shared these rebuttal points with George Sundquist, a retired sheet-metal workers union representative  from Duluth, and George said he intended to write a letter to the editor.  So watch for that.  In the meantime, here are our main points in response to Lewis, which we also will post as comments appended to both our our op-ed and the Lewis article.

Lewis throws together a mishmash of selective statistics, including a relatively small gas tax increase two years ago, trying to make the case that government has grown.   But he failed to effectively refute the most important bottom-line fact we revealed: our state and local  governments are smaller,  and spending and taxes as a percent of our total personal income are considerably smaller,  than they were a decade ago.   

Among Lewis'  three most problematic assertions: One, Lewis cites a $6.6 billion gas tax hike in 2008 and forgets to note that this sum is a 10-year cumulative total, and that the state's business lobby led the effort to override Gov. Tim Palenty's veto, to make up for a 20-year lag  in transportation investment, a disinvestment crisis that  Pawlenty had acknowledged.  Two, Lewis says the Legislature “decided to spend’’ $2.2 billion in 2007, a brief surplus during a decade of chronic shortfall,  and overlooks the fact that much of that funding went to replenish reserves and pay back accounting shifts from the previous budget crisis. Three, Lewis stubbornly clings to state income tax statistics alone, not the actual bottom line for all taxes,  to dispute the real and unfair advantage that wealthy citizens enjoy in total state-local tax incidence.

But beyond these facts and perhaps worst of all, Lewis quotes a fellow libertarian who describes the lawful and necessary tax obligations of our own democratic governments as an “instrument of plunder.’’   This notion, of our own local, state and federal governments as illegitimate thieves, is simply unacceptable.  This dangerous canard  increasingly is expressed in  Tea Party messaging.  

Finally, Lewis makes a decidedly out-of-touch assertion  that “no one’s noticed’’ the huge and unprecedented budget cuts and unallotments imposed unilaterally by Gov. Tim Pawlenty.  Lewis by all accounts is paid very well for his inflammatory anti-government  radio talk and it might be that he probably hasn’t noticed any personal impact from state and local goverment budget cuts.   But he really needs to talk to families who have lost their MinnesotaCare coverage, or who can’t afford skyrocketing college tuition, because of cuts to our vital public services.  They, and most of the rest of us, are noticing.

Dane Smith

 p.s.  We do appreciate the headline on the Lewis piece, "Higher taxes?  Oh, they make it sound so swell!'' 

 

 

Historian Alan Brinkley on right-wing populism and "fighting back''

Eminent historian Alan Brinkley (Columbia University professor, an authority on 1930s populist movements of the left and the right and the New Deal, also son of legendary TV anchor David Brinkley) was in town this week and offered some timely wisdom at the Humphrey Institute about the conservative populist uprising.

Brinkley is himself a progressive and a voice for "pragmatic liberalism.'' Although an admirer of President Obama and his agenda, Brinkley compared him unfavorably in some respects to Franklin D. Roosevelt, noting that FDR fought back against a right-wing populist revolt to his progressive agenda with passion and "almost incendiary'' rhetoric, sweeping to reelection in 1936. 

Brinkley said Obama has been too cool and passive and there has been "no effective rebuttal to many of the dishonest claims made by opponents of the health-care bill.'' And he suggested that for Obama, this is "not a time to conciliate, it's a time to fight.'' 

I liked his candid repsonse to a question I asked, as to whether progressives should be more clear about the growing economic inequality in the nation, and more honest about growing the public sector to provide more economic security, as insurance against private-sector abuse and failure. Brinkley said "progressives should talk about inequalities and (conservative) policies that have made (inequality) greater... Taxes do have to go up.'' 

But he added: "Nobody wants to be raising taxes and nobody wants to talk about inequality because nobody is sure how to fix it.'' 

— Dane Smith 

No griping about business climate from Mr. Plywood Minnesota (a.k.a. former Sen. Rudy Boschwitz)

The demise of Home Valu (it will always be affectionately thought of as Plywood Minnsota to us old-timers) reminds me that its owner,  former U.S. Sen. Rudy Boschwitz, has been  a stand-up guy in many respects:  a good family man, a community-minded business leader, serious about his Jewish faith and traditions, and at times a voice for moderation and common sense as a Republican Party leader.   

The announcement that his chain of home improvement stores is going out of business reminds me that Rudy was NOT one of those types who was constantly denigrating Minnesota's taxes and business climate.

In doing some research in the 1990s on a book about Rudy's election loss to the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, I ran across a newspaper clipping from the 1970s (when taxes really WERE higher in Minnesota) in which Rudy said it would just be bad form to disparage the business climate in a state where he had become wealthy and successful at business. (Rudy's family immigrated into the U.S. from Nazi Germany in the 1930s and he moved to Minnesota in the 1960s after growing up in New Rochelle, New York.)

In the statements about the company's closing, there is no mention of state business climate issues, only national crises and over-arching private-sector failures brought on by the collapse of the housing bubble and tight credit. Competition from bigger-box national retailers no doubt were a factor. Businesses most often fail because other businesses drive them out of business. 

Boschwitz, of course, was an early supporter of George W. Bush, and as a senior party leader he did approve of the Pawlenty-Bush state-federal tax cuts a decade ago. The ensuing lower-tax decade was a Lost Decade economically for most Minnesotans, perhaps the worst since the 1930s, and one in which Minnesota dropped to about average in tax rankings (see page 15 of Minnesota Taxpayers Association PDF). It also began underperforming the national economy for the first time in many decades.  

Many progressive and moderate business owners recognize that business is actually helped in the long run by taxes if they are converted to smart public investment in human potential and infrastructure, such as education, transportation, and health-care, that support economic security and stability for middle-income folks.  

And that way, those folks more likely can afford to buy carpet and paneling for their basement remodeling projects.  

— Dane Smith

The Lost Decade, a.k.a., The Tax-Cut Decade

Watch for lots of retrospective media commentary in the next couple of weeks, as we mark the end of one of the worst years in the economic history of Minnesota and the United States, but also one of the worst decades in modern times.  The pundits will offer us a  zillion theoretical causes for these hard times, from the 9/11 trauma at the start of this blighted decade, to dislocations from a more global economy, to the federal deregulation trends that presumed wealthy private interests would police themselves and act in the common interest.  

For a quick tutorial on the specifics of how bad the decade was, check these two sources:  a concise and authoritative  McClatchy Newspapers article by  Tony Pugh, published in September, and our good friends at the  Minnesota Budget Project, who published an excellent report earlier this year, The Lost Decade:  Taking a Closer Look at Minnesota's Public Investments in the 2000s.    The McClatchy analysis echoes the overhwelming consensus that those in the top 1 percent or the top 10 percent benefitted enormously and disproportionately from whatever economic growth occurred, and now have a greater share of wealth and income than the top tier has enjoyed since 1929, just before the Great Depression.   The Minnesota Budget Project analysis chronicles how cuts,  and then more cuts, dictated by the "no-new-taxes'' dogma,  affected our quality-of-life and our economy. 

Explaining how we lost this decade gets infinitely complicated,  and it's best not to get too invested in a simplistic single-bullet theory.   But let us not forget that this decade was ushered in with grandiose promises from anti-tax conservatives that we would achieve unprecedented prosperity as a result of signficant income tax cuts at both the federal level (capital gains cuts too) and the state level.   Those lost revenues are a huge factor in our mounting national deficit, as explained by this Center for Budget and Policy Priorities analysis of the deficit components, and our chronic state-local budget shortfalls in Minnesota.    And at least partially because  we shrunk our public sector by unprecedented levels this decade,  we have made college much more expensive, diminished the quality of our public schools, failed to invest in proven early childhood interventions, neglected our roads and bridges and public works infrastructure, and underinvested in health care and economic security for the middle- and lower-income households.  

Happy New Year!   Happy New Decade! And let us resolve _ in the smartest possible and cost-effective ways of course _  to reinvest for our common good.

Dane Smith