Category Archives: Minnesota Legislature

To Address Racial Equity, Most of Us Need To Pay Higher Taxes

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When it comes to addressing racial equity issues in education, health care, and housing, racism is a barrier.  But I would argue that fiscal conservatism is an even bigger barrier. 

In Minnesota’s policymaking debates about racial equity, this is the unacknowledged “elephant in the room.” It is what makes all of the hopeful dialogue about addressing racial equity feel hollow to me.

DFL Governor Tim Walz, Speaker Melissa Hortman, and many others deserve a lot of credit for leading on police reform.  Despite the failure to pass police reforms during the recent special session, I suspect they’ll eventually enact some police reforms. This is in large part because police reform is relatively inexpensive. 

But beyond police reform, I’m pessimistic when it comes to DFLers being willing to address other major forms of systemic racism in society, such as in health care, housing and education. 

That’s because most DFLers and all Republicans seem completely unwilling to make the case for higher taxes.

Elected officials need to get courageous and make the case that privileged white people like me need to pay higher taxes in order to build a more equitable state.  I’m not naive about this. I’ve worked in and around politics for thirty five years, so I know tax-raising is excruciatingly painful for politicians, particularly in an election year. But if we truly care about making racial justice progress in this agonizing “educable moment,” there truly is no other way.

To cite just one example, Minnesota has long had some of the worst achievement gaps in the nation, gaps that open as early as age one.  The roots of k-12 achievement gaps are early education opportunity gaps. Year after year, about 35,000 low-income Minnesota children can’t access the high quality early learning and care programs that they need to get prepared for school. Those 35,000 left-behind low-income kids are the children who are most likely to fall into achievement gaps in the school years and other types of disparities throughout their lifetimes. The lack of new revenue is why our 35,000 most vulnerable children continue to be left behind every year.

Similar tales can be told about many other issues, such as health care and housing. We know what to do in those areas as well, but we don’t do it, because the changes would necessitate requiring Minnesotans to pay higher taxes.

I understand why politicians are afraid of being branded tax raisers.  But the inescapable truth is that lawmakers’ long standing insistence on perpetuating the fiscal status quo is perpetuating systemic racism.  

So we need to start talking honestly about the fiscal side of these racial justice issues too. Until we do, progressive leaders’ lofty rhetoric about racial justice gains is just idle chatter.

Is Minnesota Ready to Loosen Social Distancing?

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When it comes to handling the coronavirus pandemic crisis, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who issued a stay at home order on March 25, has earned 82% approval ratings, compared to 34% for President Trump, according to a Survey USA/KSTP-TV survey.  Up until this point, stay at home orders seem to have actually been a political benefit to leaders courageous and wise enough to invoke them, not a burden. For instance as of early May, only about 20% of Minnesotans wanted the Governor’s stay at home order lifted.

But that is almost sure to change over time.  In part because of President’s Trump’s constant call to ease restrictions, and calls for the public to resist them, we’re already seeing Americans getting more antsy, as evidenced by a recent Gallup poll that shows the number of people avoiding small gatherings decreasing by four points among Democrats, 10 points among Independents, and 16 points among Republicans. 

Also a Unacast report card measuring social distancing activity, which earlier gave Minnesota an “A” grade, has downgraded Minnesota to a “D-” grade, a crushing blow to the earnest promoters of Minnesota exceptionalism.

Picking up on that sentiment, and following their President’s call to “LIBERATE Minnesota” from pandemic protections, Minnesota House Republicans are increasingly criticizing Walz’s stay at home order, and using a bonding bill as ransom to get it lifted. I’m not convinced “we’re fighting to stimulate the economy by blocking job-creating bonding projects” is the most persuasive argument, but that’s what they’re going with.

So, should Governor Walz further loosen distancing rules?  As of May 6, the experts at the Harvard Global Health Institute say that only nine states have done enough to warrant loosening restrictions — Alaska, Utah, Hawaii, North Dakota, Oregon, Montana, West Virgina, and Wyoming. The Harvard analysts find that Minnesota is not one of them, another blow to Minnesota exceptionalism. Specifically, experts find that Minnesota needs to be doing more testing and seeing lower rates of infection from the tests. 

There might be some modest steps Walz can take to ease the political pressure and help Minnesotans feel like they’re making progress.  I’m not remotely qualified to identify them, but for what little it’s worth here is some wholly uninformed food-for-thought anyway:

For those with low risk factors — people who are young and healthy and are not essential workers — maybe the good Governor could allow masked and socially distanced haircuts.   (Can you tell my new Donny Osmond look is starting to get to me?)

For the same group, maybe Walz could allow masked and distanced visits with members of the immediate family — offspring, siblings, and parents. (Can you tell I miss my daughter?)

Those two things seem to be particularly stressful to people. While far from risk-free, they aren’t recklessly risky. These kinds of small adjustments might help people (i.e. me) become more patient and compliant when it comes to more consequential rules. 

Overall, Walz should listen to experts and largely keep stay at home orders in place until the experts’ guidelines are met.  A new spike in infections and deaths will seriously harm consumer confidence and the economy, and that shouldn’t be risked. At this stage, most Minnesotans are not likely to flock back to bars, restaurants, malls and large entertainment venues anyway, regardless of what Walz allows. 

But maybe a little off the top would be okay?

Give Me Democracy or Give Me Death

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It’s not an exaggeration to say our election system is seriously ill.  Hurdle after hurdle exist on the path to voting, and millions regularly choose to sit out the chaos. Layered on top of all of that, we now have a lethal pandemic that Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), predicts will make an encore appearance in the fall, precisely when we’re holding one of the most consequential elections in our history. 

All in all, it’s not great a look for the self-proclaimed “greatest democracy on earth.”

But suppose someone told us they had developed a magical elixir for our election problems.  I’m talking even better than Trump Water™ and hydroxychloroquine.  Something to eliminate the most significant hurdles, such as the significant time and timing issues.  Something to end waiting in long lines.  Something to allow the “new normal” Stay At Home sensibilities to safely coexist with Election Day.

People with an even passing familiarity with this issue understand that we have that magical elixir right under our noses – vote-by-mail, or vote-at-home.  Under such a model, voters are sent their ballots in the mail.  They don’t have to go to polling places to obtain them. Then, they can return them in person or via mail. 

That’s it. No traveling to polling places. No lines. No work schedule conflicts.  No child care barriers. No discriminating election judges. No tight time constraints. No requirement to enter a potentially dangerous COVID hot spot.  It’s not a panacea, but it would be a significant improvement.

Yeah But

Untested, you say?  We have already been doing vote-by-mail successfully for decades. We’ve offered vote-by-mail to millions of soldiers, absentee voters in all 50 states, many voters in California, and all voters in Oregon, Colorado, Utah, and Hawaii. 

Vote-by-mail is old news. It is tried-and-true. In places where vote-by-mail is used, there is no great movement to go back to a polling place-centric model, because vote-by-mail works better.

Expensive, you say? Without the need for expensive polling place staffing, machines, and infrastructure, vote-by-mail saves between $2-$5 per voter, according to research out of Colorado. Cost considerations shouldn’t be the primary reason we implement vote-by-mail, but they also shouldn’t be a reason that we don’t.

Fraudulent, you say?  In the wide swath of America that is already voting by mail, there is no evidence of fraud, and bar code and automated record-matching technology continue to make it more secure than ever.  The non-partisan Politifact finds that Trump’s frequent claims of fraud are, well, fraudulent.

This lack of widespread fraud shouldn’t surprise anyone.  After all, who wants to risk a $25,000 fine, as they have in Oregon, over gaining a single vote, or a few votes, in a pool of millions? As it turns out, almost no one.

Democratic plot, you say?  The non-partisan do-gooders at Vote At Home explain this one well:

Utah, the 4th full Vote at Home state, is decidedly “red.” Republicans also dominate Montana and Arizona, where 70% of voters automatically are mailed their ballots as “permanent absentee” voters. Nebraska and North Dakota, also Republican dominated states, have also expanded the use of vote at home options. While Oregon and Washington, the first two states where VAH initially took hold, are today more “blue than red,” both states have elected Secretaries of State who are Republicans – and big fans of this system.

On a more tactical level, the Republican party, whose base is disproportionately elderly, should probably reevaluate this issue in the pandemic era. If I were a Republican turnout strategist, I would worry about depending on their huge block of frightened elderly Americans being willing to bring their over-flowing basket of comorbidities into crowded polling venues during a pandemic.

But you know what? As a Democrat, I want those elderly MAGA-hat wearing seniors to have easy, safe access to voting.  I want as many people voting as possible. If my party can’t win a majority of the votes in an election where everyone has an equal opportunity to safely and fairly participate, then my party needs to get it’s ass back to the drawing board to come up with better policy ideas.

Other questions, you say?  Read this well-sourced document produced by Vote At Home. Spoiler alert: None of the other excuses hold up to reason or research either.

Don’t Get Your Hopes Up, Yet

The reasons to adopt universal vote-by-mail are patently obvious, and an overwhelming majority of Americans of all political stripes agree.  A recent Reuters/Ipsos survey found that nearly three-fourths (72%) of Americans, including about two-thirds (65%) of Republicans, support mail-in ballots to protect voters from respiratory disease.

The experts at the Centers for Disease Control agree:

Encourage voters to use voting methods that minimize direct contact with other people and reduce crowd size at polling stations.
* Encourage mail-in methods of voting if allowed in the jurisdiction.

But as with so many issues with overwhelming majority support – such as expanding access to Medicare, higher taxes for the wealthiest 1% and corporations, background checks for gun purchasers, marijuana prohibition, helping Dreamers become citizens, cutting Social Security and Medicare, higher minimum wage, paid maternity leave, and more – Trump, McConnell and their supporting cast in the U.S. Senate are the barrier.  Cue David Byrne: “Same as it ever was.”

None of those things will happen until Trump and the GOP-controlled Senate Majority are removed in the fall. None. In Minnesota, Senate Republicans are similarly promising to block a wise vote-by-mail proposal recently floated by Secretary of State Steve Simon.

So while many people around the world are required to put their lives at risk in armed conflicts to establish or preserve their democracy, millions of Americans in 2020 likewise could be required by Republicans to put their lives at risk in deadly germ-infested schools, churches, community centers, and fire stations to preserve their democracy. 

Give me democracy, or give me death?  In a vast sea of Trump-McConnell era outrages, forcing Americans into this life-and-death choice on November 3rd may be the most outrageous development of all.

Another Reason To End Marijuana Prohibition: Public Health

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Minnesota public health authorities are close to concluding that the leading culprit in the rash of serious cannabis vaping injuries is an additive called vitamin E acetate, which apparently is used by elicit street producers to thicken and dilute the THC in illegally produced vaping cartridges.  The Star Tribune reports:

“The state’s findings were circulated nationally on Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has monitored the outbreak nationally and has reported 2,290 cases of vaping-associated lung injuries this year and 47 related deaths.

‘We now have evidence of vitamin E acetate in the lungs of Minnesotans and in illicit THC products from Minnesota during the outbreak,’ said Jan Malcolm, state health commissioner. ‘We have more work ahead, but every bit of evidence gets us closer to a resolution.'”

Assuming that Vitamin E is in fact the culprit, the obvious solution is to regulate the product to ensure that additive is no longer used.  Easy, right?

Not so fast. The problem with that obvious solution is that cannabis prohibition makes it impossible to regulate the safety of these illicit street products.

If we want to regulate marijuana-based products to keep consumers safe from dangerous additives like Vitamin E acetate, pesticides, molds, and fungus, we need those products to be legal so that they can be controlled by public regulators, just as we control other legal consumer products.

A while back, Republican Senate leader Paul Gazelka looked at this dangerous situation and somehow came to the opposite conclusion.

“Opponents of legalizing marijuana in Minnesota are seizing on the recent outbreak of vaping-related illnesses and teen nicotine addiction to urge caution on the cannabis front — even as advocates of legalization ramp up their campaign ahead of next year’s legislative session.

‘I hope this slows down the rush by [Gov. Tim Walz] and House Democrats on recreational marijuana,’ said state Sen. Paul Gazelka, R-Nisswa, the majority leader. ‘If they see the correlation, that might at least slow down the process.'”

Sen. Gazelka seems like a sincere, decent guy, but that logic makes no sense.  After all, if Sen. Gazelka learned that we have dangerous types of vehicles, insulation, ethanol, or stents harming consumers, would he back prohibition of vehicles, insulation, ethanol, and stents?  Of course not.  Instead, the sensible response would be to keep those products legal, but have public regulators monitor the products and require them to be safer.  Likewise, we need to make marijuana legal, so marijuana-based products can be regulated, tested, and required to be safer. 

So in addition to the social justice, fiscal, and logical reasons to end marijuana prohibition, we need to add another to the list.  Public health.

Disclosure:  In my public relations business, I have done work for one of two companies licensed in Minnesota to treat patients with cannabis-based medicines.  However, I’m not currently doing work for that company, and that company’s legal, regulated medicines aren’t a subject of these stories. I have never helped any clients advocating the end to marijuana prohibition. 

“Safer Than Alcohol” Campaign Is Necessary Precursor For Ending Marijuana Prohibition in Minnesota

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Polls show that a large and growing majority of Minnesotans support ending marijuana prohibition.  So why isn’t legislation moving forward in the Minnesota Legislature?

It appears that the size of majority simply isn’t quite large enough yet to overcome a number of factors working against passage, such as: 

  • Fear of Law Enforcement Lobbyists.  The war on marijuana has kept a lot of law enforcement officials employed, so they have a self-interest in lobbying fiercely to preserve it. The political strength of law enforcement lobbyists is weaker than it has been in the past, but it is still relatively strong with some legislators. 
  • Minnesota Meekness.  The Minnesota Legislature isn’t exactly brimming with bold leadership.  When it comes to passing new laws, Minnesota tends not to be the first or last state, but pretty square in the in middle.  With “only” eight other states out ahead of Minnesota proving that full legalization is not the disaster predicted by prohibition supporters, it still feels “too soon” to timid Minnesota leaders.
  • Comfortable Status Quo.  Finally, old habits just die hard.  So many institutions have been waging a war on marijuana for so long that they just can’t seem to give up the fight.

So what will overcome those significant challenges?  Even more public support.  Deeper support is particularly needed in Greater Minnesota to persuade a few more Greater Minnesota legislators to get on the right side of history. 

“Safer Than Alcohol” Campaign

How will we expand the level of majority support?   By going directly to Minnesotans, particularly to Greater Minnesotans, with a thoughtful public education campaign methodically presenting the the mountain of evidence showing that illegal marijuana is safer and less addictive than already legal alcohol.

  • LESS DANGEROUS.  When it comes to harming the user and harming others, illegal marijuana ranks as much safer than alcohol.  Marijuana is not benign, and steps should be taken to limit its harm. But British psychologist David Nutt (and could there possibly be a better name for a psychologist?) bundled a number of statistics into a “Harm Index,” and found that already legal alcohol and tobacco were both much more harmful than illegal cannabis.
  • LESS ADDICTIVE.  Contrary to the opinion of many skeptics, marijuana is also much less addictive than alcohol. Psychopharmacologist Jack E. Henningfield Ph.D., formerly of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and Dr. Neal L. Benowitz MD of the University of San Francisco ranked marijuana less than half as addictive as alcohol.  Both researchers found marijuana to be roughly as addictive as ubiquitous caffeine.

Once skeptical Minnesotans have been made aware of these kinds of facts, the question that needs to be posed is essentially this: If you don’t support prohibition for coffee, alcohol or tobacco, why support prohibition for marijuana?

Right now, those facts would be extremely surprising to many Minnesotans.  Billions of dollars worth of Reefer Madness– and D.A.R.E.-style propaganda, law enforcement lobbying, and war on drugs news coverage has caused too many Minnesotans to believe the myths that marijuana is somehow much more addictive and dangerous than alcohol.  Changing those misconceptions must be job one.

Advertising professionals can improve on this, but the summarizing tagline of the campaign could be something as simple as:

SAFER THAN ALCOHOL
End Marijuana Prohibition in Minnesota.

Tone Matters

Beyond having credible third-party proof points, the tone of this “safer than alcohol” campaign matters a lot.  Unlike smoking joints on the Capitol steps and other similar self-defeating stunts, this “safer than alcohol” education campaign can’t have a whiff of headshop or hippy to it. 

The off-putting counter-culture vibe of many tactics used by well-meaning proponents inadvertently drives away the disproportionately older Greater Minnesota moderates  that must be persuaded so that their Greater Minnesota legislative representatives can be persuaded.  The campaign needs to put a spotlight on credible third-party expert messengers delivering facts in a measured tone that is comfortable in Greater Minnesota.

Again, polls show that Minnesotans are ahead of their elected officials on this issue.  But the majority needs to get just a bit bigger and more committed before enough elected officials representing Greater Minnesotans will have the courage to do the right thing and end marijuana prohibition.  A thoughtful “safer than alcohol” public education campaign is a necessary next step.

Championing Both Medicare-for-All and Buy-in Option

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During last night’s Part I of the Democratic Presidential debate, moderators and candidates acted as if candidates must make a choice between advocating for Medicare-for-All and a Medicare buy-in option.  It was one of the few areas of division among the progressive candidates

Why?  Progressives should be simultaneously advocating for both policies. 

Stop Bashing Buy-In Option

Medicare-for-All advocates like Sanders and Warren need to stop taking cheap shots at a Medicare buy-in option. 

The reality is, without a filibuster-proof Senate majority, Medicare-for-All simply can’t pass for a while.  Therefore, progressives need a Plan B that helps as many Americans as possible, shows that Democrats can deliver on their health care rhetoric, and advances the cause of Medicare-for-All. 

That’s what a Medicare buy-in option does. 

It helps more Americans in the short-run by bringing much more price competition to the marketplace and ensuring every American has at least one comprehensive coverage option available to them, even in poorly served areas. 

Beyond helping Americans in the short-term, a buy-in option also advances the cause of Medicare-for-All. Americans have been brainwashed by decades of conservatives’ vilifying of “government run health care,” but a buy-in option will give younger generations of Americans first-hand evidence showing that Medicare is not to be feared. It will show millions of Americans that Medicare is cheaper and better than conservatives’ vaunted corporate health plans.

And that will help disarm conservatives’ red-faced criticisms of “government run health care” and Medicare-for-All.

Stop Bashing Medicare-for-All

At the same time, champions of a Medicare buy-in option like Biden and Buttigieg need to stop railing on a Medicare-for-All. 

Even though Medicare-for-All can’t pass right away, progressives need to keep explaining what the world’s other developed nations figured out a long time ago, that a single payer government-run is the only real solution for any nation that hopes to control costs, cover everyone, and improve health outcomes.

For far too long, progressives have been afraid to educate Americans about why a single-payer system is needed.  When fearful progressives sensor themselves from explaining why Medicare-for-All is needed, they leave the stage to conservative and corporate demagogues relentlessly spreading myths about the evils of “government-run health care.” 

And when progressives leave the stage to conservative demagogues — surprise, surprise – progressives lose the debate.

Start Pushing Both

What would it sound like to advocate these two positions simultaneously? It could sound something like this:

Ultimately, we must cover everyone, control skyrocketing costs, and improve health outcomes. And you know what? Ultimately, the only way to do that is Medicare-for-All. 

In America, Medicare has proven effective and is popular with those who use it. In developed nations around the world using government-run systems like Medicare, everyone is covered, costs are much lower and health outcomes are much better. 

So Medicare-for-All must to be our ultimate goal. We have to keep our eyes on that prize. We need it as soon as possible.

At the same time, the Republican-controlled Senate won’t pass Medicare-for-All.  That’s reality folks.

Given that reality, what can Democrats do right now to both help the American people and pave the way for Medicare-for-All in the long-run?  A Medicare buy-in option.  A buy-in option has lots of public support among Republican voters, so it has a much better chance of passing the Senate than Medicare-for-All.

Let Americans choose between corporate care and Medicare. If they want to keep their private health insurance, they can. But given them another option.

President Trump is afraid to give Americans make that choice. I’m not. He knows Americans will like Medicare better, and doesn’t want to give them that option. I’m not afraid, because I know that a Medicare plan that isn’t required to profit off of patients will be cheaper and better that corporate care. So let Americans choose.

Enacting a buy-in option now will show more Americans that they have nothing to fear from Medicare coverage. And that will help us move the American people towards embracing Medicare-for-All.

Pols and pundits keep framing this issue as if it must be a battle to the death for progressives. But Medicare-for-All versus a Medicare Buy-in Option is a false choice.  Progressives should be advocating for both, and stop savaging each other on the issue.

On MinnesotaCare Buy-In Option, Legislators Must Put Patients Over Lobbyists

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Why can’t the Minnesota Legislature give consumers a MinnesotaCare buy-in option so that they have a guaranteed health insurance coverage option, more doctor choices, and much better price competition?  An army of corporate lobbyists say it’s because reimbursements to the health care industry would be lower under that approach, an argument that froze legislators into inaction during the 2019 legislative session. 

To be clear, if that argument prevails, Minnesota lawmakers will never contain health care costs.

To contain costs, policymakers have to lower the amount of money going to the major cost drivers — insurance overhead, doctors, nurses, medical devices and pharmaceuticals.  If politicians reject a reform every time lobbyists for those cost-drivers object about getting lower reimbursements, they will never contain consumer costs.

Let’s look at one of those cost-drivers, physicians.  Politicians like to complain about insurance overhead and pharmaceuticals, for very good reasons, but that’s too easy.  Let’s look at the most sacred of health care’s sacred cows.  Doctors have an abundance of fans, campaign donating power, and lobbyists, so politicians are especially afraid to direct cost-control efforts at them. 

When you look at the long list of developed nations where physicians are paid less than in the U.S., paying less for doctors seems reasonable and doable.  For example, the average specialist in the U.S. earns $230,000 per year, while the average specialist in other industrialized nations receives less than half that amount, $107,000 per year. 

Remember that the next time you hear physicians and their lobbyists complaining about reimbursements being too low.

Oh and by the way, the health outcomes in those developed countries with modestly paid physicians are better than in the U.S. So don’t buy the claim or inference that better pay automatically leads to better care.  It doesn’t.

And about those pharmaceuticals.  American patients pay much more for pharmaceuticals than patients in many other developed nations around the world.  Remember that the next time you hear lobbyists complaining about Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements being too low.

(On this front, the Minnesota Legislature needs to pass legislation to allow importation of Canadian pharmaceuticals, as I argued a while back.  Florida recently passed such a bill, but Minnesota politicians remain frozen by health care lobbyists.)

A Minnesota Care buy-in option — branded as “ONECare” in Minnesota by Governor Tim “One Minnesota™” Walz — would ensure that every Minnesotan always has at least one health insurance option available to them, which is particularly important in remote rural areas.  It would give them broader networks of caregivers, which again is important to Greater Minnesota residents.  It would provide comprehensive benefits and a service that gets good consumer reviews. It would bring better price competition to hold down the health insurance costs.  Those all would be huge benefits for hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans.

But not if Minnesota politicians get cowed into inaction every time corporate health care industry lobbyists complain about receiving lower reimbursement rates. If this group of legislators won’t do the right thing on a MinnesotaCare buy-in option, we should elect a new group who will.

“No New Taxes” Is The Real Winner In Minnesota’s 2019 Legislative Session

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Today in its lead front page story, the Star Tribune trumpeted Governor Tim Walz as the triumphant victor in the recently concluded legislative session.  But the truth is, the real victor looks more like conservative devotees of a “no new taxes” pledge.

For many years, former Governor Tim Pawlenty and the Minnesota Taxpayer’s League’s David Strum enforced strict adherence to a “no new taxes” pledge, even during many years when lawmakers were struggling with huge budget shortfalls. Though Pawlenty and Strum are no longer players, and conservatives have a weaker bargaining position now than they had in those days, Pawlenty’s “no new taxes” position still somehow bested Walz’s “many new taxes.”

  • No Gas Tax Increase. Governor Walz wanted a large gasoline tax increase. He didn’t get half of what he recommended.  He didn’t get one-quarter.  He got no increase. Zip.
  • Income Tax Cut.  Walz wanted to preserve the status quo on state income taxes. That didn’t happen either.  He got a cut instead.
  • Provider Tax Cut.  Walz desperately wanted to keep the provider tax at the same 2.0% level it has been for years.  He got a 10% cut in the tax instead, to 1.8%.
  • Overall Revenue Cut.  Overall, Walz wanted to raise much more revenue to deliver much improved services.  Instead, he got lower overall revenue.  As a result, he was forced to dramatically scale back his agenda and a dip into the state’s rainy day fund to balance the budget, a fiscally irresponsible move that DFL former Governor Mark Dayton strongly opposed.

A Walz Win?

With all of this Walz losing on the taxation front, how can Walz be crowned the session’s big winner?

The Star Tribune sees it this way:  First, Walz kept legislative overtime to a minimum by capitulating to Republican demands early and often.  They seem to put an inordinate amount of value on ending on-time. Second, interest groups who either oppose taxes or support Walz declared him a great guy.  Third, Walz declared himself victorious, during a news conference in which he made a touchdown signal.  And, duh,everyone knows losers don’t make touchdown signals.

“No New Taxes” Leads To Dozens of Losses

To be fair, the Strib did acknowledge, in the 23rd paragraph where few readers read, that Walz lost on the revenue side of the ledger:

“Still, the cut in the health care tax, coupled with a middle income tax cut of 0.25%, means state government gets less money than if current taxes had stayed in place. On that, Republicans could claim victory too.”

But here’s the thing:  “No new taxes” is not just one individual issue that is equivalent to other individual issues debated at the Capitol.  Pawlenty and Strum understood that very clearly.  They understood that winning on “no new taxes” meant stopping progressives from making progress on dozens of issues.

That’s exactly what happened in 2019.

Without more revenue, Walz-backed improvements in roads, bridges and transit became impossible.

Without more revenue, the large House-passed increases for k-12 education became impossible.

Without more revenue, restoring the Pawlenty-era social services cuts became impossible.

The point: When Tim Walz lost on “no new taxes,” he didn’t lose on one issue.  He effectively lost much of his policy agenda.

Walz Reluctant to Use Negotiating Advantage

State budget negotiations can be thought of as a three-legged stool, with one leg controlled by the House, one by the Senate, and one by the Governor.  DFLers currently control two-thirds of the legs — the House and the Governor’s office — and Republicans only have one of the legs, with a narrow majority in the Senate.  This means DFLers should have an advantage in budget negotiations.

But to tap into that negotiating advantage and move a progressive agenda forward even just a little bit, Governor Walz needed to hold firm, and probably go into legislative overtime.  I understand that’s not a pleasant proposition for an affable fellow like Walz, but my guess is that a more progressive and fiery Governor Erin Murphy would have been willing to do that.  Governor Tim Walz was not.

If that “no new taxes” trend continues over the next three years, the Walz era may not be as different from the Pawlenty era as progressives like me had hoped.  Somewhere I have a suspicion that David Strum and Tim Pawlenty are smirking to themselves.

Easing The Harms of Legalizing Marijuana In Minnesota

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I’m a strong supporter of legalizing marijuana in Minnesota, and nationally.  As I’ve written before, legalized marijuana “will make Minnesota a more sensible, just, fiscally sound, humane and free state.”  The evidence is overwhelming.

But let’s not be naive or dishonest here.  As with any vice, there are also huge problems associated with legalization that need to be alleviated.  To me, the most troubling downside of legalization is harms to minors, transportation users, and seriously ill patients.

Disadvantages of Ending Marijuana Prohibition

Damaging Minors’ Brains. First, credible researchers are finding that marijuana use by minors appears to be much more damaging than it is for adults. For an example, an article in an American Psychological Association publication reports numerous alarming research findings:

Heavy marijuana use in adolescence or early adulthood has been associated with a dismal set of life outcomes including poor school performance, higher dropout rates, increased welfare dependence, greater unemployment and lower life satisfaction.

Duke University psychologist Terrie Moffitt, PhD, and colleagues… found that persistent marijuana use was linked to a decline in IQ, even after the researchers controlled for educational differences. The most persistent users…experienced a drop in neuropsychological functioning equivalent to about six IQ points (PNAS, 2012). “That’s in the same realm as what you’d see with lead exposure,” says Weiss. “It’s not a trifle.”

There are some reasons to think that adolescents may be uniquely susceptible to lasting damage from marijuana use. At least until the early or mid-20s, “the brain is still under construction,” says Staci Gruber, PhD, a neuroscientist and director of the Cognitive and Clinical Neuroimaging Core and the Marijuana Investigations for Neuroscientific Discovery (MIND) Program at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School…

Also immature in teens is the endocannabinoid system. As its name implies, this system comprises the physiological mechanisms that respond to THC. That system is important for cognition, neurodevelopment, stress response and emotional control, and it helps to modulate other major neurotransmitter systems, says Krista Lisdahl, PhD, director of the Brain Imaging and Neuropsychology Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.

Repeated exposure to marijuana can dial down cellular activity in the endocannabinoid system. Such interference might be a bigger problem for immature brains, says Lisdahl. “That sets the stage for why adolescents may be more sensitive to the effects of repeated marijuana exposure, from a neuroscience perspective.”

So, should we oppose legalization of marijuana?  Not unless we also want to bring back alcohol prohibition, because alcohol also is extremely damaging to the brain and many other parts of the body, and alcohol leads to countless more deaths than marijuana.

Still, in the rush to legalize marijuana, these kinds of findings shouldn’t be shrugged off by legalization enthusiasts.  We need to shine a light on these findings to encourage young people to delay marijuana usage until later in life, and to encourage everyone to not overdo it.

More Traffic Fatalities.  Second, legalization of marijuana also will increase the number of impaired drivers, which will likely lead to more traffic injuries and fatalities. USA Today reports the expert findings from states where the drug is now legal:

According to research from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the Highway Loss Data Institute, the frequency of collision claims filed to insurers were higher in four states where marijuana is legal: Colorado, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.

The Highway Loss Data Institute study focused on collision claims between 2012 and October 2017, and compared against four control states where marijuana remains illegal: Idaho, Montana, Utah and Wyoming.

A separate study conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety focused on police-reported crashes before and after retail marijuana was allowed found Colorado, Oregon and Washington saw a 5.2 percent increase in the rate of crashes per million vehicle registrations, compared with neighboring states.

Law enforcement officials and others are using these kinds of findings as a reason to oppose legalization.  That’s absurd.  No one, including law enforcement officials, wants to bring back alcohol prohibition because of the staggering number of serious drunk driving problems, so we shouldn’t keep marijuana illegal because stoned driving problems are in the mix.

At the same time, we also shouldn’t deny the existence of the problem, and be passive about harm reduction.

Destroy Medical Cannabis Program For Patients.  Finally, ending marijuana prohibition could inadvertently harm or destroy Minnesota’s fledgling medical cannabis program, and consequently harm the seriously ill Minnesota patients benefiting from it.

According to Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) patient surveys, many Minnesota patients are benefiting from precisely dosed, tested, and customized cannabis-based capsules, oils, tinctures, and topicals. Across a wide variety of qualifying conditions, two-thirds of patients report significant benefits, while only 10% report little to no benefit.

When it comes to chronic pain patients, the MDH surveys show that 63% of patients who had been on highly lethal, addictive opioid medications were able to reduce or eliminate their use of opioids after moving to much less addictive, lethal cannabis-based pain relief medicine.

Many seriously ill patients desperately want to hold onto those successful medicines, but worry that the post-legalization availability of cheaper, unprocessed raw marijuana plant material will put the manufacturers of their precisely dosed and formulated medicines medicine out of business.

Many Minnesotans probably won’t care too much that those manufacturers would go out of business.  But the problem is, if they do go out of business, patients would suffer.  That is, patients who are currently benefiting from those precisely formulated and dosed medicines would be forced to use raw plant material that they and their caregivers consider to be less safe, pure and customized form of medicine.

Mitigating the Harm

We can’t wish these problems away.  Therefore, the law ending marijuana prohibition should set aside a reasonable amount — for the sake of argument, let’s say five percent to ten percent of the revenue raised from legalizing marijuana — for  a Marijuana Harm Reduction Fund.  The lion’s share of the revenue raised by legalizing marijuana still could be allocated however lawmakers and their constituents see fit.  But a mitigation fund could be used for harm reduction projects like:

  • Medicine Affordability Assistance. Some type of patient-friendly sliding scale subsidy to make precisely dosed, tested and formulated cannabis-based medicines available and affordable to all Minnesota patients who, according to medical caregivers, need them.
  • Youth Brain Impact Public Education Campaign. A multi-media public education campaign aimed at teens, young adults and parents to raise awareness about the heightened dangers of marijuana use at an early age.
  • Stoned Driving Public Education Campaign. A multi-media public education campaign aimed at raising awareness about the very real dangers of driving while under the influence of marijuana.

A couple of important caveats about this fund:

  • Evidence-based campaigns. The content of the public education campaign should be overseen by inter-disciplinary experts to ensure campaigns don’t become Reefer Madness-like misinformation campaigns, and are instead based on the consensus of the best available scientific evidence.
  • Subsidy oversight. The subsidies of patients using cannabis-based medicines should be monitored to ensure physicians are verifying that patients are benefiting from the medications and the amount of patient subsidies are kept at a reasonable level.

Again, cannabis is much less addictive and deadly than already legalized alcohol.  Again, marijuana prohibition has been horrific for communities. of color.  Again, marijuana prohibition is very bad, and legalization is much better.  Don’t get me wrong.

But that can’t be the end of the debate.  Citizens like me who are advocating to end marijuana prohibition must own these problems, and do what we can to reduce the associated harm.

Disclosure: The author is a public relations consultant who helps one of Minnesota’s two manufacturers of cannabis-based medicine share patient success stories with the news media.  He doesn’t lobby for that company, and the public policy opinions expressed here are his own, not the company’s.

MN GOPers Aren’t the Health Care Saviors They Claim To Be

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Exuberant Minnesota Republicans seem to think they have a winning health care issue for the 2018 election season–reinsurance. And they do deserve a great deal of credit for helping to enact a state reinsurance program that is reducing premiums for Minnesotans in the individual market. The individual market is for the 162,000 Minnesotans who can’t get insurance from their employer or the government.

While their claim that premium increases in 2016 and 2017 were due to DFL policies is ridiculous, it is true that the Minnesota reinsurance program they helped pass is helping those consumers. As the Star Tribune reported:

Jim McManus, a Blue Cross spokesman, said that were it not for the state’s reinsurance program, the carrier’s Blue Plus HMO would be seeking an average individual market premium increase of 4.8 percent as opposed to the 11.8 percent decrease cited Friday by Commerce

Impressive, and Republicans deserve credit for this.

The Rest of the Story

But as Ricky Ricardo would say, before Minnesota Republicans can credibly brand themselves health coverage saviors, they still have some splainin to do.

Why Not National Reinsurance? First, they need to explain why their party – in complete control of the U.S. Senate, U.S. House and the Presidency and entire U.S. Executive Branch of the federal government – doesn’t enact reinsurance to help all Americans. Because of economies of scale and the need for market consistency, a national reinsurance program makes much more sense than a hodgepodge of variable state programs.

Moreover, if stabilizing the market and helping consumers pay less is good for Minnesotans, wouldn’t it be even more awesome to do that for all Americans?  That’s likely why 75% of Americans support enacting reinsurance at the national level.

Why Sabotage the ACA?  So why aren’t Rep. Erik Paulsen, Rep. Jason Lewis, Rep. Tom Emmer, Jeff Johnson or former Governor Tim Pawlenty pressing for reinsurance at a national level? Because they and their White House puppet master would rather sabotage the remarkably effective Affordable Care Act (ACA) than improve the ACA to help American families.

The list of things Trump and his congressional Trumpbulicans are doing to irresponsibly sabotage American families benefiting from ACA protections is long and breathtakingly irresponsible.  This is hurting tens of millions of struggling Americans.  Republicans are ignoring the 71% of Americans who say the Administration should do all it can to make the the ACA work, compared to just 21% who support efforts to make the ACA fail and replace it later.

Why Oppose Adding A MinnesotaCare Buy-in Option?  The other thing Republicans boasting about the state reinsurance bill need to explain is this: Why aren’t they supporting giving the 162,000 Minnesotans in the individual market a MinnesotaCare buy-in option?

The MinnesotaCare buy-in option would achieve much of what Republicans profess to support — more plan and doctor choices for consumers in sparsely populated areas, guaranteed coverage for all Minnesotans in sparsely populated areas, and more competition to control prices.

The fact that Minnesota Republicans won’t support the common sensical MinnesotaCare buy-in option proposal, won’t push for a national reinsurance program, and continue to actively sabotage the ACA makes their gloating about being health care saviors ring very hollow.

MN DFL Should Champion Importation of Canadian Medications

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Here’s a political idea for the DFL: Find a massively expensive thing that enrages voters.  Then make it dramatically cheaper. Oh, and do it without increasing government spending or taxes.

I understand the skepticism.  It does sound akin to the classic Student Council President campaign promise to reduce the cost of cafeteria soda — a crowd-pleaser but infeasible.

But there actually is such an issue available to Minnesota state leaders –empowering Minnesotans to purchase cheaper prescription medications from Canada.

According to drugwatch.com, prescription drugs are on average 65 percent cheaper in the Canada than they are in the United States. This is because Canada has huge government controlled health care plans using their purchasing power to negotiate lower prices from the pharmaceutical industry, and the U.S. doesn’t. Minnesota state lawmakers can’t change the underlying problem driving high drug prices in the U.S., but they could at least allow U.S. citizens to benefit from the more sane Canadian system.

After all, the Vermont Legislature just did it. Why not Minnesota?

In the upcoming 2018 elections, this should be the top issue Minnesota DFL state legislative candidates stress. Making more affordable Canadian medications available to Minnesotans would improve the lives of ordinary Minnesotans, and it’s a huge selling point with voters. Just ask Mark Dayton, who in 2004 made a lot of political hay by financing busloads of senior citizens going to Canada on medication shopping trips.  This proposal is similar, but it eliminates the long bus rides.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans like this idea. By an overwhelming two-to-one margin, a Kaiser Family Foundation survey found Americans support “allowing Americans to buy prescription drugs from online pharmacies based in Canada.”

This is an easy-to-understand issue to explain the difference between Republicans and DFLers to swing voters, and it especially appeals to seniors, who are the most likely to show up to vote.

This issue communicates important messages:  DFLers hear voters who are struggling to pay their medical bills; Republicans don’t. DFLers are proposing something real and tangible to control health care costs; Republicans won’t. DFLers will put the interests of ordinary Minnesotans over special interest lobbyists; Republicans won’t.

Coupled with the DFL’s MinnesotaCare for All buy-in option, offering cheaper Canadian medications would give Democrats the upper hand on perhaps the number one issue in the 2018 elections.

I can already hear overthinking DFL wonks explaining why they shouldn’t do this. President Trump won’t allow it to happen, they’ll say. I say force Trump’s hand. Though Trump’s HHS Secretary, a former pharmaceutical company executive, calls it a “gimmick,” Trump enthusiastically proposed this very idea during the campaign.

“…the last provision of his new seven-point plan is: “Remove barriers to entry into free markets for drug providers that offer safe, reliable, and cheaper products.”

“Congress will need the courage to step away from the special interests and do what is right for America,” the plan says. “Though the pharmaceutical industry is in the private sector, drug companies provide a public service. Allowing consumers access to imported, safe, and dependable drugs from overseas will bring more options to consumers.”

So, either make an honest man of Trump or expose him and his congressional Republican enablers for flip-flopping and being the cause of outrageously high drug prices.

This is the right thing to do, and it’s an extremely popular thing to do.  Empowering Minnesotans to benefit from more affordable Canadian medications should be one of the centerpieces of Minnesota DFLers’ 2018 campaigns.

Why Are Minnesota Republicans Cutting Corporate Taxes?

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Yesterday, Minnesota House Republicans–following the lead of President Trump and congressional supporters like Representatives Lewis, Emmer and Paulsen–enacted legislation to lower Minnesota’s corporate taxes from 9.8 to 9.06 in 2020.

On most levels, cutting Minnesota’s corporate taxes makes no sense.

BAD POLITICS. Minnesota House Republicans certainly aren’t cutting corporation’s taxes because most of their constituents want it. By an overwhelming three-to-one margin, a Pew Research survey recently found that Americans say corporate taxes at the federal level should be raised (52%) or kept the same (21%), as opposed to lowered (24%), as Minnesota House Republicans are doing. There’s no reason to believe that Minnesotans would view cutting corporate taxes at the state level much differently than Americans do at the federal level.

BAD FOR NECESSARY INVESTMENTS. Minnesota Republicans aren’t cutting corporate taxes to help help finance necessary and popular state investments in things such as infrastructure, education, and health protections.  After all, corporate tax cuts will significantly reduce state funding available for such investments.

BAD FOR MOST CONSTITUENTS. If Minnesota Republicans are cutting those corporate taxes because they believe doing so will help their constituents, they should dig more deeply into the facts. We’ve already seen at the federal level that the benefits of federal corporate tax cuts are mostly staying with corporations and wealthy people. As CNN Money recently reported:

The White House has celebrated the tax cut bonuses unveiled by the likes of Walmart (WMT), Bank of America (BAC) and Disney (DIS).

Yet shareholders, not workers, are far bigger direct winners from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

American companies have lavished Wall Street with $171 billion of stock buyback announcements so far this year, according to research firm Birinyi Associates. That’s a record-high for this point of the year and more than double the $76 billion that Corporate America disclosed at the same point of 2017.

Wall Street loves buybacks because they tend to boost the share price in part by inflating a key measure of profitability. In just the past three days, Cisco (CSCO), Pepsi (PEP) and drug maker AbbVie (ABBV) have promised a total of $50 billion of buybacks.

“It’s the largest ever — and nothing has really changed, except the tax law,” said Jeffrey Rubin, director of research at Birinyi Associates.

Conservative Republican Senator Marco Rubio summarized the situation well when he recently told The Economist “there’s no evidence whatsoever that the money’s been massively poured back into the American worker.”

Federal corporate tax cuts are primarily good for a very small slice of the wealthiest citizens.  The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities analysis finds:

“Mainstream estimates conclude that more than one-third of the benefit of corporate rate cuts flows to the top 1 percent of Americans, and 70 percent flows to the top fifth. Corporate rate cuts could even hurt most Americans since they must eventually be paid for with other tax increases or spending cuts.[1]

While this analysis focuses on federal corporate tax cuts, it’s reasonable to assume that the same is true with state corporate tax cuts.

GOOD FOR CAMPAIGN DONATIONS. At the same time, cutting corporate taxes would ingratiate Minnesota House Republican legislators to large campaign donors in corporations.

I’ll let you reach your own conclusion about what is going on here.

Voters Need To Fire The Creeps

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We’ve learned a lot of grotesque things in recent weeks.  Minnesota U.S. Senator Al Franken will do anything to get a laugh, including humiliating women. Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore is a serial pedophile predator who should have been prosecuted before the statute of limitations ran out. Minnesota Representative Dan Schoen and Senator Tony Cornish continually go way over the flirt-harassment line, and it’s not close. President Donald Trump has admitted on videotape to sexually assaulting women, and at least 16 women have gone on the record to assure us that what the President told Billy Bush is true.

So enough with the political noise.  Enough “if the allegations are true” games.  Enough “what about others in the other party?” What these men did was unacceptable.

I obviously can’t control the outcomes of these controversies.  But if I could, this is what I would wish for all of them: None of them would resign under pressure from party leaders. All of them would be voted out.

Clearly, if they do resign before their next election, that’s better than them retaining their power.  But if I could wave a magic wand, I don’t want the final chapter on these men’s history to be “resigned under pressure from party leaders.” I want it to be “rejected by the voters.”

Here is why:  If it’s the former, there will be many Americans who blame the spineless, “politically correct” party elites who forced the resignation. If it’s the latter, it will be much more clear that the community-at-large rejects sexual harassment and assault. That’s what we need to stigmatize this behavior and make it less prevalent.

I understand why party leaders call for these men to resign. To give them the benefit of the doubt, they’re showing that they take the issue seriously. To look at it more cynically, they need to replace their damaged political goods with a more electable candidate so they can retain power for themselves. Whatever their motivation, I’m glad they’re doing it, because it helps to spotlight and denormalize the behavior.

But I don’t want party elites to end these political careers. I want the larger “us” to do that. We’re a democracy. Voters need to step up and do our job. We need to overcome our tribal instincts and vote these guys out. We should replace them with more women. We should send a clear signal to political leaders that creepiness and criminality are electorally toxic, so parties will start nominating better people.

Like a lot of men, I’m not all that comfortable speaking out on this topic. Men who are self-aware and honest know that we’re all part of the sickness we’re reading about on the front pages.

Though we continually assure ourselves that we’re “way better than most,” we also know we’re far from perfect. Maybe we’ve told a joke that we understand in retrospect made women uncomfortable. Maybe we’ve confused objectification with flattery. Maybe we haven’t always controlled our eyeballs. Maybe in the exclusive company of men, we didn’t have the courage to speak out about comments that embolden harassers. Maybe we haven’t called out peers who went over the line in our presence.

So I’m not coming at this from a holier than thou perspective.  We all need to improve. We all need to own this and fix this. Seeing the community at large — masses of fed up voters — reject this behavior will do more to hasten the improvement process than seeing them forced out by a handful of party elites scrambling to cover their asses.

Minnesota Legislators Turn To GoFundMe To Pay Bills

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Saint Paul. MN — Ronald “Bud” Carlson, a 68-year old veteran of the Minnesota Senate (R-Lake City), desperately needed a new power tie for an American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) annual meeting at a Trump Hotel in Las Vegas last week. But he didn’t have the money to pay for the Stefano Ricci one he needed.

“A lobbyist asked if it was the same red power tie I wore last year,” said Carlson. “It was obviously one of the most profoundly humiliating moments of my life.”

Meanwhile, Becca Nowakowski-Alexopoulos, a 38-year old member of the Minnesota House (DLF-Minneapolis), is weeks behind in her regular contributions to a climate change nonprofit organization, donations which she makes to offset the carbon emitted during her regular plane trips to climate change conferences.

“It’s certainly not a coincidence that hurricanes started devastating vulnerable socioeconomic populations after my carbon offset contributions had to stop,” noted an emotional Nowakowski-Alexopoulos.

Carlson and Nowakowski-Alexopoulos are just two of the many legislators courageously struggling to continue their public service careers in the wake of Governor Mark Dayton’s controversial line-item veto of funding for the Minnesota Legislature. The State Supreme Court recently issued a convoluted non-ruling ruling to avoid resolving the constitutional crisis, instead ordering the Governor and Legislature to work with a mediator and “figure it out yourself.”

But in a heartwarming moment of bipartisan cooperation, Carlson and Nowakowski-Alexopoulos, who are often bitter enemies during legislative debates, have been collaborating to solicit contributions via the crowdfunding website GoFundMe.com.

Their hope is that crowdfunding, the raising of small donations from large numbers of people via the Internet, will help them and their colleagues survive until the bitter impasse with Governor Dayton can be resolved.  An estimated $34 billion was raised via crowdfunding in 2015.

“Minnesotans have been truly amazing, sharing their stories of our legislative heroism at #MNlegStrong and digging deep to prove how much they value us,” said Nowakowski-Alexopoulos.

Over the past month, $200,035.73 has been raised, including $100,000 from ALEC and $100,000 from the AFL-CIO. Carlson and Nowakowski-Alexopoulos have recently brought in a second Minnesota Supreme Court-appointed mediator to resolve irreconcilable differences about how to distribute the funds among the 201 legislators and their staffs.

Estate Tax Exemption Spotlights Minnesota Republicans’ Twisted Priorities

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In the first year that Minnesota Republicans took full control of the Minnesota Legislature, they elevated Minnesota’s millionaire heirs and heiresses to the very top of their fiscal priority list.  Representative Greg Davids (R-Preston) says the wealthiest Minnesotans should be able to “keep more of what their mothers and fathers and grandfathers and grandmothers have earned,” so Republicans significantly increased the’ estate tax exemption for millionaires.

To be clear, we’re talking about filthy rich grandfathers and grandmothers,  After all, only the very wealthiest Minnesota estates pay any estate tax.   According to the Minnesota Public Radio:

“Up until now, your estate would have to be worth more than $1.8 million before the Minnesota estate tax kicked in, but that changed during this year’s legislative session.

The tax bill passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature and reluctantly signed by DFL Gov. Mark Dayton increases the taxable estate value from $1.8 million to $3 million over the next three years. The top tax rate remains at 16 percent.

Minnesota is among 14 states that impose their own estate tax. Farms and family-owned businesses worth up to $5 million are already exempt.”

So, we’re not talking about the four-, five- or even six-figure inheritance you might get from Aunt Gertie.

All of this is being proposed by Republicans at at time when wealth inequality has reached grotesque proportions, as illustrated by this stunning video:

This is how intergenerational privilege perpetuates: Millionaire heirs and heiresses – having done nothing more than winning the birth lottery by being born into a wealthy family — are exempted from taxation, including for wealth that has already avoided taxation because it is unrealized capital gains.

And on it goes, generation after generation. This is how we get the Donald Trumps and Donald Trump, Jr.’s of the world, entitled scions born inches from home plate crowing about their home run.

To state the obvious, because it apparently is no longer obvious to everyone, this is not in keeping with the American value of “all men are created equal,” which used to be all the rage in America. America was founded in defiance of the British system of aristocracy, which gave power to a small, wealthy privileged “ruling class.”  Abolishing aristocratic forms of inheritance was a primary way the founding fathers went about furthering American equality.

While today’s Republican Tea Partiers don Revolutionary War-era tri-corner hats while asserting that the estate tax is “Marxist,” the truth is that the estate tax has been strongly supported by a number of founding fathers.

Remember Thomas Jefferson, the guy who penned “all men are created equal,”  America’s “immortal declaration?” He promoted the egalitarian values of America’s founding fathers by arguing against the passing of property from one generation to the next:

“The earth and the fulness of it belongs to every generation, and the preceding one can have no right to bind it up from posterity. Such extension of property is quite unnatural.“

Jefferson was hardly alone in this opinion. Similar sentiments were expressed by Adam Smith, the hero of conservative free market advocates, as well as Republican Party icon Theodore Roosevelt.

“The absence of effective state, and, especially, national, restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power.  The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is passed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in … a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate.”

You might guess that someone like Bill Gates, Sr. would be all-in when it comes to increasing the estate tax exemption. But he eloquently explains why the wealthy people need to pay back the community that supported them:

“No one accumulates a fortune without the help of our society’s investments. How much wealth would exist without America’s unique property rights protections, public infrastructure, and academic institutions? We should celebrate the estate tax as an ‘economic opportunity recycling’ program, where previous generations made investments for us and now it’s our turn to pass on the gift. Strengthening the estate tax is important to our democracy.

Consider all of the other alternative ways Minnesota Republicans could have used the $357 million that they are giving to Minnesota’s wealthiest heirs and heiresses over the next two bienniums. They could have used it to improve our transportation or broadband infrastructure,  help vulnerable children access early learning programs to close our dangerous achievement gaps, or expand clean energy capacity.  Those kinds of investments would have paid dividends for all Minnesotans far into the future.

Instead, Republicans made their top priority lavishing more enormous tax breaks on the small number of ultra-wealthy Minnesotans who least need help.

Governor Dayton has already signed the Republicans’ estate tax exemption, so at this point he has little if any negotiation leverage. But if Democrats take control of state government in 2018, this should be one of the first policies they reverse in 2019.  In the meantime, at every campaign stop they should spotlight this outrageous Republican giveaway to the wealthy elite.

It’s Good To Be Zygi

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In 2011, taxpayers gave billionaire Minnesota Vikings owner Zygmunt “Zygi” Wilf quite a gift, an even bigger gift than some realized at the time.

Taxpayers invested about half a billion public dollars to help Mr. Wilf construct his $1.1 billion business headquarters, U.S. Bank Stadium.  The State contributed $348 million, and another $150 million came from a Minneapolis hospitality tax. (While it’s often reported that Mr. Wilf paid the remainder, much of the remainder was paid by private interests — the NFL, personal seat license holders, and U.S. Bank.)

This was an extraordinary taxpayer subsidy for any business owner, much less a controversial one worth $5.3 billion who has been found liable by a New Jersey court for breaking civil state racketeering laws.

But Mr. Wilf’s gift from taxpayers went well beyond that $498 million.  State leaders also allowed the billionaire to keep 100% of the increased business value that he has realized since his publicly subsidized business headquarters was authorized.  It turns out, that’s quite an increase.  According to a Forbes magazine estimate, in 2011, the year before the approval of the stadium, Wilf’s business was worth $796 million.  The most recent Forbes estimate puts the value at a breathtaking $2.2 billion.

That’s a tidy little increase of about $1.4 billion, with a “b,” over just six years.

Not all of that $1.4 billion gain is due to the new $1.1 billion stadium and its income-generating capacity, but much of it is.  It’s now clear that if the billionaire owner had financed his business’s building the old fashioned way — without taxpayers footing half of his bill — he would easily have recouped the full amount of his business investment, and then some.  Clearly, Mr. Wilf did not need us.

In 2011, many predicted that Minnesota taxpayers would be making a very rich man substantially richer.  But it’s still breathtaking to watch the money flooding in.  Skol Zygi.

A Policy Agenda For Minnesota’s Next Progressive Governor

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In 2018, progressive Governor Mark Dayton will be retiring, and Minnesota voters will be selecting a new chief executive.  To retain control of the Governor’s office in 2018, Minnesota Democrats need a compelling policy agenda. It goes without saying that they also need a compelling candidate, but this discussion is about policy.

What constitutes a compelling policy agenda? First, it’s bite-sized. It can be quickly consumed and remembered by casually engaged voters. It’s more like five proposals, not fifty proposals. That doesn’t mean leaders should only do five things as a governor, but it does mean that they should only stress and repeat five-ish policies as a candidate, so that the agenda can be remembered.

Second, a compelling policy agenda delivers relatively bold change. It’s not merely about protection of the status quo from the bad guys, or small incremental improvements (see HRC campaign). It’s aspirational, and not limited to ideas that currently have the necessary votes to pass. If a candidate has to scale it back after elected, so be it. But they should run with a bold vision.

Third, a compelling policy agenda needs to have popular support beyond the political base. After all, a campaign agenda is about winning votes.

Fourth, it’s is easy to understand. Few have the time or inclination to study the intricacies of a 15-point tax reform plan, so candidates should stick to things that most can easily grasp and embrace.

Finally, a compelling policy agenda must be directed at Minnesota’s most pressing problems. It shouldn’t merely be about kowtowing to the most powerful interest groups, as is so often the case. It must actually be about the problems that most need fixing.

What fits those criteria? In no particular order, here’s my recommendation for a progressive gubernatorial candidate’s agenda.

  • MinnesotaCare for All Option. Allow all Minnesotans to buy into the MinnesotaCare public health insurance program. This will put competitive pressure on private insurance companies to keep premiums down, and ensure Minnesotans will always have a coverage option, even if health plans pull out of the market.
  • Transportation Jobs Fund. Increase the gas tax by a nickel per gallon — one penny per gallon per year over five years — and put the proceeds into an untouchable fund that will put Minnesotans to work improving the state’s roads, bridges and transit system. This will lift up the portion of the workforce that is struggling the most, and ensure Minnesota has a competitive economy and quality-of-life into the future.
  • Achievement Gap Prevention Plan. Ensure every child under age five has access to a high quality early learning program, starting with the children who can’t afford those programs on their own. This will prevent low-income children from falling into Minnesota’s worst-in-the-nation achievement gaps, gaps that opens before age two, lead to lifelong inequity and pose a grave threat to our economic competitiveness.
  • Fair Share Tax. Create a new, higher tax bracket for the wealthiest 10% of Minnesotans.  During a time when income inequality is the worst it has been since  just prior to the Great Depression (1928), the wealthiest Minnesotans are paying a lower share of their income in state and local taxes.   Adjusting the state income tax is the best way to remedy that disparity.
  • Super-sized Rainy Day Fund. Increase the size of the state’s rainy day fund by 25%. This will control taxpayers’ borrowing costs and help keep Minnesota stable in the face of 1) an economy that, after the longest period of economic expansion in history, may be due for a downturn and 2) a federal government that is threatening to shift many fiscal burdens to states. Bolstering the rainy day fund will also communicate to moderate voters that a progressive will be a level-headed manager of their tax dollars.

Yes, worthy issues are left off this agenda.  But we’ve seen time and again that when Democrats try to communicate about everything, they effectively communicate about nothing.  Long, complex “laundry list” policy agendas may please the interest groups who are constantly lobbying the candidates and their staffs, but they are simply too much for busy voters to absorb.  As legendary ad man David Ogilvy preached, “the essence of strategy is sacrifice.”  To be heard, many things must be left unsaid.

This kind of progressive gubernatorial policy agenda would be simple enough to be understood and remembered, but not simplistic.  It would be relatively bold and visionary, but not pie-in-the-sky.  It would be progressive, but swing voter-friendly.

This agenda would put Republican opponents in a political bind, because these progressive proposals are popular with moderate swing voters.  The partial exception is the Transportation Jobs Fund, where swing voters are conflicted.   Surveys tell us that gas taxes are somewhat unpopular, particularly in exurban and rural areas, but the transportation improvements that would be funded by the higher gas tax are very popular with voters of all political stripes, as are jobs programs.  On that front, one key is to guarantee that tax proceeds could only be spent on improvements, something many skeptical voters seem to doubt.

If such an agenda were sufficiently repeated and stressed by a disciplined candidate, fewer Minnesotans would be lamenting that they “have no idea what Democrats stand for.” Most importantly, this agenda also would go a long ways toward fixing some of Minnesota’s most pressing problems.

Why Have DFL Progressives Stopped Pushing For Progressive Tax Reform?

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Every year, we hear the State Legislature endlessly debate “water cooler” issues, such as Sunday liquor sales and legislator pay. Meanwhile, we hear almost nothing about more fundamental issues of governance, such as whether we have a taxation system that treats Minnesotans fairly.

When you look at Minnesotans’ effective state and local tax rate — the proportion of income paid in combined state and local taxes – it’s clear that we don’t have a progressive system. That is, we don’t a tax system where the rate of taxation increases, or “progresses,” as income increases.  This chart based on Minnesota Department of Revenue data paints a pretty clear picture:

Note: Department of Revenue study authors point out that “effective tax rates in the 1st decile are overstated by an unknown but possibly significant amount.” If you want to know why, there’s an explanation on page seventeen of the study.

However, even disregarding that first bar for the purposes of this discussion, we can certainly say that Minnesota has a state and local tax system that is not very progressive. That is, it is not taxing Minnesotans according to relative ability to pay.

As you can see in this chart, local taxes in Minnesota are particularly regressive.   Compared to other income groups, the wealthiest Minnesotans are paying the smallest share of their income in local taxes.  So if state lawmakers want tax fairness for Minnesotans, and they can’t rely on local officials to reform local taxes, then they need state taxes to be more progressive to offset those regressive local taxes.

Before my conservative friends trot out their tired old “socialism” rhetoric, they should read the words of Adam Smith, the father of free market economic theory who conservatives worship, on the subject of progressive taxation:

“The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess … It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.”

Republicans should also keep in mind that the nation’s first progressive income tax was enacted when the revered father of the Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln signed the Revenue Act of 1862.  A few decades later, Teddy Roosevelt carried on this Republican tradition when he strongly advocated for progressive taxation:

I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in . . . a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, . . . increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate.

The fact is, until relatively recently Republicans were comfortable with much higher top income tax rates than they are today. While the top rate under Democratic Presidents Obama and Clinton was 40%, the top rates were 91% under Republican President Eisenhower, 70% under Republican President Nixon and 70% under Republican President Ford.

So, to my right wing friends, you’re embarrassing yourselves when you call progressive taxation “Marxism.”  For more than a century, progressive taxation was mainstream Republican thought.  Don’t let the uber-wealthy interests who seized control of the Republican Party in more recent years blind you to that fact.

To my friends in the center, spare me the “be reasonable” lectures you deliver every time progressive taxation is proposed.  Unless moderates also view Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon and Ford as wild-eyed extremists, you need to stop characterizing progressive taxation proposals as being somehow “radical.”

Finally, to my progressive friends, show some courage and leadership.  Don’t get so obsessed with shiny objects, like the Sunday liquor sales issue.  Don’t shy away from fighting to make our state and local taxation system more fair.  It’s time for DFLers who are “progressives” in name to become more progressive when it comes to substance.

Minnesota GOP’s Tobacco Tax Cut Is A Killer, Literally

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There is a lot to dislike about the Minnesota Republicans’ tax cuts that were recently signed into law. For instance, increasing the estate tax exemption from $2 million to $3 million is an unnecessarily lavish gift to about 1,000 Minnesotans who won the birth lottery by being born into a relatively wealthy family.  Overall, the Republicans’ tax cuts will compromise Minnesota’s future fiscal stability by reducing state revenue by more than $5 billion over the coming decade. This is a particularly reckless move at a time when President Trump and his Republican congressional supporters are proposing to shift billions of dollars in future costs to states.   The next time Minnesota has a budget shortfall, remember the Republicans’ 2017 tax cuts.

But the stinkiest of the Republicans’ tax cut stink bombs was their tobacco tax cut, because in the coming years it will cause suffering and death.

Think that’s hyperbole?  A mountain of research shows that every time tobacco prices increase, tobacco consumption decreases. The corollary is also true – tobacco consumption increases when tobacco prices decrease.

This is particularly true when it comes to price-sensitive young Americans.

Here’s why that matters:  When tobacco consumption increases, tobacco-related suffering and death increases. Though we don’t hear about it as much as we used to, tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable diseases and death in America. It causes a variety of deadly cancers, lung diseases, and heart diseases, among other serious health problems.  If you’ve ever seen anyone suffer from one of these illnesses, I promise you will never forget it.

If you don’t believe the legion of public health and economic researchers about tobacco taxes decreasing tobacco use, listen to the tobacco industry executives themselves. In a previously secret document that got disclosed during lawsuits, an executive from Philip Morris, the makers of Marlboro cigarettes, said:

“Of all the concerns, there is one – taxation – that alarms us the most. While marketing restrictions and public and passive smoking [restrictions] do depress volume, in our experience taxation depresses it much more severely.”

Likewise, an executive from RJ Reynolds, makers of Newport and Camel cigarettes, came to the same conclusion:

“If prices were 10% higher, 12-17 incidence [youth smoking] would be 11.9% lower.”

So if Republican legislators think their tobacco tax cut is doing a favor for Minnesota smokers, they couldn’t be more wrong.

Yes, financially speaking, the tobacco tax is regressive. That is, the higher costs of tobacco products that result from tobacco taxes disproportionately impact the pocketbooks of poorer Minnesotans.

But that’s not the end of the story, because the reduction in tobacco-related suffering and death that comes from higher tobacco taxes is progressive. That is, the life-saving health benefits associated with higher tobacco taxes disproportionately flow to poorer Minnesotans.  And by the way, the millions of dollars in savings from not having to pay as much to treat those tobacco-related diseases flow to Minnesota taxpayers and health insurance premium payers.

The bottom line is that cutting tobacco taxes, as Minnesota Republicans did this year, has two major impacts. It causes tobacco executives to profit more from increased sales, and it causes our family members, friends, and neighbors to suffer tobacco-related diseases.

Therefore, when it comes to tobacco taxes, Minnesotan leaders have to be cash cruel to be clinically kind. If the DFL Party wins control of the Minnesota Legislature in 2018, increasing tobacco taxes must be at the very top of their agenda.

This is Not Mark Dayton’s Finest Hour

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TCursor_and_Constitutional_fight_escalates_between_Dayton__Legislature_-_StarTribune_comhis is going to sound awfully school marmy, but I expected more from you, Mark Dayton.

I’m speaking, of course, of the spat over Dayton’s defunding of the legislative branch of government in retaliation for the Republicans planting a legislative stink bomb in their unwise tax cut bill.

Admittedly, poor Mark Dayton suffers from my high expectations. During his career of public service, he’s usually been a thoughtful and mature leader who has shown great respect for our constitutional democracy.  For that reason, I just expect a lot more from him than I do from Republican state legislators, who have, in recent years, had more of a track record of recklessness and immaturity.

So, I’m disappointed with Dayton’s gamesmanship in this case, because it is probably unconstitutional and certainly childish. Mind you, this criticism is coming from someone who hates the Republicans’ tax and budget cuts, and dislikes many of their policy changes, but is also all too aware that, heavy sigh, elections have consequences.  That means that the party that won control of both chambers of Legislature in 2016 unfortunately gets to win a lot.

Someone who respects our guiding principle of separation of powers should never use their executive power to defund a coequal branch of government. Regardless of what the courts decide about the strict constitutionality of Dayton’s fiscal trickery, the question of “should” still ought  to matter to defenders of democratic principles, not just the question of “can.”

When it comes to the playground “they started it” defense that Dayton and his DFL allies are using, I can’t disagree on factual grounds.  At the same time, I’m with old Mahatma Ghandi on this one: “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”

In these dangerously politically polarized times, “adults in the room” are in desperately short supply. I’m grateful that Governor Dayton has played that thankless adult role many times during his career. Unfortunately, this time, our frustrated Governor has joined Republican legislators on the puerile path, just when we needed him most.