Strib comparing MN and WI State governments

[CatholicEdHead]

This shows how far behind our neighboring state to the east we are after Pawlenty's moves. :(

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/14441101.html

In sum: Wisconsin is on a tear to cover nearly every citizen with affordable health insurance, give every 4-year-old access to a pre-kindergarten program and get every qualified high-school grad affordably enrolled in college, all by the end of this decade.

It's doing that by raising the cigarette tax $1 per pack, cutting state agency budgets, enlisting aid from homegrown philanthropists and generally redirecting the entire state enterprise toward human capital growth.

Let it be noted that Minnesota is no piker in either health-care or student-aid spending. (Let it be further noted that I didn't include early childhood education in that last sentence.) But Minnesota hasn't been mounting any surges in those directions.

That's because -- like a lot of states -- Minnesota spent the last four years trying to recover from the setbacks of 2002-03. Climbing out of a $4.5 billion hole in 2003 while under Pawlenty's strict "no new taxes" regime meant cutting eligibility for MinnesotaCare, the state's low-cost health insurance for the working poor, and allowing higher-ed tuition to rise at a double-digit pace for four straight years. Child care and early ed programs took nasty cuts.

[dpbrown]

1. Turning Minnesota into Mississippi

The "I got mine" people are ruining Minnesota.

[trotsky]

2. And they're too stupid to realize...

that there is a correlation between the taxes we pay and the quality of life we enjoy. Nope, things like a great educational system and a clean environment and good road maintenance all happen by magic, and we shouldn't have to pay any taxes at all. Sheesh it's sad to see this great state so infected with Republicanism.

[dflprincess]

3. Nick Coleman's column today has another good example of this

Hennepin County is closing a dental clinic in Richfield that caters to a large develomentally disabled group. Apparently nothing was learned from the child who died in Maryland last year because he couldn't get dental care.

[Mister Ed]

4. I just got back from a road trip in Wisconsin

The highways were superb. The pavement and overpasses were smooth and solid and new.

I was visiting friends who live in Milwaukee. They report that, because of their high-quality public school system, the housing market there has been largely unaffected by the national real-estate collapse.

That's what it looks like in a state that invests in itself, the way Minnesota once did. Our something-for-nothing no-new-taxers are tragically penny-wise and pound-foolish. They love to say how government oughta be run like a business. Well, news flash: a business that doesn't continually re-invest in itself soon goes out of business.

[CatholicEdHead]

5. Their roads may not hold up for more than a decade

They only recently took their gas tax off an automatic inflation increase. So they will soon be like us trying to pull teeth to get any increase in highway funding (1988 you know was the last time it went up). While Madison and Milwaukee are pretty blue, travel into the Stephens Point, Wausau, and Green Bay areas (most of central and northern WI)and it is very red and that is what they have to work against in Madison.

It is probably a bit easier overall as they are close to blue Chicago and the UP is more moderate than say South or North Dakota, which many Republicans here think is an economic paradise (yet they never want to move there ;) ).

[Deja Q]

6. While they're at it, will they tell us how many more jobs they offshored since uprooting their

graphic design dept?

I had no idea $30k jobs were sooooo costly. :crazy: