I’m pleased as punch, as Hubert H. Humphrey used to say, to be asked by the editors of the Legal Ledger and Politics in Minnesota to supply regular commentary from the progressive perspective. 

I applaud Dolan Media’s ambitious new effort to become a dominant source of news and information in the world of Minnesota policy and politics and I’m excited to be part of it.

As Miss Danielson, my fourth-grade teacher, used to say, “this is going to be fun AND educational.’’   Also amusing, occasionally, I hope.

I’ll bring to this assignment some 30 years of experience as a newspaperman covering politics and the public sector at every level, local, state and federal, including the last 20 years under the golden horses at the state capitol. I’ve learned a few things along the way and I’m proud of a reputation I earned for fairness in my coverage.

Most of my columns will address what I consider to be the important bread-and-butter realities of public policy and politics. Namely, economics, and tax-and-budget stuff, or to cut to the very bottom line, who gets how much, and why.        

The founding principles of Growth & Justice, the  non-partisan think tank of which I am now president, fit perfectly  with my own view of that bottom line, where we’ve been, where we are, and what ought to be done next.

Here’s the deal, as Ross Perot (we’re both native Texans) used to say, in three easy bullet points:

• Minnesota’s pre-eminence among the states - healthier, wealthier, wiser than most - was built on a foundation of ample and smart PUBLIC investment, especially education, and yes, we are talking government and taxes here I’ve been a Minnesotan for 35 years, all my adult life, and am supremely proud of our distinctively progressive and liberal character, community-centered and egalitarian, every bit as concerned about the “we’’ as the “me.’’
• Our not-so-excellent recent adventure with anti-tax, anti-government orthodoxy is threatening this foundation. Our public sector is smaller and not just leaner, but also meaner. Evidence mounts every day of degradation and deterioration in our vital public services and structures. Not just bridges falling and closed, but schools shutting down early in Brooklyn Center, courtroom hours reduced, college tuition spiking like gas prices, property taxes ballooning to fill reduced state support of local governments. The payoff for tax cuts was supposed to be job growth and a stronger middle-class. The opposite is true; Minnesota’s economy is underperforming the national average for the first time in decades and median income is stagnant or falling.
• We can and must re-invest with innovation and an eye toward what really works, in keeping with our good-government tradition. And we can pay for more and smarter investment in public education and health-care and infrastructure, human and physical capital, by returning to fairer tax rates. Those at the top of the income-ladder now have a larger share of wealth and income than they’ve had in decades, even as our tax systems grows more regressive. Due in part to huge, budget-wrecking income tax cuts that benefited mostly the wealthy in 1999 and 2000, the top tier pays 9 percent of  their total income in state-local taxes,  everybody else about 12 percent.

These are not partisan or extremely ideological observations and arguments.  It’s reassuring to know that every living former governor, in three major parties,  have expressed clear disapproval in some form of the cuts-only approach to budget-balancing.   And the leading advocate for the largest major new investment in a decade, the $6 billion-plus transportation bill in 2008, was none other than the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, the state’s most powerful business interest group.  

That’s the deal, and I’ll look forward to advancing these arguments, and I’ll try to keep an even tone and a civil tongue.   Look elsewhere for name-calling, incendiary fightin’ words, partisan cant, perfectly consistent liberal ideology, or even the sassiness-for-sassiness’ sake that seems to be in demand with  the New Media’s demand these days.

Although I’m squarely at odds with what I call anti-government conservatives, I’ll try to afford them the respect all the players deserve because I see value in what they are saying. I actually wrote a conservative column for my community college newspaper in the 1970s and I’ll paraphrase what I said in a recent Growth & Justice blog.

Conservatism’s great ideas - reliance on the free market, personal responsibility,  the importance of families, respect for the past, and religious convictions - have helped build a better Minnesota.

I just think conservatism needs to return to the accommodation its adherents used to have for other complementary principles - equality of opportunity, social justice, and a respectful faith that community and the “we” are  as important as the individual and the “I.”