The closing debate in the legislative session featured a lot of rhetoric from self-appointed guardians of the business climate in Minnesota, declaring that keeping state taxes at their current historically low level was the only important priority for economic health.

But it was notable how little of this anti-government invective -- at T-party rallies or on talk-radio or the blogosphere -- was coming from the serious and responsible business leadership in this state.

Instead, the mainstream business community in this state seems to be working constructively WITH government and the public sector on specific solutions aimed at resuscitating the state economy, retaining and creating jobs, and improving the state’s quality of life.

Take, for instance, the five-year-old “Grow Minnesota!’’ initiative of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, the state’s largest and most broad-based business advocacy group.The Chamber, by the way, is the group that last year courageously fought and defeated the anti-tax forces, helping push through a modest gas tax increase and desperately needed transportation infrastructure funding.

Grow Minnesota!’s recent work involved Chamber teams making actual visits to 700 companies to determine what they need to hold and expand jobs. Those visits resulted in a consensus that workforce training and education and other infrastructure (mostly paid for with taxes) was vital.

To be sure, some of those businesses also cited taxes, a public-sector expense, and health-care costs, a mostly private-sector expense, as problems. Pressure to reduce business costs will always be part of the story, and that’s why my organization has supported some reductions in regressive business taxes as part of a progressive economic framework.

But the most interesting stuff in Grow Minnesota’s annual report were the individual stories that highlight specific actions the initiative has taken to solve problems. Here are three examples.

**Visits to the company Acrylic Design in the western suburb of Plymouth identified “a disconnect’’ between precision manufacturers and education and training resources. A $45,000 Framework for Integrated Regional Strategies (FIRST) grant from the state of Minnesota, was secured to help expand the pipeline and one of the next steps could be a program to get more K-12 students “excited about precision manufacturing.” That’s taxpayer dollars at work.

**Visits to Thief River Falls in northwestern Minnesota identified the crucial importance of not only the local airport, but of retaining aviation mechanics students who were graduating from the local Northland Community Technical College. The Grow Minnesota team helped raise funds for scholarships in the program (tax cuts have made tuition unaffordable for many) and promised to find jobs for those who graduated. That’s direct private support for taxpayer dollars already at work.

The spirit of cooperation and public-private partnering is a two-way street and the public sector is doing its part in initiating collaboration as well.

Last week the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system released a report, “Workforce of the Future: Leadership Reaches Out to Business,’’ based on visits by public college officials to 352 businesses last summer and fall.

The verdict: “Business leaders across the state overwhelmingly identified an insufficient supply of educated and skilled workers as the primary barrier to their companies’ long-term growth.’’

James H. McCormick, chancellor of the system and its 32 colleges and universities, said that “business leaders frequently pointed to the intellectual capital of the workforce as a key to their competitive advantage.’’

And to meet the expressed demand for “new workplace competencies,’’ including advanced technology skills, business-critical “soft skills’’ in customer relations and teamwork, MNSCU has outlined several steps for improvement. These include expanding internship and apprenticeship options and on-the-job training, more online education more flexible learning strategies.

McCormack and Minnesota Chamber President David Olson, who fortuitously happens also to be the chairman of MNSCU’s governing board, deserve praise for this constructive collaboration and recognition of the need for public and private teamwork.

This kind of private-public synergy used to define the Minnesota way of doing business AND building a state in which prosperity was more evenly shared.

Instead, in recent years of domination by policies intended to keep taxes low and de-fund the public sector, we see rising inequality and poverty rates, a stagnating middle class, and an economy that is underperforming the nation’s for the first time in a four decades.

The more enlightened business leaders recognize these facts and want sincerely to improve the public sector, not punish it. Economic growth turns out to depend a lot on economic justice and equality of opportunity.