DALLAS -- Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings is a plain-spoken former CEO who is rather brash about his city's emergence as the fourth largest metropolitan area and one of the strongest economic growth powerhouses in the nation. And yet he's rather humble about how big-thinking "Big D's" long-term health is directly threatened by the opportunity gap for students of color and from low-income families, who make up about 80 percent of... Read More
Imagine one of our state's larger high schools or smaller college campuses, with an enrollment of roughly 2,500 students. Now try to imagine every single student in that school or college as homeless, trying to function, learn and build a path toward a career, without a safe or certain place to sleep at night. The latest newsletter from Catholic Charities of Minneapolis and St. Paul cites a Wilder Foundation estimate that at any given time ... Read More
Back in 2007 when Growth & Justice was presenting its Invest for Real Prosperity tax proposals to the legislature, I recall a member waxing nostalgically about his parents hauling the family across the North Dakota border to buy untaxed clothing in Minnesota. The point of his anecdote was that if Minnesota lowered its sales tax and broadened its tax base—as economists recommend—this lucrative cross-border school clothing traffic... Read More