Speed Gibson

Previously: 1

Continuing my analysis of Dane Smith's appearance on the North Alliance Radio Network, we resume after Smith claimed that our state government became smaller thanks to the Ventura income tax cuts and rebates. Again, this is my personal transcript, edited for clarity.

Mitch Berg: [It's] been eight fairly good years here in Minnesota since [the Ventura tax cuts and rebates]. Unemployment was extremely low. We led the nation in employment, and by most metrics that matter to the average Minnesotan's pocketbook the past eight years. It's not been a bad experiment. What say Growth & Justice?

Dane Smith: Well, I disagree with you that it's not been a bad experience. There have been a lot of people, especially in the lower half of the economy who have lost everything from fairly generous support for their autistic children. The schools are more crowded. They're in more of these containerized classrooms. We all choose the economists whose numbers we like to look at, but this last recovery compared to the recovery of 90's and the 80's was one of the weakest ever for median income. So for the middle, this last decade was the weakest of several big decade long recoveries or more than half decade recoveries. It is true that the stock market did pretty well in this recovery, and for people in maybe the top quintile, 20 percent, it was pretty good. But more important, right now in the last year or two, Minnesota's economy is underperforming the national economy for the first time in a long time. And that's been widely accepted. [Thomas] Stinson, State Economist and others are worried about it.

While I'm sure we have great sympathy for the victims of autism, this is anecdotal. And what does he mean by "containerized" classrooms? Granted, I'm not a world class surfer, but Google couldn't help me and the Growth & Justice site apparently has no search feature.

By "crowded" schools I assume he's referring to class sizes, as there is currently a glut of class rooms throughout the state. But I could point to several articles on the Web to show that class sizes aren't consistently calculated, a function of many factors, and not always indicative of actual results. A great teacher with 36 students will usually out-perform two mediocre teachers with 18 apiece.

The fact that the Minnesota economy is now trailing the national average should be of concern to all of us. But as Smith observed in part 1, "there's not easy cause and effect on this stuff." As I observed in part 1, state government is growing, not shrinking. Maybe that's the problem.

Total state spending has tripled in just the last 20 years. I dare say that few of us are making three times the money of 20 years ago. An even fairer question is would you get three times the money for the same job you had 20 years ago? Doubtful. Real doubtful. Businesses know what's happening and see still more government growth on the Legislative horizon.

All in all, this is a rather weak opening toward justifying growing government still further.

Mitch Berg: Growth & Justice says that we can turn this apparent slippage in Minnesota by charging more taxes. How does that work?

Dane Smith: We had the one the strongest economies [in the nation], arguably the strongest in the midwest. We're definitely not in the sun belt, but among the midwestern states, Minnesota was always the highest taxing, highest spending, and highest achieing economy throught the 70's, 80's, and 90's. [...] There is a consensus. Former Governors, State Economist Tom Stinson, Federal Reserve Vice President Art Rolnick [all say] that this was largely due to investment in education. [We] really put a lot of money [into this] in this state. You can argue that the culture already valued education, which is fair enough, but nevertheless we did invest in it. And we think it paid off. The test scores, we're always number one, well of course so is Wisconsin and Iowa.

Mitch Berg: North Dakota has frequently beat [Minnesota ...] and North Dakota spends a fraction of what Minnesota spends per pupil on education.

Dane Smith: And North Dakota doesn't have nearly the cost of living, doesn't have a metro economy, doesn't have a high cost, high octane economy like you have in the Twin Cities.

Wait a minute, Dane. Which way is it? Does educational success lead to a vibrant economy or not? At a minimum, we should expect a mass exodus from Fargo to Moorhead, but it is Fargo that is thriving. Moorhead is a comparative ghost town. How can this be given Growth & Justice's fundamental premise?

We'll continue on education in part 3.