Twin Cities Daily Planet (https://www.tcdailyplanet.net/author/dane-smith/page/3/)
Coming home to Minnesota this week after an intensive three days of learning about student success efforts in southwestern Ohio and northern Kentucky _ and trying not to think about the state government shutdown _ one of the first things to pop up on my screen was a powerful&n Continue Reading
Dane Smith was engaged all last week with Peter Nelson of the Center of the American Experiment in an MPR Insight Now online debate and broadcast Continue Reading
For years, Growth & Justice has been looking for and failing to find strong evidence that Minnesota is losing jobs, wealthy residents and < Continue Reading
Watch for some ironic hoopla this week on the 10th anniversary (June 7) of President’ Bush’s tax cuts, the largest federal income tax rate reductions in modern history, and which were preceded in Minnesota by similarly historic cuts in the state’s income taxes.
One great thing about having 50 different states trying to balance budgets is that Minnesota can learn from the mistakes of others. Arizona, for instance.
Mainstream religious leaders today are hosting a vigil by the statue of populist champion and former Gov. Floyd B. Olson, in honor of Statehood Day. Continue Reading
We all make mistakes and the Minnesota House made a big one last week. Continue Reading
Call them “Letters from the Edge,” a flurry of messages last week from state government agency heads and business leaders, summarizing the view from the precipice created by an anti-government, all-cuts response to a $5 billion revenue shortfall. The view is of a shabbier and less fair Minnesota, and also not good for business in the long run.
Anti-government conservatives often cloak their movement in a religious mantle and enjoy disproportionate support from the fundamentalist brand of Christendom, while unfairly dismissing progressives, economic and otherwise, as irreligious. So it’s a powerful refutation of that notion when our states’ Catholic and Lutheran bishops, representing a vast mainstream of some 2 Continue Reading
Lori Sturdevant in the Sunday STrib offers a positive review of some of the best efforts now underway toward redesigning our governmental systems, focusing particularly on the extensive newContinue Reading