Hope for the Future

Walter Russell Mead provides some hope for the post-blue future in his newest essay.  He writes,

"The post-blue future for the middle class is bright, and instead of using the weight of the state to shore up a declining blue system to defend an embattled middle class we need to use that power to promote the transition to a 21st-century political economy and a reinvigorated middle class—larger, richer and more in charge than ever before. This is not a call to dismantle the state; there really are important things that government has to do in a complicated and interconnected society. It’s a call to transform, retool and repurpose the state so that it becomes an engine for progress rather than an anchor trying to hold us in place."

On the Radio Tonight

I will be on the radio tonight (Wednesday) talking political charity with Jack and Ben.  The Late Debate on News Talk AM1130.  Tune it at 9 pm CST to hear our discussion of political charities!

¡Viva la Revolución!

It’s been more than a week since Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton issued his proposed two-year state budget.  The budget struck most of the correct progressive notes and received the expected praise from that corner.  Local media credit the budget with “the most comprehensive reworking of the tax system in a generation.”[1]  True, the Governor’s plan has many moving parts and the PR campaign does include some focus-grouped phrases, like "strengthening the middle class."

In the opposite of a duck, the budget is all thrashing on the surface and below the water line, oddly listless.  Now is the time when the state needs a plan for bold reform of how government services are delivered and a tax code that unleashes Minnesota’s entrepreneurs:  in short, a budget that sets the stage for future growth.  Instead we get the re-election campaign-mottoed “Budget for a Better Minnesota.”

The Blue Road Not Taken

Walter Russell Mead extends his thinking on the state of Blue America.  He thinks we are missing out on incredible opportunities to rebuild America.

Political Charity—Tricks of the Trade

I take a break from my TakeAction series to examine the inner workings of another progressive Minnesota-based political charity, the Alliance for a Better Minnesota (ABM).  Like TakeAction, ABM consists of a series of interlocking non-profit corporations, including a 501(c)(3) charity, a 501(c)(4) non-profit, and a 527 state Action Fund.  [For more information about the distinctions between these different types of legal entities, see the discussion in TakeAction, Part 1.]

ABM has been the subject of extensive media coverage for its decisive roles in both the 2010 and 2012 elections in Minnesota, the prodigious amounts of money it raises, the byzantine network of organizations it has spun off, and the accompanying lack of transparency.  [See this, this, this, this, and this for starters.]  I will not re-plow that ground in this Follow the Money post.  Instead, I will focus on the smallest and least-noticed entity in the ABM empire, the charity arm, and reveal some of the tricks of the trade for political non-profits.

My Better Detroit Free City Idea

For the record, I had the idea of remaking Detroit into a Free City long before this idea to turn Detroit's Belle Isle into a Singapore-style island-nation.

Walter Russell Mead on Modern Liberalism

Mead gives his take on the state of the modern progressive movement.

The Relentless Mathematics of an Aging Society

Governor Canute and the Tides of Tax Revenue

Yesterday, I introduced into the discussion the idea that Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton’s new proposed “post-modern” budget floats unmoored to the state’s underlying demographic reality.

His budget has been praised in all the expected precincts.  “Dayton's budget is big, but balanced,” concludes the headline in a recent piece on the Minneapolis Star Tribune Opinion page.[1]  Big it is, as the budget seeks raise an additional $2.1 billion in revenue.  Not everyone agrees with this approach, though.

At the budget’s unveiling, the Governor attempted a preemptive strike on his critics.  Minnesota Public Radio quoted Dayton as saying,

"Everybody who's not paying taxes or is not paying their fair share of taxes and is being asked to pay more or start paying taxes--'it's devastating, it's ruinous, everybody's going to leave the state,'" Dayton said. "I've heard this for 30 years. You've got to tax somebody. So are we going to tax just the few, the middle-income taxpayer and families, or are we going to ask everybody--businesses and high-income earners as well as everyone else--to pay a fair share?"[2]

Sorry Governor, it’s not the “greedy rich” who are telling you that your plan is ruinous:  it’s the relentless mathematics of an aging society.

Demography Trumps Dayton's New "Minnesota Miracle"

It was inevitable in the fawning local media coverage of Governor Mark Dayton's "post-modern budget" that some commentator would compare the effort favorably with Governor Wendell Anderson's 1971 "Minnesota Miracle" budget.

Star Tribune columnist and keeper of the liberal flame Lori Sturdevant stepped up and wrote this yesterday,

"In 1971, while the baby boomers strained school facilities and budgets, Gov. Wendell Anderson faced a property tax revolt when he pushed through what is still Minnesota's largest-percentage sales and income tax increase, in order to reduce property taxes and boost education funding.

"Dayton's new budget employs essentially the same strategy. He would raise both income and sales taxes in order to cut property tax bills, via a $500-per-household rebate, and send more resources to education."

She's right, it is essentially the same strategy from 40 years ago.  The only problem is, today, the baby boomers have long departed from the school system.  We are closing schools, not opening them.

The old saw goes, "Demography is Destiny."  As I wrote back in May 2011, Minnesota's demography will not support Dayton's taxing and spending plans.

In the 19th century, Minnesota's median age was in the early 20's.  By the 1950's, it had peaked out at 30.6 and then started falling with the baby boom.  At the time of the 1970's "Miracle," the age had bottomed out again in the mid-20's.

Since 1971 the median age has only risen.  In the 2010 Census?  37.4 years.  Simply put, a tax strategy for a society getting younger (1971) won't work in an aging society (2013).  Here's what I wrote two years ago,

"A young society [in 1971] had plenty of earning years remaining to overcome the drag of higher taxes, and still save enough for retirement.  The relatively young state needed more investment in its large school age population.  And the state's population was young enough to be around to enjoy the benefits of that investment.

"Fast forward to 2011:  aging baby boomers are, in large part, driving the pressure for more spending on health care.  But our median age is now 11 years older than it was in 1970.  We are a middle-aged society and no longer have the luxury of time to earn enough to overcome the higher taxes the Governor proposes."

"What looked good in 1971 as a policy alternative can't be sustained with 2011's demography."

The situation has not improved in the past two years.  In fact, we are now in the 4th year of a new baby bust.  From my perspective, Dayton's budget represents not "a bold vision" but a dangerous disconnect from demographic reality.

Follow the Money and TakeAction! Part 5

[This post is the fifth in a series examining the activity of the St. Paul-based political charity TakeAction Minnesota.  Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 of the series provide some necessary background to those new to the story.]

The first four parts of this series have only tiptoed around the real story at the heart of TakeAction:  the remarkable upset win over Minnesota’s Voter ID amendment in the November 2012 election.  There is not room in this Part 5 to tell the whole story, but some background material will provide a good start.

[In Part 6, I update this post with final numbers.]

The constitutional amendment to require ID for voting had the support of 80 percent of voters in an opinion poll conducted in May 2011.  A year-and-a-half later, on Election Day 2012, the Voter ID amendment received only 46 percent of the vote, even less than the 47 percent received by the higher-profile Marriage amendment question.

In Part 3 of this series, I traced some of the money flowing into the TakeAction non-profit organization(s) from out-of-state sources, particularly in the area of healthcare.  This Part 5 will document some of the money flows to TakeAction’s organization(s) for the “Democracy” project, which set the stage for the epic 2012 win against Voter ID.

Opposition to the Voter ID constitutional amendment question was led by a group called Our Vote Our Future.  This group raised and spent $ millions to defeat the amendment.[1]  Prominent among the contributors (through October 22^nd)were, among others, George Soros’ Open Society Policy Center, giving $500,000,[2] the National Educational Association, giving $300,000,[3] MoveOn.org, giving $182,400,[4] WIN Minnesota, giving $132,000,[5] Governor Mark Dayton’s ex-wife and Rockefeller heiress Alida Messinger, giving $75,010,[6] and Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s campaign, giving $10,000.[7]

The "Taxing the Wealthy" Fallacy

A couple of points that I could not squeeze into today's column on Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton's "post-modern" budget proposal.

First:  Not a Wealth Tax

Typical of the local media spin on the proposal is sentences like this, "The wealthiest 2 percent of Minnesotans would be hit with a 2 percent higher income tax rate."  Probably not.  Dayton has not proposed a French-style "wealth tax."  He is merely proposing to raise the marginal rate on the existing income tax.

This distinction makes a difference.  The "wealthy" already have money.  They choose when to take "income" by selling assets, etc.  The high income taxpayer is not necessarily wealthy.  More likely she is striving to become wealthy by working hard and earning a high income.  Dayton is taxing aspiration.  He already has his.

Second:  Taxing Savings

The Governor's belief that the "rich" are not paying their "fair" share is based on a misreading (or at least an over-reading) of tax incidence studies.  Back in May 2011 I wrote about Dayton's obsession with this talking point.  Long story short, the "rich" don't pay more because they save money.  Dayton is taxing savings and striving.

Political Charities Go National

On the Politico website today, there is a story up about how state-level Democrat activists are concerned over President Obama's new non-profit organization, "Dem officials fret over new Obama nonprofit".  The President is turning his campaign operation into a 501(c)(4) non-profit "advocacy" operation.

The first person quoted by Politico is Minnesota's own Ken Martin, Chair of the state Democrat party and former head of the political charity WIN Minnesota (which I discuss at the end of Part 3 of my TakeAction series).

The overall thrust of the Politico piece is the worry over competition for dollars between state-level groups and Obama's national group.

But this quote from Mr. Martin caught my eye,

" 'I’m not a dummy,' he said. 'I understand post-Citizens United the necessity to set up vehicles for different types of money to flow' "

Ok.  I don't understand.  What different types of money?  Money is money, what is he talking about?

Perhaps this sentence in the Politico piece offers a clue, "Nonprofit status allows Obama to raise unlimited money from both individuals and corporations, which the DNC and individual state parties cannot do."

Readers of my TakeAction series will know that I am no fan of networks that allow for the mingling of tax deductible charity dollars, tax exempt non-profit organizations, political action committees and political funds under the umbrella of a single organization.  That the trend is going national is even worse news.

Governor Dayton’s Post-Modern Budget

Minnesota’s reclusive Governor, Mark Dayton, emerged from the shadows yesterday to deliver his budget proposal for the next two-year cycle.  Much of the immediate political and media reaction focused on the details:  what will or won’t be taxed, what spending will or won’t happen.  Such coverage misses the larger message of the Governor’s budget.

I knew something was different as my Twitter timeline filled—while the Governor introduced his budget—with increasingly ecstatic sentiments being expressed by my far-left friends.  They were all of a theme that “Dayton’s budget marks a new era of __fill in the blank with your favorite policy area__.”

Parts of the budget may have provided useful building blocks in a different, more coherent program.  However, this Governor’s second two-year budget, taken as a whole, represents a profoundly unserious document.  It stands as Minnesota’s first “post-modern” budget.  It does not meet the Minnesota of the 21^st century where it can be found, but rather, the Governor’s budget alternates between addressing a Minnesota that exists no longer (if it ever did) and addressing the world as he wished it existed.

Follow the Money and TakeAction! Part 4

[This post is the fourth in a series examining the activity of the St. Paul-based political charity TakeAction Minnesota.  Parts 1, 2, and 3 of the series provide some necessary background to those new to the story.]

In Part 3 of the series, I traced some of the money flowing into the TakeAction non-profit organization(s) from out-of-state sources.  This Part 4 will serve as an introduction to TakeAction’s lobbying operation.

Noted in Part 3, the mega-philanthropy Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) of Princeton, New Jersey (think Johnson’s “no more tears’ baby shampoo), has donated $1.6 million to TakeAction’s 501(c)(3) charitable Education Fund unit since 2008.  $1.4 million of this amount was earmarked to support TakeAction’s work in state healthcare policy.

Our Slow-Motion Constitutional Crisis

Harry Reid and the New House of Lords

A column by Kimberley Strassel in Friday's Wall Street Journal summarizes a lot of what I’ve been thinking about regarding the serial budget crises between the President and the House of Representatives.  Shorter version:  where’s Harry?

Her essay, “Harry Reid’s Great Disappearing Act” shines a spotlight on the role (or lack thereof) of the U.S. Senate in these disputes.  Strassel argues that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) “has subverted the democratic process, successfully allowing him to both protect his party and keep the focus on Republicans."

It goes beyond the Senate not having passed a budget in 1,363 days.  It goes beyond the Senators generally not earning their pay.  What we have here is a slow-motion constitutional crisis.

What Comes After the Blue State Model?

Walter Russell Mead tries to peer over the horizon at what will come next in his newest essay.

Joel Kotkin on Winners in Obama's Second Term

Author Joel Kotkin writes on the industries that will do well in Obama's second term.  Some industries are more equal than others.

Who stands to lose in a second term?  "The small business owner, the suburban homeowner, the family farmer or skilled construction tradesperson."  In other words, the backbone of America.

Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others

George Orwell, in his 1945 novella Animal Farm, includes the oft-quoted passage, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".

Our hard-working Federal regulators take this passage literally.  This week, it was reported that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is poised to issue the first-ever permit to a wind farm to kill bald eagles, our national symbol.  It is estimated that the proposed wind farm, to be located in Minnesota's Goodhue County, may kill up to 15 (per year) of the majestic birds that appear on our coins, bills, and other symbols of our republic.  Keep in mind that it is against the law to so much as possess an eagle feather.


Meanwhile, in North Dakota, the Federal government was moving in the opposite direction.  The U.S. Attorney there attempted to prosecute 7 local oil companies for the deaths of 28 ducks.  At an average of 4 ducks per company, that's only about a quarter of the kill rate that the Feds were o.k. with here in Minnesota.  A Federal judge threw out the North Dakota case.

Back in 2009, ExxonMobil was not so lucky.  The oil company was ordered by the Feds to pay $600,000 for the deaths of 85 birds (no eagles) over five years over a five state area.  That works out to 3.4 birds per state per year, well under the Goodhue wind power take.  The dollar fine works out to more than $7,000 per bird.

Yes, some birds are more equal than others.  Now an oil company does not make for a sympathetic defendant, but a dead bird is a dead bird.

The lesson here is that wind power can kill birds, but not oil power.  I guess that justice is not blind, after all.

Follow the Money and TakeAction! Part 3

On January 16, 2013, the Minnesota state legislature, with new Democrat majorities, began what will surely seem like an endless series of hearings on the creation of a Minnesota-based heath insurance exchange to implement the Federal Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

Prominent at the first committee hearing and billed by the St. Paul Pioneer Press as a “consumer advocate” was a representative of the group TakeAction Minnesota.[1]

In this series, I have been examining the activity of the St. Paul-based political charity TakeAction Minnesota.  This series arose out of a piece I did back in March 2012.  Parts 1 and 2 of the series provide some necessary background to those new to the story.

In Part 2, using 2010 as an example year, I show how money sloshes back and forth between the various parts of the organization, which include a charitable 501(c)(3) corporation (TakeAction Minnesota Education Fund), a social welfare 501(c)(4) organization, and two 527 political funds.  I note that, unlike the 527 entities, contributions to the 501(c) entities are not disclosed by TakeAction and may be tax deductible to the donor.

Who are these donors?  Who is giving the money that gets recycled into Democrat party campaign cash?  With a little bit of internet research, I was able to identify a few of them.  Let’s start with the big kahuna.

Where's Larry?

After a slow start, the Minneapolis Star Tribune steps up its coverage of the University of Minnesota's nation-leading administrative bloat.  In today's edition, the paper reports on the appearance of the U-M's President, Eric Kaler, before the state Senate.  Dr. Kaler simultaneously assures the senators that there is no problem and that he will fix it immediately.

The Star Tribune mentions its coverage last year of some outsized bonuses paid to University executives.

Conspicuous by his absence in this controversy is former state Senate majority leader Larry Pogemiller, now head of the Minnesota Office of Higher Education.  The state Senate is is poised to confirm Mr. Pogemiller to the cabinet of DFL Governor Mark Dayton.  Where, exactly, does the buck stop?

Who Stands Accountable For Homelessness

Today the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported on growing homelessness in the state's largest county.  The paper writes,

"Despite numerous public and private programs that spend millions of dollars confronting homelessness, some of which have had marked success, new figures show the number of people with nowhere to live continues to grow."

Adding,

"Despite the increases in homelessness, local advocates point to some positive developments, driven by a 10-year campaign to end homelessness that was launched five years ago."

In my perpetually forthcoming book, I use that very 10-year plan as Exhibit A of what is wrong with state government.  As I wrote back in March 2012,

The Column: Science Has Returned

“Science made a comeback at the State Capitol on Tuesday.”

Thus the Minneapolis Star Tribune blares in the opening sentence of a news story in this morning’s paper.  The line invokes images of a wrathful Godzilla, returned to St. Paul to exact its terrible revenge (this time for global warming, rather than nuclear power), as a young Raymond Burr flees in terror.  In the event, the only persons fleeing the State Capitol in advance of the beast were Hope, Prudence, and Common Sense.

I’ve been told that certain Democrat members of the legislature have literally wandered the halls of the Capitol these last few weeks, like ancient heralds, chanting “Science is Coming!  Science is Coming!”

Get Ready: MN's $ Billion Solar Mandate is Coming!

I've been following efforts at the Minnesota Legislature to impose a new $1 billion per year solar power mandate on the state's electric utilities.

Minnesota Public Radio's Kerri Miller hosted two lawmakers on her Daily Circuit program this morning.  Senator Julie Rosen is a Republican and a former chair of the state Senate's energy committee.  Representative Melissa Hortman is a Democrat and the current chair of the House Energy Policy Committee.

The solar discussion begins in earnest at the 09:52 mark of the recording, as Ann of Lake of the Woods County, MN, expresses concerns about her fast-growing electric bill.  At the 17:10 minute mark, host Miller asks a question to pin down Chair Hortman on the subject of the 10 percent solar mandate.  At the 17:31 mark, Rep. Hortman says the following, "There is a great argument in favor of 10 percent by 2030."

Sen. Rosen provides a word of caution at the 20:35 mark.  "At what cost?", she asks at the 22:04 mark.

My question is this, if Rep. Hortman gets her way, by 2031 will we become like the Greeks, cutting down trees to heat our homes because we can no longer afford electricity?

Follow the Money and TakeAction! Part 2

[Note:  the reNEW.mn website is no longer available.  The URL redirects to TakeAction's website.  To see the content, enter the reNEW.mn URL into archive.org's Wayback Machine.]

In Part 1 of this series, I introduce TakeAction Minnesota, a politically progressive local non-profit.  TakeAction, through its reNEW Minnesota Campaign project was active in 2010, electing Mark Dayton as Minnesota's 40th Governor.  TakeAction and reNEW exclusively support Democrat party-related causes (or as we style it in Minnesota, the DFL, Democrat-Farmer-Labor party).

Here is one of the photos that rotates on reNEW’s homepage:

The caption reads,

“Governor Elect Mark Dayton thanks TakeAction Minnesota's members for their work during the election at TakeAction's Annual Leadership Awards Dinner on November 19^th [2010]. We are BOLDER TOGETHER.”  (emphasis in the original)

U-M Admin Bloat Gets Bloatier

Of late, I have pursued a sideline of following the local media's coverage (or lack of same) regarding the University of Minnesota's nation-leading administrative bloat.  (See 1, 2, 3, and 4)

It all began with a Wall Street Journal front-page exposé that ran before New Year's.  The Journal cited our flagship public university as Exhibit A in what I would characterize as a fin de siècle bout of overhead spending right before the higher education bubble bursts.

When in Doubt, TakeAction! Part 1

When I Googled the phrase “money and politics” the other day, one of the top hits that appeared was this page on Bill Moyers' website.  It contains the usual screed against big corporate money and the Citizens United decision.  If you click on any of the links there, you will read about the usual bogeymen of the left:  the Koch brothers, the oil companies, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), etc.

I find all of this stuff to be remarkable, because as I go about my day-to-day involvement in Minnesota politics, all of the “big money” that I see is on the other side of the aisle and coming out of non-profit corporations.
 

I Guess the Pulitzer Will Have to Wait

The Minneapolis Star Tribune seems determined to prove me right.  On Friday, I noted that the paper had finally taken notice in its news pages of the controversy surrounding the University of Minnesota’s nation-leading administrative bloat.  I pointed out the more prominent treatment of a nothing story concerning locally-mined sand (frac sand) used in the oil drilling industry.

In today’s Sunday edition of the Star Tribune, both issues appear in the Opinion Exchange section.  The second page (OP 2) contains an in-house editorial on the  U's admin bloat.  This editorial is literally wrapped in a massive report on frac sand, which covers most of pages OP1 and OP4.  The frac sand piece comes complete with two color photographs, two pull quotes, and a text box.

Solar Power Done Wright

In a change of pace today, I will say nice things about solar power and the Minneapolis Star Tribune. 

Today's newspaper carried a story about a unique solar power project undertaken by the exurban Wright-Hennepin Electric Cooperative.  The co-op utility used crowd funding (a more up-to-date and hipper idea than my "Heirloom Electricity" plan) to finance a solar power project in the northwest metro town of Rockford.

The utility signed up 17 of its customers, raising almost $150,000 for the project.  It's a great example of a market creating solar power, voluntarily, without the costly coercion of a state mandate.  Participating customers, who are scattered throughout the utility's service territory, will receive bill credit for the project's electricity output.  The crowd funding idea seems to be a great way to create economies of scale, and the bill credit appears to be a clever work-around to the state's net metering restrictions.  A battery-backup system overcomes the problems with solar's intermittency.

Kudos to all involved in creating this win-win solution.  And a thank you to the Star Tribune for featuring the story so prominently.

U-M Admin Bloat: Better Late Than Never

The controversy surrounding the University of Minnesota’s administrative bloat finally spilled over onto the news pages of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, nearly two weeks after the Wall Street Journal published a front page exposé on the University’s national-leading administrative overstaffing.

To date, the controversy had played out only on the Op-Ed pages of Minnesota’s leading daily, with dueling pieces appearing from a Washington Post columnist and the president of Minnesota’s flagship public university, Eric Kaler.

Updated: Minnesota's Green Energy Follies, Part 4

This is Part 4 of a series.  Parts 1, 2, and 3 are available elsewhere on this site.  [Update:  I have revised the cost figures below using more recent price data.]

In 2013, Minnesota’s environmental advocates will be asking the State Legislature to impose a 10 percent solar mandate on the state’s electric utilities.  This mandate would be in addition to the current 25 percent renewable energy mandate, which for the most part has been met with wind power.  The idea is to meet 10 percent of Minnesota’s electrical energy requirements with solar power by the year 2030.

Advocates of the solar mandate tout the jobs created by and the environmental benefits stemming from their proposed legislation.  Nowhere have I seen an estimate of what this mandate could cost Minnesota energy consumers.  So I have calculated this back-of-the-envelope estimate.  Sorry for all the math.

James Buchanan, RIP

We lost a titan this week.  Nobel-prize winning economist James Buchanan died at age 93.  He was one of the founders of Public Choice Theory and taught for a time at my alma mater (alas, before my time).

The Wall Street Journal includes two [1, 2] tributes to the man and his work in today's editorial/opinion pages.

For an explanation of Public Choice Theory in his own words, read Buchanan's Politics Without Romance.  This Buchanan quote sums it up,

"In a very real sense, public choice became a set of theories of governmental failures, as an offset to the theories of market failures that had previously emerged from theoretical welfare economics."

The Kabuki Debt Dance

[The second installment of my weekly column]

I was certainly not the first person to call our recent Fiscal Cliff national "debate" a Kabuki dance (although I did call it that, back on December 18th, on the radio).  We all knew something important was at stake, with the cable news channels running live countdown timers to Taxmageddon and local politicians warning of the dire consequences to the local water supply if something called “sequestration” was allowed to happen.

As with that highly stylized Japanese dance theater, our periodic set-piece showdowns in Congress feature elaborate gestures, high drama, and rituals bizarre to the uninitiated, but no doubt as to the final outcome. 

The Upcoming Magna Carta Octocentennial

We are only two years away from the octocentennial (I looked it up, it's word meaning 800-year anniversary) of the Magna Carta, western democracy's founding document.  Watch this space for more news of this year's commemoration.

Meanwhile, read Daily Telegraph columnist Philip Johnston on that piece of parchment that made England a nation.

A Word of Caution to My DFL Friends

The 88th Minnesota Legislature convened a few minutes ago.  Congratulations to all of the members who were elected or re-elected for this session.

Local media are filled today with warnings for the new DFL (Democrat-Farmer-Labor) majorities, who enjoy one-party rule in St. Paul for the first time in a generation.  (See this, this and this.)

Their task, it is said, is “to prove that a state governed by Democrats can create progress without overreaching.”  Implicit in this warning is that the Democrats know where the line lies between creating progress and overreaching.

Based on my recent adventures in electoral politics, I’m not convinced they do.  Last autumn, our traveling campaign circus moved from public forum to public forum around the Southwest Metro.  The spending and policy promises made by the DFL candidates would pile up at every stop. Surely not everyone can be made happy.

Minnesota's Green Energy Follies, Part 3

In Part 1 of this series, I discuss how Democrat leadership has decided that 2013 will be the Year of Solar in energy policy at the Minnesota State Legislature.  In Part 2, I discuss how the state’s leading environmental groups got together and decided 2013 would be the Year of Solar.  Right on time, the Minneapolis Star Tribune tells us this morning that 2013 will be a “Big Year for Solar.”

The Star Tribune’s story includes a quote from the Minnesota Solar Energy Industries Association, a member of the umbrella group Solar Works for Minnesota.  The Association’s Policy Director, Lynn Hinkle, tells the paper that his “group is pushing for special, higher rates on solar power sold to utilities.”  The public University of Minnesota is eager to tell us about “Unleashing Minnesota's Solar Power Potential.”  Good to know.

That the stars have aligned just so to promote solar power is not a coincidence.  It is the result of a well-coordinated and well-funded effort that combines the resources of wealthy philanthropists with the willing participation of local nonprofits, left-leaning political organizations, elected officials, media and academic institutions.

California's Ongoing Collapse, 2

Walter Russell Mead adds his take to the story of California's ongoing collapse.  Joel Kotkin adds his thoughts in the Orange County Register.

California's Ongoing Collapse

Over at New Geography, Robert J. Cristiano chronicles the ongoing collapse of California's blue utopia as he moves east to Texas.  Bon Voyage!

Ted Cruz Writes on "Opportunity Conservatism"

Newly-sworn in U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) writes in the Washington Post on the need for Republicans to promote "Opportunity Conservatism."  He's not talking about the Compassionate Conservatism of a decade ago, but something more along the lines of the Aspirational Conservatism that we have advocated in this space.

Senator Cruz is definitely one to watch in coming years.

The Media Watchdog That Didn't Bark

Over at Power Line, Scott Johnson makes the point that local media have been unusually quiet about that hard-hitting Wall Street Journal piece reporting on the nation-leading bureaucratic bloat at our University of Minnesota.

The Journal put out its piece on Saturday (I added my take on Monday) and the Minneapolis Star Tribune today (Thursday) published a commentary from the Washington Post, that was originally published on Monday.  As for original, local reporting on this nationwide scandal:  nada, so far.

With the higher education bubble about to burst, you would think that some local outlet would smell a great story, or even imagine a prize for a great series on the topic.  Instead, we seem to have a curious form of "professional courtesy" at work.

Author Joel Kotkin has an interesting take on the formation of a new coalition of elites.  This coalition has thrived, relatively, during the recent Obama recession.  Kotkin believes that this new group is "made up of the leaders of social and traditional media, the upper bureaucracy and the academy", which he dubs "the New Clerisy."  If you are within the group, it appears, you are immune from criticism.

Minnesota's Green Energy Follies, Part 2

In Part 1 of this series, I discussed how Minnesota's energy policy is about to take a sharp turn to the left.  The November election handed the local DFL party (Democrat-Farmer-Labor) complete control of state government for the first time in a generation.  Twenty years of pent-up policy demands await fulfillment.

The incoming Chair of the House Energy Policy Committee (Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park) has announced the first area of interest:  solar polar.

The Column: Week 1

[The first edition of my new weekly column]

Congress has now passed its “cure” for the Fiscal Cliff Follies™, so our attention can now return to more important matters, such as North Korean architecture.  Trust me, they are closely related subjects.

While flying back from Florida this weekend, I got the chance to read this book review in the Wall Street Journal of German architect Philipp Meuser's work,:"Architectural and Cultural Guide: Pyongyang."

The New Weekly Column

As my New Year's Resolution, I am starting a weekly column in this space.  In my first edition, I am tackling subjects ranging from North Korean architecture, Nelson Rockefeller, and the recent Fiscal Cliff Follies.