Accountability Journalism

Leave it to the overseas press to do the work that local Minneapolis media can’t be bothered with.  President Obama flew to Minnesota this week to visit with a typical, struggling mom, “a 36-year-old working wife and mother of two preschool-age boys,” as reported by the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Only the U.K.-based Reuters news service did any actual reporting on the meeting, noticing that Obama’s luncheon partner’s

LinkedIn profile shows she was once a field organizer for Democratic Senator Patty Murray of Washington.

I noticed the same thing last night, but our local media was too thrilled to have the Great Man in their midst to do any due diligence on the White House’s carefully choreographed Minnesota campaign stop.  Wouldn’t want to spoil the mood.

Too bad, they missed what could have been a great story.  The Star Tribune did report,

President Obama began a two-day visit to Minneapolis on Thursday sharing cheeseburgers with a local working mother and bringing a middle-class message tailor-made to aid Democrats fearful of massive losses in the upcoming election.

Which Democrats?  Did the President choose Minnesota—of all states—for his visit because some of those fearful Democrats may be located in the North Star state?  Star struck local media were unable to form a question on that subject.

Even if our worried, local everymom did turn out to be a ringer, her concerns are real.  She “wrote of a weakened housing market hitting her family hard, causing her husband’s construction business to fold.”  Sorry, with this President, that’s a feature, not a bug.

As the Star Tribune’s editorial page gleefully declared this morning, “There will be no need for any additional single-family, large-lot houses.  Zero.”  This is this direct result of the President’s New Urbanist, no-growth policies.  Sorry husband of local working mother, you are just out of luck.

But don’t worry, the photo op turned out great.

Unemployment Rates in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin

Compiled in one graph, from January 2011 to the present.

The TakeAction/ABM Merger

The political charity TakeAction Minnesota bills itself as an organization created to "work for social, racial, and economic justice."  As we always expected, it turns out to be just another Democrat party front group.

According to the latest filings at the Campaign Finance Board, on May 21st TakeAction's Political Fund transferred $50,000 from TakeAction's 501(c)(4) tax-exempt non-profit to the 2014 Fund, the fundraising arm for the Democrat political machine's Alliance for a Better Minnesota.

Make no mistake, TakeAction exists to elect Democrats.

The Indonesian Connection, Part 3

A new batch of Minnesota state campaign finance disclosures is out, and our favorite Indonesian businessman pops up, yet again.  The latest disclosures cover the period from April 1st through May 31st of this year.

On April 3rd, Johannes Marliem donated $25,000 to the Minnesota state Democrat party, that donation coming only a week after he had donated $20,000 to the state's Democrats.

At $45,000 in 2014 donations, Marliem is the largest state Democrat party donor not directly related to the Dayton family.  Democrat Governor Mark Dayton's father Bruce donated $100,000 and Gov. Dayton's former wife (Alida Rockefeller Messinger) has donated $150,000 so far this year.

P.J. O'Rourke on Detroit Free City

Humorist P.J. O'Rourke has taken up the cause of Detroit Free City in the pages of the Wall Street Journal.

America's Largest Export is Scrap Paper

Boeing, with its commercial airliners, is likely still America's biggest exporter by value of product.  However, the list of America’s biggest exporters by volume will surprise you.

To get a sense of where America ranks in world trade competitiveness, consider the Port of Los Angeles.  Los Angeles hosts America’s largest container port (those rectangular metal boxes), serving the big cargo ships from Asia. 

Look carefully at these statistics from the port.  For every two containers imported into Los Angeles, one returns to Asia empty. 

The contents of that second container being exported is more than likely than not…junk.  The Journal of Commerce tracks U.S. exporters, by volume, at all of America’s ports.  Leading the list of the top 100 exporters is a company called America Chung Nam, whose business is to export scrap paper to China.  Scrap paper.

America Chung Nam exports 2 ½ times the volume of the No. 2-ranked exporter, who also does some business in scrap paper.  The No. 4 exporter, Sims Metal Management, exports scrap metal to China.  Seven of the top 12 exporters do business in scrap.

Hometown Minnesota heroes Cargill come in at 15^th and 3M ranks a distant 53^rd on the list of top U.S. export companies.

Some 27 of the top 100 exporters are in the recycling business—paper, plastics, and metal.  I’m all for Reduce Reuse Recycle, but when your biggest export is scrap, you no longer rank as a First World nation.

Hired Guns, Part 8

An effort was made yesterday in the Minnesota State Senate to suspend the press credentials of the Democrats’ paid reporter, Shawn Towle.

On the Senate floor, Republican Sen. David Hann made the following motion (p. 9351), 

Any credentials issued under Senate Rule 16 to an individual who has received funds from a political organization, as defined in Senate Rule 16.1, paragraph (a), are suspended.  The sergeant-at-arms shall ensure that any individual holding suspended credentials is not admitted to the Senate Chamber. 

Seems simple enough.  However, Democrat Sen. Ron Latz (St. Louis Park) prevented a vote on the motion.  An effort to force a vote failed on a partisan tally of 32-25.

Senate Democrats, having imbedded one of their own reporters inside the capitol press corps, appear more than willing to fight to keep him in there.

Ah, another day in the Banana Republic of Minnesota.

In Part 9 our man Towle is back in the news.

Sunlit Uplands

As the Democrat-led state legislature closes out their 2014 session, the narrative goes something like this:

The Democrats’ patented combination of liberal compassion and out-of-control taxing and spending has somehow produced a booming Minnesota economy in a stinging rebuke to those heartless Republican states like Wisconsin and Texas.

Unfortunately, the facts are getting in the way of a good story.  The state has announced that Minnesota lost 4,200 jobs in April and revised the March job gains downward from 2,600 to a mere 700.

Yet, somehow the state unemployment rate actually fell last month, from 4.8 percent to 4.7.  The only way for that math to work would be that thousands and thousands of unemployed potential workers suddenly stopped even looking for jobs last month.  To have the rate fall, the numerator (unemployed but looking) would have to decline at a faster rate than the denominator (total potential workforce).  Wow.

So not only did a net 3,500 workers lose their jobs in the past two months, many thousands more of the unemployed concluded that searching for a job was not likely to pay off and gave up the effort. 

Those 4,200 newly unemployed workers will not be paying taxes to the state treasury, but instead, will be drawing unemployment benefits.  That won’t help our overall budget picture, which is looking increasingly cloudy.

Earlier this week, the state announced that tax revenue has fallen short of expectations for the second month in a row.  Meanwhile, the Democrats in the state legislature are busy spending the budget “surplus” that looks like it will never materialize.

You heard it here, first.

Cities, Solar Power and the Irresistible Lure of "Free Money"

Over at the Center of the American Experiment, I co-wrote this piece with Kim Crockett on solar power.  We discuss how cities can't turn down "free" money to pay for uneconomic solar projects.

“Help Wanted” for an Upper Midwest Economic Development Strategy

by Bill Glahn and Georgie Hilker

Last month, the Star Tribune reported on efforts by the State of North Dakota (targeted toward Minnesota) to attract workers for some 25,000 unfilled jobs in their booming state (April 13th, “N.D. hopes to lure workers with promises of the 'Good Life'”).

The reaction on this side of the Red River must involve more than merely shipping our workers west.  Our state’s political and business elites should seize this opportunity to do something more.  Minnesota is perfectly positioned—both geographically and economically—to  play a larger role in shaping our region’s economy and the time is now

Minnesota’s present mix of highly progressive tax and crippling regulatory policies are not compatible with becoming the region’s economic hub.  To gain a leadership position, we will need to rethink a range of policies—from taxes, to economic development, to our relationship with neighboring states, and beyond.  The formula for success involves a lot of  hands-on work getting the nuts and bolts of government right, and makes for horribly boring press conferences, but here’s a start:

Build on What We Have

Minnesota, and more specifically the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area, serves as the regional hub for a vast inland empire stretching from western Wisconsin and northern Iowa to eastern Montana and Manitoba, Canada.  [To get a visual feel for the size of the region, study the map of the Minnesota Twins radio network.]

For example, Minnesota has 7 times the population of North Dakota.  All those oil field developers and related industries have a need for a wide array of business services—banking, accounting, consulting, engineering, insurance, legal, public relations—not necessarily available in Bismarck and Fargo.  Why not cater to this market and steal a march on Denver and Seattle?

Likewise, the major-league sports, shopping, and entertainment venues offered in Minneapolis-St. Paul; the world-class health services available in Rochester; and the Ports of Duluth and St. Paul and the MSP airport with their worldwide trade access, should make Minnesota the linchpin of the entire region. 

Embrace the Energy Revolution

Just like Houston in Texas or Calgary in Alberta, Minnesota could serve as the hub of a North Central energy empire:  oil, natural gas, and coal in the west, hydropower to the north, pipelines, refineries, and, yes, wind power at home.

North Dakota is not the only state in the Midwest with abundant natural resources; it is simply the state most willing to develop them. 

Minnesota, too, has resources—iron ore, copper and nickel, and sand—all available for development, in an environmentally-sound manner, of course.  Again, the skilled, blue collar (and likely union) mining jobs up north and down south will create demand for  “knowledge-worker” services offered in the Twin Cities and regional centers, including Duluth and Rochester.

Create a Silicon Prairie

California’s Silicon Valley benefits from its close proximity to world-class universities.  Rather than perpetuate rivalries with neighboring universities in North Dakota and Iowa, why not join forces and seed a Silicon Prairie in the Upper Midwest?  It would merely require abandoning the partisan view of Minnesota as a progressive island in a sea of conservatism and, instead, seeing Minnesota as the vital core of a larger, regional economy.

Be the Convener

We must stop thinking of bordering states as competitors and start considering them as our collaborators.  We should start hosting regular business summits with our regional partners and build upon the strengths each one of them brings to the marketplace.

In considering the North Dakota job openings, we need to think creatively about how to supply their needs for goods and services with the well-educated and skilled workforce available here.  In doing so, we can  begin to build the kind of regional economic framework that will ensure the Upper Midwest will no longer be considered "flyover land".