Minnesota Miracles

(As an addendum to Mark's post.)

Ever since the 1970s there has been talk of the Minnesota Miracle, when Wendy Anderson appeared on the cover of Time magazine. Then there was the Miracle on Ice, when the American hockey team, mostly from Minnesota, beat the Russians in the 1980 Olympics. Then the was the lesser Minnesota Miracle in 2011, when a Democratic governor and Democratic legislature (helped by some Republicans who were later tossed out by their party) turned gaping deficits left by an irresponsible Republican governor and legislature into surpluses.

Minnesota, where more money is spent on infrastructure, schools and healthcare, is doing better than states like Mississippi and Alabama, where taxes are low, schools are suing the state, income inequality is high, large segments of the population are obese and suffering from untreated diabetes, and the slave economy never really went away.

According to conservatives Minnesota's success should be impossible. Minnesota has no significant natural resources except water, land and people. It is in the middle of nowhere. It has cold winters and hot summers. It has no geographical advantages like New York's or LA's seaports. It has no oil wells like North Dakota and Texas. It has relatively high taxes. Yet it has low unemployment and an economy that has performed well for decades.

Except for a few lapses under Jesse Ventura and Tim Pawlenty, who kept citing Alabama as an example to follow in his quest for the Republican presidential nomination, Minnesota has consistently paid for its schools, raised taxes when it needed to, and lowered them when it was responsible to do so.

Yet it has consistently outperformed states that have all the advantages — principally low taxes and lax regulations — that conservatives insist are necessary for business to succeed.

Of course, high taxes and government spending don't automatically generate success. It's responsible and accountable government investing in the right things, spending enough to educate their citizens for well-paying jobs and protecting their health and welfare.

Perhaps the real key can be found in the reasons people move to certain states.

People come to Minnesota to work, raise their kids and send them to good schools. They go to southern states to retire and die.