Minnesota 2020 Journal: “Truth Will Out”

The 2013 Minnesota legislative session pleased and disappointed me. I’m not alone. Many progressives feel shortchanged by some of the session’s public policy outcomes. Yet, it’s important to keep the big picture in mind, celebrating, perhaps with a tight smile, the sea change. We’re better off with the changes than we are without them. The alternative—continuing conservative policy direction—is a downward, state-defeating spiral. Minnesota, like the nation, has been on a conservative policy trajectory for the past 20-30 years. “No new taxes,” as activist rallying cry and as tax policy, facilitated a structural shift in state tax policy. We moved…