Headlines vs. Reality: Economic Prosperity
There's been a lot of party platforms come and go in my time. First as a Republican, now as a DFLer. Here's something I've learned: the headline always sounds good. It's the fine print that tells you the truth.
Take the Minnesota GOP platform. First headline: "Promote Economic Prosperity." Who's against that? Nobody. That's the point of a headline.
Then you read the actual policy.
They want a tax credit for what they call a "two-parent nuclear family home." Doesn't matter if that home is safe. Doesn't matter what your family actually looks like. I don't care how many parents are under a roof — I care whether the kids are safe and the bills are paid. That's not a Kansas farm value or a Minnesota value, that's just a decent-person value.
Same platform wants to repeal the state's carbon-free electricity and renewable energy mandates. I've spent every summer since the early 80s in the Boundary Waters. I'd like my grandkids to have a Boundary Waters to go to. Tearing up clean energy rules doesn't get us there.
Then there's the money. They want to expand the child tax credit — good — but repeal Minnesota's Paid Family and Medical Leave program in the same breath. So a family gets a bigger credit on paper, but if a parent gets sick or has a baby, there's no paid leave to get them through it. That's not a plan. That's a headline.
On taxes, the platform says it wants a "fair, honest, competitive business environment" and lower tax burdens. Fine. But South Dakota has zero corporate income tax right next door, and businesses are still choosing to stay in Minnesota. The tax rate isn't chasing anyone off. What lowering the corporate rate actually does is shift the load onto working families' backs. I'd rather look at something like a gross receipts tax — close the loopholes big corporations use, instead of squeezing the guy running the hardware store.
A few pages later, the platform says it opposes "corporate welfare." Next section: cut corporate taxes. Somebody's not reading their own document.
There are a couple ideas in there I actually agree with. Requiring a supermajority to raise taxes — I could get behind that, so long as it cuts both ways, raising and lowering. And cutting property taxes on ag land — I grew up on a farm, I know what that tax bill does to a family operation. But you can't keep cutting revenue and never say where it comes from instead. That's the same headline problem all over again.
Where I'm from, we have a saying: all hat, no cattle. Looks the part, doesn't do the work. That's this platform. Sounds like prosperity for everyone, delivers tax breaks for the wealthy and lectures for everybody else.
I want Minnesotans doing better — all of us, no matter what your family looks like or what zip code you're in. That's not a headline. That's the job.
Brian Walker
