This shows how far behind our neighboring state to the east we are after Pawlenty's moves. :(
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/14441101.htmlIn sum: Wisconsin is on a tear to cover nearly every citizen with affordable health insurance, give every 4-year-old access to a pre-kindergarten program and get every qualified high-school grad affordably enrolled in college, all by the end of this decade.
It's doing that by raising the cigarette tax $1 per pack, cutting state agency budgets, enlisting aid from homegrown philanthropists and generally redirecting the entire state enterprise toward human capital growth.
Let it be noted that Minnesota is no piker in either health-care or student-aid spending. (Let it be further noted that I didn't include early childhood education in that last sentence.) But Minnesota hasn't been mounting any surges in those directions.
That's because -- like a lot of states -- Minnesota spent the last four years trying to recover from the setbacks of 2002-03. Climbing out of a $4.5 billion hole in 2003 while under Pawlenty's strict "no new taxes" regime meant cutting eligibility for MinnesotaCare, the state's low-cost health insurance for the working poor, and allowing higher-ed tuition to rise at a double-digit pace for four straight years. Child care and early ed programs took nasty cuts.