Minnesota is a great place to live, work and play–right? Absolutely. But great places don’t just materialize, they are created. That creative force requires courage, innovation, hard work, talent, commitment and the investment of resources. The Minnesota we live in today was created by the foresight of Minnesotans a long time ago. The Minnesota we live in tomorrow and the one we leave for our children will be the one created by all of us.
What legacy do we want to leave? What would Minnesota need to do to achieve that legacy? These are the questions at the heart of the Citizen League’s Minnesota Anniversary Project, in honor of our state’s 150th birthday in 2008. The goal of the Anniversary Project, MAP 150, is to put forth an ambitious, farsighted policy agenda for Minnesota’s future, along with solutions to some of our state’s pressing problems.
As a way to kick start this discussion, the Citizens League convened a diverse group of 20 leaders from business, government, academia, nonprofit and faith-based institutions. We asked them to identify the top two or three challenges that Minnesota must address in order to stay a strong, healthy state. We heard some predictable things, but some intriguing and surprising things as well.
Flexibility and citizen engagement
Two very consistent themes emerged from our discussions. First, the leaders agreed that business as usual will not provide the solutions Minnesota needs. The world we know today will hardly be recognizable 25 years from now. Technology, unprecedented demographic shifts, and the looming prospect of major economic changes and corrections will alter our world in ways that are difficult to predict. The competitive society will be the one with smart, adaptable, proactive citizens and institutions. Fear of change, rigid rules and slow-moving bureaucracies must be left behind.
The second theme our leadership group stressed was the importance of citizen engagement. The challenges in front of us are serious and complicated, and require new ways of thinking and acting. Without citizens’ support, political leaders will not be willing to enact the major changes that are needed for Minnesota to stay competitive and prosperous.
Active citizen engagement supposes a number of things. It calls for leadership that encourages citizens to think big, to challenge old notions, and to believe in a better future. It builds on our deep well of pride about Minnesota, but forces us to face down our hubris about Minnesota’s superiority. Active citizenship might also involve re-imagining citizenship and how it is practiced, and a shift in attitudes so that government is no longer expected to “solve” all problems through bureaucratic programs. Instead, we might contemplate how we move toward systems that emphasize the role of all institutions (not just government), where these institutions can be more adaptable and self-correcting, and where citizens more skilled at working together and becoming more self-sufficient.
Most important, it supposes a civility that many of the leaders found lacking today. We have lost the ability to constructively hash out our most important concerns. We need to recreate the space to engage in thoughtful, respectful discussions. Sometimes these might be uncomfortable and certainly there will be many times when we disagree. But if we cannot learn to do this, divisive partisan politics will continue to rule.
The seeds of an agenda for Minnesota
Specifically, we asked the leadership group: What are the top two or three policy challenges that will make or break Minnesota over the next 15 years? Not surprisingly, education, workforce productivity, and health care came to the fore, perhaps though, in some new ways.
The challenge put forth for our educational system is to compete at and meet world class standards, not U.S. standards, especially in science and technology. A more seamless educational system is needed, from pre-kindergarten, through post-secondary college or vocational education. And we need to reconsider society’s responsibility: If in the late 1800’s, Minnesota decided that a high school education was of such paramount importance that it provided free public schooling, what is our public responsibility now in a world where post-secondary skills are just as critical?
Over the next 30 years, the growth in Minnesota’s work force will slow considerably, from about 1.5 percent annually in this decade to three-tenths of a percent in the 2020’s. The competitive economy will be the one with the most productive workers. Minnesota will need to assist workers in increasing their productivity and making the transition to new economic realities. Racial disparities must be overcome so that immigrants and people of color have a full range of opportunities to participate in the economic mainstream.
We may need to rethink retirement age given increasing life spans. If we do not redesign our health care system it will crowd out all other spending, making discussions about investments in education moot. What would a health care system based on wellness, not sickness, look like? How do we align consumers’ desire for health care with their responsibility for their own health, and their willingness to pay for marginal treatments? How can we move away from an employer-based health care system to improve health insurance portability for people and global competitiveness for businesses?
The leaders also suggested that we need to give new thought to “regional economics.” The locus of competition these days is the region, not the city nor the state. This is true in the metropolitan area and in outstate Minnesota. Investments made or foregone in one part of a region affect the competitiveness of the entire region. And we need to better understand that just because a cost is not born directly, it probably is being absorbed elsewhere (as pointed out, for example, in the Citizen League’s full cost of transportation study).
Some of the leaders called for changes in the electoral system to help our legislature look more like the people they represent–that is, a more culturally and racially diverse legislature. They wondered, “How do we reward elected officials who do the right thing?” Immigration was another common concern, with some pointing out that immigrants are attracted into lower-waged jobs which support important industries in Minnesota. The same immigrants are then vilified for the costs they impose on the state, with a poor understanding of the benefits they bring. Others cautioned that our state finance and revenue system may be structurally unbalanced, especially given the demographic changes ahead.
Questions, too
As if these policy challenges were not difficult enough, the discussions yielded some important questions that are relevant to almost any policy discussion.
- What myths or dearly held ideas must we shed in order to make the changes that are needed? For example, the myth that it’s someone else’s school that is failing our kids—but only 7 percent of our seventh grade students test at highly proficient levels in reading and 14 percent in math.
- What legacy will the baby boom generation leave its kids?
- In making change, how can we move from archaic models of government bureaucracy and programs to models which provide incentives to citizens and institutions to act in ways consistent with the common good?
- How should we rethink the social contract between government and citizens? For example, if the majority of the future workforce will be in lower-paid but important jobs, such as retail, health care, and day care (highest growth will be in retail) what responsibility do we hold to help families survive economically?
- What does an “elder-friendly” society look like?
- How would we modernize state finances, moving way from a Byzantine system that hides and defers real costs to a system tailored to today’s economic and demographic realities, one which provides incentives to make the changes we need (e.g., to live more healthily, to work productively, to get a post-secondary education) and fosters wise public investments?
- How do we encourage Minnesotans to see themselves as connected to and responsible for governing? How do we create more selfsufficient citizenry and institutions?
- How do we develop in our citizens the capacity to adapt to change and optimism about change that will provide political support to do the right thing for the future?
An invitation
In the next few months, MAP 150 will consider these and other issues to determine an agenda for Minnesota’s future. We’d love to hear from you. If you have comments or ideas on these issues or on others that have not been raised, please email us at info@citizensleague.net. Also let us know if you’d like to be involved with MAP 150. Over the next few years there will be a variety of opportunities to participate. With your help, we hope that MAP 150 will truly excite the imagination and civic commitment of citizens throughout the state.
Stacy Becker is a policy consultant and a member of the Citizens League Policy Advisory Committee. This article originally appeared in the January 2006 MN Journal.
Public Leadership Panel Participants
- John Adams, Humphrey Institute, University of Minnesota
- Peter Bell, Metropolitan Council
- Diane Benjamin, Minnesota KIDS COUNT, Children’s Defense Fund Minnesota
- Duane Benson, Tunheim Partners
- Carol Berde, McKnight Foundation
- Jan Berry, Metropolitan Alliance of Community Centers
- Bill Blazar, Minnesota Chamber of Commerce
- Katherine Fennelly, Humphrey Institute, University of Minnesota
- Maria Gomez, Former Commissioner of Minnesota Department of Human Services
- Justin Huenemann, American Indian Families Project, Hennepin County
- Larry Jacobs, Center for the Study of Politics and Governance, Humphrey Institute, University of Minnesota
- Ken Keller, Denny Center for Science, Technology and Public Policy, Humphrey Institute, University of Minnesota
- David Laird, Minnesota Private College Council
- Stacey Millett, Northwest Area Foundation
- Chuck Muscoplat, Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station
- Raymond Robertson, Department of Economics, Macalester College
- Steve Rothschild, Twin Cities Rise!
- Brian Rusche, Joint Religious Legislative, Coalition
- Tom Stinson, State Economist
- David Strom, Taxpayers League of Minnesota
- Carrie Thomas, Jobs Now Coalition
- Jack Uldrich, The NanoVeritas Group
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