State Aids: The Shrinking Slice of the City Revenue Pie

by | Oct 24, 2018

City property taxes have increased significantly in recent decades. Even after adjusting for inflation and population growth, the property taxes collected by Minnesota cities have increased by 48% from 1990 to 2018. However, real (i.e., inflation-adjusted) per capita...

Government Growth in Context

by | Oct 17, 2018

Shocking claims of growth in government abound. However, viewed in context of the economic, demographic, and societal changes that have occurred over the last fifty years, the growth in government is far less astounding than the sound-bite statistics indicate. For...

Minnesota’s Shared Health

by | Oct 3, 2018

Minnesotans value a high quality of life. It is part of the Minnesota story and one of our competitive advantages. This includes having healthy people in healthy communities. Historically, policy makers have recognized the importance of health care access by investing...

Misplaced Faith in Tax Cuts

by | Oct 1, 2018

Whatever the problem, a tax cut will fix it. And under no circumstances ever increase taxes. So goes the conventional conservative mantra. New research from two Oklahoma State University economists (Rickman and Wang, 2018) finds that reality is far more nuanced than...

More Than Getting By

by | Sep 26, 2018

As the latest American Community Survey data from the Census Bureau shows us, Minnesota continues to have a low poverty rate relative to other states. Why then are so many people in Minnesota struggling to get by? It is important for people thinking about the health...