Editorial: Will Minnesota continue to invest?

08/17/2005

Star Tribune
August 17, 2005

“Minnesota is very well positioned to compete in a world economic race. But we can’t do it resting on our laurels.”—State demographer Tom Gillaspy, Aug. 3.

“Minnesota will have the money to do whatever we choose. We’ll still have to make choices, but we won’t have to give up some things to afford others. This is the real story: What will we choose?”—State economist Tom Stinson, Aug. 3.

Among the best gazers into Minnesota’s crystal ball are two fellows with the same first name. State economist Tom Stinson and state demographer Tom Gillaspy have had a hit in wonkish circles for some time now with their Power Point-assisted glimpse of things to come in the Gopher State.

We caught their newly revised routine earlier this month at a Citizens League breakfast and a subsequent Minnesota Public Radio broadcast.

Fans of the Two Toms Show will recognize much of their material: Minnesota has enjoyed region-leading economic success. That’s largely because this state made region-leading investments in education, beginning more than 50 years ago. It’s also because women entered the state’s workforce in region-leading proportions, beginning 30 years ago. “This is a state of workaholics,”
Gillaspy notes.

Even more than the rest of the nation, Minnesota is aging fast, and its labor force is shrinking. Migrants from other states and countries, not Minnesota-born young people, are about to become the largest source of new workers. Staying economically successful will depend on increasing the productivity of those workers—and that means seeing to it that they are well educated.

Here’s the segment that makes the revised show better than ever: Stinson and Gillaspy point out that people expecting to retire soon and those newly retired aren’t naturally interested in spending more money on education. Their interests run toward maximizing their savings. That way, they can maximize their consumption in their nonworking years, when they become what Stinson calls “dissavers.”

With Minnesota awash in 50-something baby boomers, “the pressure for tax relief will only increase over the next decade, as baby boomers seek to maximize their personal savings,” Stinson predicted.

So should Minnesota yield to pressure to enlarge the assets of one generation, or should it invest in education (and, we’d add, transportation, health care, environmental protection and amenities) to keep this state economically strong for all its people, for years to come? There’s the crux of the debate over Minnesota’s direction that ought to be at the heart of next year’s state election campaign.

Stinson and Gillaspy don’t quite tip their hands with their answer. But they ask a question that ought to prick the consciences of those who would now choose private gain over public investment: “How will Minnesotans 50 years from now view our generation’s stewardship?”