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A taxing debate at the Capitol

Minnesotans should speak up as lawmakers consider $2 billion in tax, fee hikes. The Minnesota Legislature is closing in on a tax package that could combine roughly $3 billion in tax cuts with $2 billion in tax increases. If those numbers remain unchanged, they would make for a net cut of $1 billion. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. The ultimate mix could greatly shift who pays more and who benefits from targeted tax cuts and increases. So why pass any increases in light of a nearly $18 billion budget surplus? For starters, about two thirds of the surplus is one-time money. The ...

Biden’s plan for spyware

Last week, the White House issued an executive order prohibiting federal agencies from using hacking tools that could be harnessed by foreign governments to abuse human rights — forcing firms to stop selling to bad actors or risk losing this country’s valuable business. The rules also block vendors whose products pose national security or counterintelligence risks — as well as whose services have already been leveraged against the U.S. government. This scenario is far from hypothetical: The administration has said that an astounding 50 personnel in at least 10 countries have been ...

Thumbs Up/Down

Knowledge Bowlers THUMBS UP: Here’s to the Knowledge Bowl teams from Minnesota Valley Lutheran and New Ulm High School who participated in and finished very well in the MInnesota State Knowledge Bowl on Thursday and Friday. MVL Black finished 2nd in the State Class AA finals, while New Ulm Purple finished 3rd. Congratulations to all the Knowledge Bowl competitors who have been pitting their brains against each other all season, and to the advisors and coaches who lead them through to victory. ISD 88 Hall of Fame THUMBS UP: The ISD 88 Foundation has been working diligently for ...

Biden’s bad judgment in withdrawal from Afghanistan

The Biden Administration released its review of the2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Americans are unlikely to fall for 12 pages of narrative gaslighting, and the buck for that dark episode stops with President Biden. The White House document “outlines the key decisions and challenges” associated with the departure of U.S. troops in August in 2021. Mr. Biden “believed the right thing for the country” was withdrawing all U.S. forces, the White House says, even as it blames the debacle on—wait for it—Donald Trump. Mr. Biden’s “choices for how to execute a ...

Long-term care needs critical investment

Economic pressures and demographic changes have put the state’s nursing homes and other long-term care providers in a perilous situation. Families face the most dire situation in years for taking care of their loved ones. There’s a shortage of 20,000 long-term care workers, about 20% of the total needed. Inflation, including the need for higher wages, has led providers to turn away some 11,000 families in just one month because state and federal reimbursement rates are woefully inadequate to cover costs. The result is that patients end up waiting for days in the emergency room or ...

Our kids need help

Responding to clamoring from parents, and dreadful stories of youth suicide and hospitalizations, leaders in both parties convey an increasing sense of urgency to address epidemic levels of teenage anxiety, depression, loneliness and lashing out. About two dozen governors described teenage mental health as a crisis during their state of the state addresses this year and proposed budgets that would expand treatment options. The need is glaring; the pandemic supercharged trend lines that have grown worse as America’s social fabric has been pulled at the seams and social media has grown ...