Media Panel Week 1 - David Brauer

(Coordinator’s Note: David Brauer, who wrote the following media-panel critique of this week’s gubernatorial debate, is a Twin Cities-based writer and commentator, and the former morning talk host at KSTP-AM.)

OK, e-debate voters! If you have made it this far, you have slogged through more boilerplate than passengers escaping of the Titanic! Let’s hope whichever candidate you choose fares better..

EDUCATION

Add "charter schools" to baseball, motherhood, and apple pie. Only Mike Freeman fails to explicit applaud them, although Skip Humphrey gets bonus points for noting they are not accountable to local school boards. (Aside: has anyone done a survey to find out if most voters even know what a charter school is?)

On the flip side, no one championed vouchers (note: Norm Coleman is not currently playing in our e-sandbox). Joanne Benson, perhaps wiser after the Carlson administration failed to get vouchers last year, now tepidly endorses "tax deductions and credits.as additions to public education that give parents the ability to be more involved and customize educational experiences." Does she count tax deductions spent at private schools as additions to public education? Ted Mondale argues that vouchers are no big deal anyway, since the current private-school capacity is just 10,000 students in a 900,000-kid system. But you know what happens you subsidize something, Senator..

There’s a food fight heating up among the GOP’s rear-runners, as Allen Quist bashes the state’s sprawling and specific Profiles of Learning (to learn more, go to http://www.startribune.com and use the search term "Profiles of Learning"), while Senator Roy Terwilliger takes issue with "knee-jerk opposition to graduation standards." However, Terwilliger concedes that the current standards are "not the best we can do." DFLers fail to mention PoL at all.

New parents like myself will no doubt be tempted by Mike Freeman, who promises all-day kindergarten statewide, plus class size reductions to 20 or fewer, plus a free year of college. He pegs the cost at $200 million—more of a price tag than anyone else puts on their proposals. He would also shift $250 million off local property taxes for education (while failing to note that this would be a $250 million increase onto your state taxes). Ted Mondale is more restrained, pumping more into sliding-fee child care and limiting college scholarships to those with a B average. Cost? Wait for his budget manana. Skip Humphrey restricts his spending to lower class sizes. Mark Dayton would simply pump more money into all parts of the current system. John Marty would give more authority back to local school boards at the same time the state pays a greater share of educational costs - an arrangement some say destroys fiscal accountability, but Marty argue would avoid penalizing students from poorer districts.

Dick Borrell would let teachers only teach who they want (ignoring what to do with those whom no one wants to teach). Jesse Ventura, in lieu of tax hikes, would personally smack up-side the head every parent who doesn’t intervene early when their child falls behind.

JOBS

The simplest way to tell the Republicans from the Democrats is that the former all call for tax cuts, the latter for the "living wage." But what exactly is that wage? Only Dayton defines it as enabling one wage earner, working a 40 hour week, to support a family of four above the poverty level. And who would it apply to? Humphrey, Freeman, and Dayton all limit the proposal to employers doing business with the state; Marty would extend it to all employers, assuring himself an interesting tenure if elected. Considering that the most recent Living Wage proposal crashed and burned in overwhelmingly DFL St. Paul, this is an interesting organizational principle for Democratic candidates. Can you say activist-driven?

Hemmed in by their fiscal conservatism, the Republicans offer few compelling proposals. Benson would connect the unemployed to work "through the K-12 and higher education systems." (Is that another state educational mandate?) Terwilliger talks generally about eliminating government programs that don’t work and making difficult choices—but doesn’t specify any. Quist harkens back to Profiles of Learning, blowing it up to save future workers, but offers nothing other than tax cuts for today’s.

John Marty calls for restricting tax-increment financing, a program originally designated for blighted areas which cities now abuse to lure businesses away from each other. Skip Humphrey calls for ending "disruptive competition" between cities – a shot at his former employee Norm Coleman and the Lawson deal?

Radical proposals: Mike Freeman, the most explicitly pro-union, would "aggressively defend" family farms (with what, the National Guard?) while Mark Dayton would require all employers to offer health insurance (including to part-timers on a pro-rated basis). Dick Borrell, who interestingly notes that the cost of state government is 18% of all personal income in Minnesota, would cut real spending across the board by 10 percent during his governorship. A colleague of mine notes that 8%, not 18%, is actually paid by we citizens in state taxes.

TRANSIT

Add "LRT" to baseball, motherhood, apple pie, and charter schools. Even tax-cutter Quist supports it, noting that "one of the most obvious shortcomings of the leadership of Minnesota state government, in the face of budget surpluses that now exceed $3 billion, is its inability to provide adequate funding for transportation needs." Government-limiters Borrell and Ventura would at least study it. Do you get the sense that road rage is a big issue with the middle-class voter? Interestingly, only DFLers Humphrey, Freeman, and Marty do not tout light-rail specifically. John Marty, in fact, makes a case close to this writer’s heart: if the legislature appropriates spending $100 million to nab $300 million in federal mass transit money, why spend it on trains? Why not cheaper dedicated busways? Bus critics usually level two criticisms. First—people don’t like buses (but would they warm up with faster times, 25 cent fares and a few dollars spend on nicer interiors, still a big cost savings over LRT?). Second, buses don’t travel well through bad weather. Forgive me, but I offer the Brauer Amendment to any bus-supporting candidate: along with dedicated busways—dedicated snowplows. Still cheaper than trains.

Another big issue among the candidates is using all Minnesota Motor Vehicle Tax money for transit uses, instead of diverting some to the general fund. Mondale and Ventura support this, without saying how lost money to the general fund would be replaced. Mondale would also index the state’s gas tax; Dayton – noting a 20 percent real cut in highway construction since ‘88 -- argues that even that move will still not meet the state’s long-neglected transportation needs. He would borrow money for an aggressive plan to triple highway construction. For highways already built, Borrell would open express lanes to all, making them, well, lanes. Dayton is curiously silent on a similar proposal he made earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Quist, Benson, and others note that the state’s bridges are falling down. Makes you wonder how their party can even consider a tax roll-back. Mondale would cancel one bridge that’s being proposed – a new Stillwater bridge, which he says would only help develop Western Wisconsin.

Mike Freeman would eliminate the suburban opt-out from regional transit, potentially angering swing-vote suburban taxpayers. Skip Humphrey calls for encouraging compact, transit-oriented development, -- but also wants to "embrace" a high-use corridor from St. Cloud to Rochester that would seem to encourage sprawl.

Finally, Jesse Ventura also advocates making downtown parking more difficult. Hey Jess—worked in downtown lately?

See you next week.