What path to growth will Minnesota choose?

In his article, Why Growth is Good, Robert Reich explains

"Growth is different from consumerism. Growth is really about the capacity of a nation to produce everything that's wanted and needed by its inhabitants. That includes better stewardship of the environment as well as improved public health and better schools."

While the candidates for governor of Minnesota all agree that the first objective for Minnesota is to increase economic growth, they differ in how they define growth and how they would achieve it.

Mark Dayton calls for government to play a vital role in economic growth by "making the rich to pay their fair share of taxes" and cracking down on tax evader, by government actively supporting job creation, and by stronger regulation of the private sector.

Tom Emmer believes the road to prosperity lies in doing whatever it takes to free up the private sector and its wealthy overlords from the abuses of government spending, taxation, regulation, and the mere existence of government itself.

In another incisive article, The Enthusiasm Gap and You,  Reich outlines the difference between the conservative and progressive movements.  The conservative movement focuses on big government as the source of our woes while progressives seek to protect the average American from "big business and Wall Street running amok."   Reich goes on to state that government is not the source of America's troubles.  Big corporations are doing very well as the expense of the average citizen. Taxes for corporations and the wealthy are at an all-time low under the Bush tax cuts. This favorable tax climate for business has not resulted in job creation or trickle-down prosperity for the rest of us.

The stakes are high in the Minnesota governor's race.  Will Minnesota opt for at least four more years of the kind of economic imbalance and social deterioration that Arrianna Huffington unblinkingly describes in her new book, Third World America? Do these things sound familiar?  An endangered middle-class with income inequality between the wealthy and the rest of us at an all-time high.  Cash-strapped states cutting crucial services such as public health programs, aid to the elderly and disabled, and education.  Corporations skipping out on taxes.  Crumbling roads.  An educational system in crisis.  Foreclosures.  The financial services sector is dominating our economy.  Healthcare costs are sending Americans to the poorhouse. 

What will it take to counter this slide toward third world corporatocracy in America?  Time and again Republicans have shown that they speak and act in unison in promoting their agenda of eliminating big government.  These people are playing for keeps.  Democrats on the other hand have proven themselves incapable of defining much less supporting a unifying progressive agenda.  Perhaps the U.S. has already slid too far into corporatocracy and the Republican Party and politicians like Tom Emmer are merely solidifying the new world order.  If so, the time for a unifying progressive agenda is now.  That means an citizenry engaged in participative government acting to promote the common good not the corporate good.        

 In his strongly worded Weekly Address: No Corporate Takeover of Our Democracy!, on Saturday, August 21, President Obama called for transparency in corporate funding of political ads.  One has to wonder why the Republicans did everything in their power to shot that one down.   

Mark Dayton offers the only realistic option to the eliminate-government shenanigans that Minnesota has endured for eight years.  Several upcoming articles between now and the election will examine how Dayton and Emmer differ on key issues regarding the kind of growth is best for Minnesota.