American Experiment on Governance
Governance Reports
-
Closing Minnesota’s Budget Deficit
Key Findings: -Minnesota has the fifth-highest top rate of state personal income tax in the United States—9.85 percent on income over $164,400 a year. Only Oregon, New Jersey, Hawaii, and California...
Read full report -
How the Met Council Misplans the Twin Cities
How the Met Council Misplans the Twin Cities by Randal O’Toole. From the Spring 2017, Issue 7 of Thinking Minnesota....
Read full report -
The Twin Cities Met Council: A Comparative Assessment
The Twin Cities Met Council: A Comparative Assessment This report is designed to give lawmakers and citizens basic information about how the Met Council compares to other large, metro area bodies bot...
Read full report
Governance Articles
-
St. Paul should stop using ‘fees’ to fund street maintenance
Minnesota’s Constitution imposes some important limitations on a city’s tax power. For several years, the city of St. Paul has imposed a right-of-way assessment on all property owners to fund road...
Read full article -
Minnesota needs a Brexit from the Met Council and regionalism: Dakota County makes a move
Allow me to juxtapose two news stories. The first is a local story, a small rebellion so obscure you might not have noticed it, which signals an important shift in regional partnerships. The other is ...
Read full article -
The perfect defeats the good as Dayton vetoes pension bill
Gov. Mark Dayton did not just veto a tax bill last week that passed with an overwhelming legislative majority. He also vetoed the pension bill, which was crafted under the Pension Commission leadershi...
Read full article
Governance Posts
-
American Experiment Urges Gov. Walz to Immediately Drop Tax Increases in Light of Budget Surplus
(Golden Valley, MN) Center of the American Experiment today urged Gov. Tim Walz to immediately drop his proposals for tax increases totaling over $1.6 billion for the next biennium in response to a ne...
Read full post -
Effort Underway to End Party Balance for Election Judges
Election judges perform a vital, if often overlooked, oversight role in ensuring the integrity of elections. But the League of Minnesota Cities (LMC), a powerful, left-leaning lobbying group, wants la...
Read full post -
Rent control won’t solve affordable housing shortage in Minneapolis
Rent control disincentivizes investing in the maintenance of existing housing units. It also discourages investment in the production of new housing. Ultimately, this hurts low-income individuals the ...
Read full post -
Capitol Watch – Minneapolis bill died on the House floor – what happened?
Minneapolis funding bill stalls in House A bill failed on the floor of the House this week. This shouldn’t be newsworthy, except for the fact that once a bill makes it to the floor of the House or S...
Read full post -
Big State and Federal Taxpayer Bailouts on DECC in Duluth
The Duluth Entertainment Convention Center already stands to collect a probable $500,000 in federal pandemic aid, as well as an undetermined amount of additional federal financial help under a catch-a...
Read full post
Governance Media
Howard Root: Five Heart-Stopping Years as a CEO on the Fed’s Hit-List (5.12.17, 50 min.) (50 min.)
Howard Root: Five Heart-Stopping Years as a CEO on the Fed’s Hit-List (5.12.17, 50 min.)...
The Twin Cities Met Council: A Comparative Assessment (Narrated PowerPoint) (09:33)
This presentation is designed to give lawmakers and citizens basic information about how the Met Council compares to other large, metro area bodies both in terms of governance structure and scope of a...