American Experiment’s newest staff member, energy and environment expert Isaac Orr, has hit the ground running. In a column in the Duluth News Tribune, Orr refutes irresponsibly misleading and dated…
This is what happens when elected officials get into the business of micromanaging how companies compensate their employees through mandated paid leave time. The Duluth City Council’s amateurish attempt to…
A round-up of the last week’s economic news stories in Minnesota.
I would like to take a "minuet" to briefly highlight what "noteworthy" music education programs the Minnesota Youth Symphonies (MYS) offers. For 45 years, MYS has given K-12 musicians premier…
You may have heard that hydraulic fracturing, also known as "fracking," has made the United States the largest producer of oil and natural as in the world, but you may…
When students take out, say, $30,000 in loans, do they think that’s all they’re obliged to pay back? Or do they properly factor in interest and realize they will wind…
Recognizing that they likely cost tax revenue, states have been reducing or eliminating their estate taxes in recent years. The increase in the federal exemption in the Tax Cuts and…
The dysfunctionality of Minnesota’s $93 million vehicle licensing system has been pegged as no accident. According to an outside investigator hired by the state’s information technology department, Paul Meekin—the chief…
It’s already tough enough going for drivers attempting to navigate city streets in Minneapolis. But it’s only going to get bumpier, according to a resident who vented in the Star…
New data shows that, on jobs, Minnesota's metropolitan areas are losing ground relative to their neighbors.
Teachers’ unions are one of the largest political campaign spenders in the country. But the members these unions represent do not get to choose who or what their hard-earned money…
Remember when the United States was seemingly about to run out of oil? In 2006, then-President George W. Bush declared the United States was "addicted to oil," and the impending…
With revenue base broadening on the way thanks to the federal tax bill, Minnesota's tax rates will have to come down if our state's residents are not to be hit…
I would also like those at the Met Council involved with committing taxpayers to spend $2 billion on SWLRT, plus millions more annually for operations and maintenance, to read my…
School districts, under pressure from the Obama administration, adopted new student discipline policies referred to often as “restorative justice.” One of the goals was to reduce the number of minority…
The show will go on at Pine Island High School in Pine Island, Minnesota. The home of the Panthers was one of fifty high schools—and the only one in Minnesota—to…
How is watching basketball on television like listening to a string quartet in rehearsal? In each instance, presuming you’re not a high-order expert in either basketball or string quartets, you…
New data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that from February 2017 to February 2018 Minnesota's rate of wage growth ranked 45th in the United States. Given our below…
Electricity sales in 2017 were essentially the same as in 2006, despite the fact that the U.S. population has grown by about 9 percent since then, growing from 298.5 million…
There was a time when people in certain occupations were assumed to be educated, and educated people could be presumed to know certain things. There was, in other words, a…
Lawmakers are frustrated. They cannot get enough funding for roads. Why? MnDOT has been captured by the “multi-model” approach to mobility championed by the Metropolitan Council, our mega regional planning…
"Incentives do make a difference". So said Governor Mark Dayton recently, discussing what state governments can do to attract investment. And that is particularly the case in the United States,…
Minnesota is the 8th-largest sand producing state in the country, find out why it isn't higher on the list.
In case you haven’t heard, there are a couple big games on TV tonight. The semi-finals of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament are taking place in San Antonio beginning at…