A St. Paul foundry fought the environmental bureaucracy — and won. For more than a century, Northern Iron & Machine foundry has been a fixture in St. Paul’s traditionally blue-collar…
We’ve got mail! Lowertown’s descent Sadly, I echo John Phelan’s sentiments on the demise of St. Paul’s Lowertown district (“Gone But Not Forgotten”). I lived in Lowertown, both times after…
This month’s dramatic court verdicts in the Feeding Our Future {FOF} case (“guilty on all counts”) don’t mark the end of the saga. In Churchillian terms, it’s more like “the…
State and local taxes and spending Star Tribune: Gov. Tim Walz proposes additional spending cuts in revised budget plan KAAL TV: Governor Walz releases revised Minnesota budget Grand Rapids Herald…
On Tuesday, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leopold addressed the Senate Capital Investment Committee, seeking state funding for renovations to the Xcel Energy Center. The project…
We at Center of the American Experiment have long warned of looming budget squeezes in Minneapolis and St. Paul as a result of collapsing commercial property values. Simply put, declining values means declining property tax valuations, which means declining…
Starting April 1, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (MPUC) will hold a three-day series of hearings in St. Paul on the proposed acquisition of the electric utility Minnesota Power (MP).…
There are lots of proposals swirling around the state capitol aimed at stopping the fraud rampant throughout state government. Will any of them work? Will any of them gain enough…
The Minnesota Legislature is currently considering H.F. 29, a bill that does two important things: Here’s how American Experiment Senior Policy Fellow Katherine Kersten explained why we need H.F. 29…
Abdihakim Ahmed entered the 38th guilty plea, overall, in the Feeding Our Future case this morning. In a 35-minute hearing before Judge Nancy Brasel at the federal courthouse in downtown…
A consensus is developing in St. Paul that rent control has been disastrous for housing construction. Unfortunately, no one wants to repeal the policy. Instead, City Council members are suggesting…
Truer words were never spoken. The six-week-long second trial of Feeding Our Future defendants wrapped up late this afternoon. Now the matter is in the hands of the jury to…
In the latest episode of the American Experiment Podcast, we break down some of the highlights from Governor Walz’s first stop along his midwest ‘red states’ tour. While Minnesota faces…
The second Feeding Our Future trial resumed this morning at the federal courthouse in downtown Minneapolis. Your correspondent was there. Salim Said, co-owner of the Safari Restaurant of south Minneapolis,…
Your correspondent was there for Day 4 of the trial testimony of Aimee Bock, the founder and CEO of the free-food nonprofit Feeding Our Future. Bock is on trial in…
For more than a decade, members of Congress were banned from slipping spending requests for pet projects in their districts, known as earmarks, into spending bills. But as MinnPost points…
Your correspondent was there for Day 3 of Aimee Bock’s testimony at the blockbuster Feeding Our Future trial going on at the federal courthouse in downtown Minneapolis. The founder and…
Last week, we learned that Minnesota’s state government budget surplus for the 2026-2027 biennium had fallen from the $616 million forecast in November to $456 million and that the deficit…
Your correspondent was at the state capitol this morning, testifying in front of the House’s Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight committee on the topic of fraud in state benefit…
In the current edition of our magazine, Thinking Minnesota, I wrote about the sad decline of the Lowertown area of St. Paul. That decline continues with news of the closure…
In February 2023, Minnesota Management & Budget (MMB) forecast a state government budget surplus of $17 billion for the 2024-2025 biennium. In that “historic” session, the DFL trifecta spent every penny of…
The snowstorm appears to have wiped out today’s sitting of the Feeding Our Future trial against Aimee Bock and Salim Said, Defendant Nos. 1 and 3, respectively. To make up…
That seems to be the implication of reporting by the Minnesota Star Tribune from inside the Federal courtroom during the current free-food fraud trial. The Star Tribune‘s Jeffrey Meitrodt reports:…
Today I testified in the House Transportation Finance and Policy committee in support of HF 494, which: …prohibits the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) and the MetropolitanCouncil from expending funds…