Category Archives: Uncategorized

Once upon a time, we were admonished not to talk about politics or religion at social gatherings, because these were controversial topics. Later, these became the most interesting topics, but sex was considered off-limits. Today, sex is on the table (or under the table or anywhere else), but money is still a taboo topic. Just imagine asking your girlfriend’s mother what she earns, or asking your own parents how much they have in the bank. Continue reading →

Doing business along the trenches and behind the fences of Central Corridor construction on University Avenue is tough enough. Dana Rose from Sharrett’s Liquors is one of the business owners who doesn’t think that getting the promised help for businesses should require a “13 page monstrosity” of an application, including personal financial data for the business owner (income, property owned, bank accounts, etc.) and authorization for a personal credit check. Continue reading →

In the first week of August, the U.S. raised the debt ceiling, cut trillions from the budget, and saw its/our credit rating downgraded from AAA to AA — sort of. “Sort of” is the operative characterization for all of these events, despite their high-profile news treatment during the dog days of summer. (August’s more traditional dog-days stories include a polar bear attack that killed one camper and injured others in Norway, a St. Paul man, who didn’t have time to use his bear spray before grizzly bear attack in Glacier National Park, and an end to a ban on dogs in Jiangmen, China.) Continue reading →

St. Paul is pretty much a one-party town, and if you have to ask which party, you must be from somewhere else. One (anonymous) political activist told me the decisions that matter were made back in January or, at the latest, in June at the ward conventions. But hope springs eternal, and so do candidates. Continue reading →

Feeding the hungry was the aim of House of Hope Presbyterian Church, with a garden planted in front of the church and produce pledged to the Neighborhood House food shelf. Then some of the neighbors complained, with a petition to the St. Paul City Council to get rid of the fence that protects the garden from marauding rabbits. A post on E-Democracy described the situation: Continue reading →

Among the winners in the finally-concluded Minnesota budget debacle were the richest Minnesotans – the top two percent or one percent or half of one percent, depending on which version of the totally-rejected tax hike you are talking about. The losers include people who need or use government services, from medical assistance to public universities. Just a couple of examples: Continue reading →

I enter the back door of the Wells Fargo branch. In the middle of Minneapolis, every visible worker in this bank is East African, most women wearing brightly colored dresses, their heads covered.

A smiling woman greets me and tells me that Baader will help me right away, at the window over there. The sign on the window says something about business accounts, but no matter. Baader (he has only one name) asks how he can help me today. Continue reading →

By just saying no, over and over again, the Republicans got another Pawlenty-style, one-time fix that shifts the state’s budget problem two years into the future. The budget deal, with details still to be ironed out, will definitely balance the budget on the backs of schools via the “shift” of education funding into the future, which means schools will have to borrow money and pay interest, enriching lenders at the expense of schoolchildren and government. Budget cuts will also get written into the deal, though precisely what those cuts will be is not yet clear. Continue reading →

Minnesota’s economy is healthier than those of many other states, but maybe not for much longer. Both the impending shutdown and the GOP-proposed budget cuts are bad medicine, prescriptions for pain rather than for health. The breadth of pain that will be caused by the shutdown is mind-boggling, from poor people receiving medical or food or other assistance to state workers who will join the ranks of the unemployed to highway construction workers, whose projects will be shut down. The impact of a shutdown, in fact, would hit hardest many of the same people who would be hurt by the GOP’s cuts-only budget. Continue reading →

On June 20, Republicans filed a suit in the Minnesota Supreme Court, asking the state’s highest court to order a complete halt to state spending if no budget deal is reached by June 30. The governor and the attorney general and the judiciary branch had previously filed various petitions in Ramsey County District Court, asking Judge Kathleen Gearin to declare certain services as essential, and to order that the state continue these services.

What will happen on July 1? No one knows for sure. The lack of a budget affects state functions from public health to highways, from contracts to criminal prosecutions. Today I spent some time trying to track the impact of a shutdown on the court system. Here’s what I found: Continue reading →