{"id":220,"date":"2006-12-19T06:09:25","date_gmt":"2006-12-19T12:09:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php\/2006\/12\/19\/sturdevant-22green\/"},"modified":"2006-12-17T23:00:37","modified_gmt":"2006-12-18T05:00:37","slug":"sturdevant-22green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=220","title":{"rendered":"Sturdevant: “2+2=Green”"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s a good thing Lori Sturdevant is a columnist, and doesn’t work in a field where she needs to be insightful or accurate.<\/p>\n

Sturdevant – the most reliable operator in a regional media that serves as the DFL’s PR agency – finds this blazing insight while writing about the economy<\/a>:<\/p>\n

All it took for the “too-few-workers” lament to return were a solid recovery from recession,<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s right; Lori Sturdevant has realized that when companies aren’t laying off workers, they need workers.<\/p>\n

She gets paid for this.<\/p>\n

Sure enough, “workforce” is back on top as the No. 1 “drag on economic growth” in Minnesota. That’s according to the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce’s latest findings from a year of interviewing 797 business owners around the state. Worker issues beat out lousy transportation and — amazingly — high taxes, which have fallen to Gripe No. 3…Availability and quality of trained workers are “the No. 1 issue for our members. How do we ensure that we’ll have a workforce that can do the job?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Welcome back to the right question, bizfolk. Hope you stay with it this time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lori.\u00a0 Bubbie.\u00a0 Why do you suppose taxes have fallen to number three?<\/p>\n

Because we’ve had four years of holding the line on taxes.<\/em>\u00a0 Which played a disproportionate role in solving the recession.\u00a0 Which has led to skilled workers (unaccountably including myself) being in demand again.<\/p>\n

Did I mention Lori Sturdevant gets paid for this?<\/p>\n

Educators, economists and crystal-ball gazers long have been saying that the most serious long-term threat to this state’s prosperity isn’t uncompetitively high taxes. Minnesota has had a higher-than-average tax burden for decades, and thrived with it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No, Lori.\u00a0 History is replete with examples of cities, states and nations that were sunk by high taxes.\u00a0 Minnesota has thrived in spite <\/em>of high taxes, as we’ve noted<\/a> in the past<\/a>; we’ve had certain advantages that have helped us survive the profligacy of a couple of generations’ worth of tax and spend DFL governments.<\/p>\n

The greater competitive risk is that this still-small, climatologically challenged state won’t be able to raise, attract and educate enough of the brainpower workers that 21st-century businesses need.<\/p>\n

Minnesota’s Private College Research Foundation has been clanging that alarm for years. It predicted in 2004 that by 2010, Minnesota won’t produce enough college grads to replace retirees and meet employers’ expansion needs. By 2017, new college grads won’t be numerous enough to replace the retirees, let alone keep up with business growth.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That forecast appears to be on target. Already last year, the state Chamber of Commerce said, nearly two out of five outstate employers and a fourth of metro ones had trouble finding specialty skilled workers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So what would be the sensible course to take?\u00a0 Would it be…:<\/p>\n