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Graph of the Day: Where Does the Money Go in MN?
Last time, we looked at how the federal government's budget gets spent, and today we'll look at our own state government's budget.
(2012-13 Data from Minnesota Management and Budget [PDF])
Let's deal with the obvious part first: more than 70% of our state spending goes to K-12 education and programs with Health and Human Services. The rest gets split between property tax relief, higher education, public safety, the functioning of the state government, and everything else.
What does this mean for Minnesotans? It means that most state spending is either providing services that benefit all Minnesotan communities (the K-12 system, public safety, transportation) or stabilizing our society by supporting those we don't want to see sick or homeless. Our state's spending reflects a deep public investment in a healthy, productive society. (This may help explain why our state is one of the few net producers in the country.)
It is this commitment to a strong society that has helped build Minnesota into a fairly successful state. This commitment, however, is exactly what is under attack from modern conservative dogma. Our state functions well because it seeks to cultivate and develop strong communities.
Conservative policies, however, have caused us to cut back on this cultivation and development. Nearly every state budget battle in the last decade settled in favor of conservative shrinkage. As a result, per capita, inflation-adjusted state spending has declined by ten percent, shrinking that pie above. When it comes to education's slice, real, per-pupil state education spending is down nearly 13 percent since 2003.
Conservatives seem fine watching state support for education dwindle, and with massive human services cuts, they seem fine restricting care for the poor or the sick. Neither of these strike me as particularly moral stands, nor are they right for our state's well-being.
Minnesota's past success did not occur despite our tax policy. Minnesota's past success occurred because of our smart investments. This requires a fair tax system that takes in adequate revenue, and it pays off for everyone. Conservatives who think otherwise should take a look at low tax/low service states, the majority of which aren't nearly as productive or healthy as Minnesota.
Posted in Fiscal Policy | Related Topics: State Budget Income Tax Graphs
4 Comments
December 15, 2011 at 12:47 pm
Bill, There you go again! do you see a socialist under every rock and behind every tree? Get serious, if you really are that concerned about “socialism” and communisim I suggest you stop shopping at Target, Wall-Mart or BBuy for that matter. You can’t find more than 10-15% of American made products in any store. I really love the GOP and their anti-commie retoric, they are anti-commie until it concerns profits,then its Katy bar the door! Commie China, the capitalist’s favorite work place = cheep labor.
December 15, 2011 at 10:43 am
Michael, you really do need to spend some time with our State Demographer, Tom Gilaspy. He will gladly describe the “New Normal” that we are living in today and that it is simply due to demographics.
He will tell you that you are grieving for the past and that you are still in the first stage of grief, i.e. denial. You will enjoy talking with Tom Gilaspy since he too is a liberal Democrat that votes like you do. The difference between the two of you is that Tom Gilaspy is firmly in synch with the facts of today & the future.
December 15, 2011 at 10:11 am
You know Michael these figures would have some real meaning if you could put them in historical perspective. Perhaps giving us this same pie chart every 10 years from 1961 so we can see what changes really have occured during that time frame. This chart standing alone does nothing to help see how or why we are in this mess. It would be nice to see what we were doing before the socialist takeover of education undermined our once great high quality education system. I suspect you don’t want us to see that comparison though.
Dan Conner says:
January 5, 2012 at 11:07 am
I agree with the writer here. The conservative myopic view is based on the selfish self-serving premise that taxes need to be reduced, even though current-day tax burdens are the lowest they have been in over 50 years. They have all partaken at the public feeding trough getting their educations, and infrastructure, but they see no need to continue with taxes since they have no need for education any longer. They aren’t thiking of the future, they are only thinking selfishly about themselves. They would rather remain a big cog in a little gear than a little cog in a big gear.
I remember when our country launched a moon program, the interstate highway system, won WWII while fighting on two fronts, increased people with college degrees from 4% to 20% because of the GI bill, and on and on.
Conservatives live in only one dimension…cutting governemtn expenses. Yet is is only governmetn that gives us all our infrastructure improvements. Of course, I have to throw in the other conservative requirement…that deficits be eliminated only through spending cuts, when tax inceases are needed and appropriate considering the tax burden.
Also, the corporate tax burden on the US has steadily declined over the last 40-50 years. While corporations used to pay about 1/3rd of tax revenues, they now pay about 1/5th of what they used to pay. Since the corporate tax burden has been greatly reduced over the last decades taxes had to be increased on others to make up the difference.
I think it is time to raise corporate taxes. Then, if corporations threaten to move overseas, that’s fine, but they will then need to pay a tariff on the products they wish to import to the US. There has to be a consequence to their lack of patriotism.
There is no way the US should contract with overseas companies in vital nation defense areas, like what Halliburton and Xe have done. If they want US business, they need to relocate to the US and pay their fair share of taxes.