Brainpower State and Nation….or Just Braindead Politics?

Politicians are looking backwards instead of investing in the future

Gov. Rudy Perpich once greeted people entering Minnesota with a billboard, “Welcome to the Brainpower State.”

Not everyone approved. Roger Moe, a fellow Democrat and then the Senate majority leader, thought the sign would insult tourists. “It’s as if we said to them, ‘Too bad you’re not smart enough to live here,’” Moe wrote to Perpich.

Today, the billboard might not be a declaration but a question that some politicians might find more insulting: “Can Brainpower Thrive in an Era of Braindead Policy and Politics?”

In Washington and Minnesota, politicians are investing political capital and energy in policies that seek to recreate a past that is gone forever. They do so at the expense of creating opportunities for tomorrow.

Start with Washington. President Trump proposes tariffs to create new manufacturing jobs in an American sector already the second largest in the world. But even as the value of U.S. manufactured goods has soared, the number of American manufacturing jobs has cratered, from about 19.6 million in the 1970s to 12.7 million today and for the last several years (including the first Trump Administration). Most of America’s manufacturing jobs have been lost to automation and efficiency, not foreign competition. Well-paying jobs in manufacturing will not come by producing more low-value widgets which seems to be Trump’s vision.

America’s future is in creating the products in technology, health, energy and other areas that lead the world into the future. The best-paying manufacturing jobs depend less on protectionism and more on investments in research and human capital. Yet, President Trump’s newly-released federal budget seeks $163 billion in cuts to key federal education, health, housing and labor programs. These spending reductions aren’t designed to make America stronger or more prosperous. They are not designed to reduce a federal deficit that is projected to increase at record rates in the next decade. They are intended to carve out space for more unproductive and unnecessary tax cuts.

At the same time, harsh and politically-driven immigration policies certainly will dissuade the brightest students from around the world from attending an American university or college. Secure national borders and assurances that those who enter the country are here for all the right reasons absolutely are priorities, but that shouldn’t conflict with attracting the most talented foreign students to attend U.S. institutions of higher learning and encouraging them to stay. Forty-five percent of Fortune 500 companies were created by first generation immigrants or their children.

The Trump Administration also is rejecting the future by eliminating funding for basic research, the kind of research that mainly is done by academic institutions and funded by the government. The University of Minnesota is typical of what is gained and, potentially, what is lost when research funding is given short shrift. According to a 2024 report to the school’s board of regents, the University is the largest single source of startups in Minnesota, with 73% of the new companies locating in Minnesota and a 10-year survival rate of 70%.

It's not just academia. Trump is seeking to slash research funds for government agencies, including the Veterans Administration. Not only is research at the VA responsible for such advances as pacemakers, liver transplants and new and less invasive treatments for prostate cancer, but it is a leader in testing the efficacy of new drugs to determine if they actually are an improvement on existing pharmaceuticals or just a more expensive version.

The same back-to-the-past philosophy – not quite as dramatic and not quite as draconian, but nonetheless disastrous – is driving much of Minnesota’s public policy. That stands in stark contrast to the state’s rich history of policy innovation.

The Minnesota Miracle in the 1970s wasn’t a Tea Party anti-government revolt or a call to “tax the rich.” It was policy based on the premise that every person in every community has the right to excellence in core services and that every child in every school deserves a world-class education.

The same philosophy prevailed in health care. Minnesota leaders created a health marketplace that in the 1970s - three decades before Obamacare - made sure that those with pre-existing health conditions could buy insurance. In the 1990s, when insurance premiums often denied coverage to small businesses and their workers, leaving many Minnesota’s low-income without health coverage, the state responded with MinnesotaCare.

Those health insurance programs worked because they met the needs of specific populations, they were designed on the principles of individual responsibility (participants paid premiums based on income) and were supported by thoughtful public policy, including investments in public health and prevention.

Today, Republicans are willing to turn their backs on the evidence-based value of community health programs while Democrats ignore that the biggest threat to health care quality and access is the out-of-control cost of care.

Gov. Perpich may have insulted tourists, but he staked a legitimate claim to Minnesota’s status as a brainpower state. He promoted education, worked closely with business leaders to promote trade and attract new businesses and understood that brainpower went hand-in-hand with a healthy population.

Minnesota continues to be a state that attracts great leaders to government, to business and to non-profits. But increasingly, those who have the loudest voices are those who seek to gain influence by dividing us. They offer small ideas, build constituencies of narrow interests and argue only over whether the status quo is too small or too large. The reality is that for so many Minnesotans, the status quo doesn’t work at all. We need entirely new approaches to Minnesota’s challenges.

Go back to education. When half or more of Minnesota students are not performing at grade level in core subjects, it’s hard to argue that our public schools are working. What is more important than assuring that every student has the education and skills needed to be a successful adult?

Money is ONE issue, but how the money is spent for education is THE issue. The state’s funding formula – the Minnesota Miracle – was created for a time in which school enrollments were growing and the big technology breakthrough was replacing a blackboard with a whiteboard. Today, school districts have huge budget deficits as enrollments fall, half or more of tested students are not reading or doing math at grade level and teachers are leaving the field. Yet, the debate in St. Paul remains framed by a 1970s funding model and the politics of school vouchers.

Every child should be fully prepared for kindergarten. Students who lost time and learning during Covid should be provided with intensive tutoring to recover that lost year. Teachers should be better paid. Learning should better integrate tomorrow’s technology, including AI.

Funding these priorities requires hard decisions and difficult choices, but the future always has been created by those who looked beyond the status quo, who were willing to cast aside some of today for a brighter tomorrow. That has been our tradition. We always have been a country and a state in the making, looking to do things better.

What should most concern Minnesotans, or all Americans for that matter, is not a marginal insult of tourists. Rather, it is the snub of those politicians who say with their politics and policies that the goal of making Minnesota and America the Brainpower State and Nation no longer is within reach. That is a braindead approach to the future.