Regarding Growth & Justice's public investment strategy proposal, at least no one can accuse Sean of shooting the messenger. I appreciate the kind words about me personally, but I'm not impressed with his musings about our message. Sean begins his critique with a straw man statement: "There is little evidence that more money into our current system will get the outcomes we want."

Well, Growth & Justice did not propose more money into our current system. In fact, the single most expensive investment we cite as an example of what we could do is a commitment to providing high- quality early childhood education opportunities to all Minnesota children at a price their families can afford. This is not current- system thinking at all. More money into the current system would be adding dollars to the per-pupil aid formula for K12 education, which we did NOT propose. The same with health care: our example of how to invest is to provide quality health care to all children, including those whose families can't afford to purchase health insurance. That's fixing a flaw in the system, not pouring money mindlessly into what we have now. Sean says we need reform before spending more. "Do more with what we spend now," he writes. Well, let's look at what the Citizens League's own recent studies have to say about this:

In Driving Blind: "While there is a growing sense of urgency that we need more money for transportation, there is little agreement on how money should be raised and spent."

In the league's 2004 study on higher education: "The time for bold leadership, for hard choices, for reform, for innovation, and for long-term investments is now." Now it's true that those studies declined to say how much more we need to invest, or how to raise the money. I know that there were many participants in the higher ed study who thought the league should have had something to say about that, but the final report did not reflect their thinking on that point. So now, Growth & Justice has started that dialogue. The principles are more important than the precise numbers: Reform is critical, and so is reestablishing our commitment to investing, and paying for it fairly.

We hope the Citizens League will not throw its weight behind the no-new-money side of this discussion, since the evidence is compelling that states that invest more do better at creating real prosperity. Minnesotans know that from experience.

Joel Kramer
Executive director, Growth & Justice

Glad you were up early this morning, Sean. I could have sworn, sworn, that the original post that I read last night, when the CL email arrived, talked about "pouring money into fixing a broken system" or some such analogy.. and I thought "geez, in this world of civil discourse and finding common ground that's about as inflammatory as it gets." And a grave injustice to the thousands of hours of hard work by the Growth and Justice staff and advisory team. But you seem to have rectified that.. or was is just my fevered imagination ?

Also, I thought I might tease you by starting out talking about what a great guy you are and how much you've done for the Citizen's League and how much I admire the work you and your staff have done to revitalize an organization that Arne Carlson described as "defunct" when I first met you several years ago and keep going on and on until the breathless reader was SURE that I was going to deliver a deadly insult because it was wrapped up in so much Minnesota nice .

but I won't

I will respond to the substance of your final post with a question. And this is from a naive policy wonk wannabe sort of perspective, so I'm quite seriously seeking an answer. You say that the architects of the Minnesota Miracle "didn't just spend more money than other states. We spent it well." And commented that this was an investment because it led to a higher return on investment. The implication there is that there was/is some sort of playbook or plan that they followed, and we are not doing so now. But isn't it true that we talk of the Minnesota Miracle in retrospect because we now have the 20, 30 years worth of data that shows that this investment paid out? Hindsight is so easily 20-20. Do you think that those that governed at that time really knew, to the degree of certainty that you seemed to want, what "investments" would pay out ? It seems to me that when I listen to those that were actually in office during those years, that it was a much different sort of climate.. there was a sort of mutual understanding that a certain basic level of investment was necessary - and the two political parties and the governor might arm wrestle about how much in which categories and how to pay for it.. but that there was common ground in the belief that investment was needed. [and incidentally, if you've ever heard John Gunyou's presentation, also common ground in using finance professionals that don't play fast and loose with the budget data to try to sweep under the rug the bigger, more structural problems with the money that we do have ]

I'm reminded of a quote that I think is attributed to John Wannamaker.. or maybe is was Leo Burnett.. something about " I know that about half the money that I'm spending is waste.. but I don't know which half". I hope its not as bad as that in state government, but I do have the nagging feeling that waiting until there is absolute positive burden of proof that money is well spent, - trying to acheive some hurdle ROI before we spend it - will hurt us. A lot.

[I was so glad to see that Art Rolnick is trying to get a large scale test of his early childhood program recommendations.. and apparently managed to charm his conservative opposition into doing supporting the test. But man, the data that he has already amassed seems so convincing and the need so great.. how much longer do we wait and at what cost to our future work force by dinking around with tests?...to me, its maddening)

So tell me - honestly, a true question here..what am I missing? .. what did the Minnesota Miracle guys spend the money on that made it a "great investment" then and how can we do it now?

I think Joel's post (and Sue's recollection) relate to Seans's original quick post on 7/21.

His subsequent posts are better considered, so go back and read 'em all.

I think Sue is probably accurate with her comment about the Minnesota Miracle architects not being certain in advance how well their investment would pay off. Unfortunately, today, faith-based government doesn't extend to spending money on other people's kids and praying it works.

Finding the line between certainty and faith is the big political challenge.

Interestingly, in my work I talked to a number of big company CFOs who ran performance improvement projects through an ROI case wringer before approving the investment. Rarely did they go back and measure the results with any rigor, or if they did, they didn't keep it up.

Instead, they moved onto the next project. Why? Because they had satisfied themselves in advance that the project was sound.

One difficulty in applying that same process to public spending is there's no CFO who ultimately calls the shots and is responsible (and rewarded) for the results. In the public sector, the evaluation, approval and implementation — as well as investment criteria — march to many drummers. That's democracy instead of capitalism.

The next phase of the G&J proposal will try to come to grips with this reality, so let's stay tuned.