Like most Minnesotans, my mood has been lifted over the past few days by news stories and photos showing people in the eastern United States struggling with a snowstorm. There is nothing that strokes our sense of Minnesota superiority than…
Author: Ed Lotterman
Alan Greenspan doesn’t owe the president anything
With all the bad things going on, it’s refreshing to come across a news report that makes you spontaneously laugh. That happened to me Thursday when Reuters quoted a White House spokeswoman saying President Bush “has a great deal of…
Ask the economists
What am I, chopped liver or something? I was deeply hurt when I read Monday that 10 Nobel Prize-winning economists and 400 others signed a statement opposing President Bush’s tax proposals. I gladly would have signed it, and I think…
Sure, we’ll help the poor, if they follow our rules
Gov. Pawlenty wants poor Minnesotans to be prevented from using food stamps to buy candy and other junk food. He’s reflecting society’s broader ambivalence about charity: We generally want to help the poor, but we don’t trust people to use…
So many ag TV ads and so few farmers
Here’s another sign this winter is an anomaly: We got our first major snowfall just as the TV commercials for agricultural chemicals were starting up again. In winters when major snowfalls started in October, commercials for weed and insect killers…
Taking a shot at the question of compulsory vaccination
The Minnesota Legislature last week heard poignant testimony from parents who believe their children died of adverse reactions to common and quasi-mandatory vaccinations. Their accounts illustrate one of the harsh ironies of modern medicine. Vaccines that save the lives of…
Plan shows Medicare’s original flaws
Public concern over the cost of drugs for the elderly is widespread and many elected officials from both major parties have expressed support for adding some prescription drug benefit to the Medicare program. President Bush addressed the issue in his…
Truth for ethanol co-ops: Incentives have consequences
It is far from clear what changes, if any, Minnesota will make in its ethanol programs in reaction to actual and anticipated budget deficits. But if it does stop payments that were implicitly promised to 13 plants built in response…
Assessing risk down the road
I’m going to die. Don’t be alarmed. I have no indication that the event is imminent. But we all die eventually. The only questions are when and how. This week I wonder whether modern technology will give me a long…
Ethanol subsidies burn many to benefit a few
Governor Pawlenty deserves an “A” in political courage for squarely confronting Minnesota’s subsidy for ethanol production. I was surprised he had the guts to call for a complete end to the 20-cents-a-gallon operating subsidy. This proposal came early last week…