That wasn’t my first close association with willows, either. When I was two, we moved into a real house, and one of the first things we did was plant a willow in the front yard. I named her Alice. She came down just a few years ago, having lived a good, long life for such a weedy type of tree.

I’ve always lived among trees and gone to the woods for quiet, but it took a change of scenery to discover just how much trees mean to me. I was in my early twenties when I went to Arizona with my mother to visit my grandparents. I chalked the tension up to too much family in too small a space and tried to ignore it as it built over a couple of days.

My mother and I took a side trip north to Flagstaff, to spend a few days seeing the sights in and around the Navajo Nation and, of course, the Grand Canyon. (It’s, um, big. Dangerously icy in February too. The ravens, however, are charming and like peanuts more than I do.) As we drove north out of Phoenix, I wasn’t really looking forward to more time in constant proximity to family.

Then we started to climb out of the desert and hit an elevation where there were trees. Stubby little piñon pines, but still the first trees I’d seen in days. And I relaxed. Turns out that trees are pretty important to me.

So it makes me sad, and nervous, and grumpy to watch the parade of threats against our local trees over the last several years. Cuts in city budgets have meant less consistent enthusiasm for removing elms infected with Dutch Elm Disease at the first sign of infection, which has allowed the disease to spread more quickly in Minneapolis (10,000 trees lost in 2004, just in the city). Droughts have made our pine forests susceptible to winter damage and pine bark beetles. The emerald ash borer is now on the scene in the state.

But the threat that has me the most disturbed is twofold and not limited to a single type of tree. They’ll attack most hardwoods. I’m talking about gypsy moths and forest tent caterpillars. The two creatures are similar, with masses of caterpillars building webbed homes in trees and stripping them bare. The differences are mostly in the direction the threat is coming from and whether there is a local predator that might keep the population down.

Turns out that there isn’t anything local that will effectively battle the gypsy moths. If we don’t do it ourselves, nothing else is going to take care of it. We’ll start to look like Wisconsin did on the road trip we took across it in May, trees bare of any green, filled only with white, webby masses crawling with dark little bodies.

Of course, we are fighting all these threats to our trees. Individual cities, the Department of Natural Resources, the Department of Agriculture, all are facing off against at least one pest. However, all these entities are facing reduced funding from Governor Pawlenty’s unallotment, on top of other budget cuts.

When the choice comes down, as it must, on what to fund, where do you think the trees will fall? Behind the needy citizens and the crumbling streets for the cities. Behind the sport programs that pay part of their own way for the DNR. Behind agribusiness for the MDA. All reasonable choices, but all choices with consequences to the trees.

This is what our tax policies have brought. While we’ve been sitting still, these pests have been on the move. So when you look out on the stumps where trees once stood, when you see browning pines and empty branches, know that all that green went somewhere, in the form of lighter taxes for those already well off.

When we decide it’s a virtue for money to be collected in the hands of a few, never forget that we all lose. It isn’t always immediately obvious how, but it always happens. Just ask the trees.

The original plan was for us to meet at Coffee News, which is the sort of neighborhood coffee shop (with real food) that Starbucks and Caribou would like to pretend to be but instead have been madly rushing to replace.  I pulled into a parking space near the coffee shop (meters don’t charge in St. Paul past 4:30 in the afternoon).  I saw Matt enter the shop, so I followed with my notepad and pens, excited that this time I had the appointment written down for the correct date.

Matt saw me walk in and said, “Hi, Mike!”

I was impressed because we had only really spoken once before, and that was at Tim Mahoney and Susan Bishop’s wedding last year.  We’d had a good conversation about energy strategies and the Minnesota 2020 project, which was just getting going.  Since Matt has been in political circles of power in Minnesota for several years, I was flattered that he recognized me.

Before we had a chance to sit down, he suggested that we head down the street to Shish, a Middle Eastern cafe on Grand that Matt likes.  This was an introduction to “Matt the Neighbor.”  He lives only a few blocks from Snelling and Grand, and this was his hood.  He called out to Leo, the restaurant owner, and I told Leo that I would be doing a story based in Shish for Quiche Moraine.  Leo gave me his address and asked me to e-mail the link to the story when it is published.

Matt recommended the steak kebab, and I took him up on it. Tenderly cooked with Mediterranean spices and set on a bed of saffron rice, it was the best kebab I had eaten in a very, very long time. I highly enjoyed myself.  The meal and the food were important but more important was the company.  Matt proved to be very good company indeed.  He “got” that this is not a standard journalist’s interview, this Quiche Moraine thing I do.  It’s a conversation, and the hallmark of a good conversation between two people is generating a level of interest that goes both ways.  So he asked me as many questions about me as I did of him.

And these are the things we learned about each other.

We both graduated high school in 1979 from small towns in Minnesota.  We have both lived in California, and after living in other places, we both returned to Minnesota.  I learned that he has spent a good deal of time in Hallock, and we share mutual friends in Kristin Eggerling and Paul Blomquist.  Matt even bought his most recent car at C & M Ford in Hallock, a dealership that Kristin and Paul own. I also learned that we are both less than stellar athletes.  Despite his height, Matt is only an average basketball player and preferred debating when he was in high school.  More on that later.

Matt is only slightly younger than I am, but in our conversation I realized that if he wins the governor’s race in 2010, I will be older than both the President of the United States and the governor of Minnesota.  This is a new phase for me, as I have always thought of political leaders as being my seniors.

He has read the posts I wrote about Steve and Sophie Kelley and explained to me that if Steve Kelley is on the ticket for the DFL in 2010, he will be right out there working for him and supporting Kelley all the way.  I sense a genuine mutual respect and friendship between the two of them.  Steve had said the same thing about Matt when I ate pizza with Steve.

So, as governor, what does he think of the ways that the Minnesota economy can best recover?  Energy, education and investment.  We looked at the states that use low taxes as their main business attractor, including South Dakota, and compared them to Minnesota.  Minnesota has historically used private/public investment partnerships to build our economy. We have historically funded innovation and education.  We have historically maintained better roads and highways than our neighboring states, facilitating transportation for commerce.

In the last eight years, we have entrusted Minnesota’s growth and innovation to a governor whose priority is to lower taxes no matter what the effect on education, innovation and commerce.  The concept is that if Minnesota changes its perception from being a “high-tax state” to being a “low-tax state,” then all of the major corporations that have been avoiding relocation to Minnesota will swoop in with jobs and careers.  Matt and I discussed how well this is working for Sioux Falls, SD.  In 1998, the Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce started airing commercials on Twin Cities radio promoting the property tax savings that businesses enjoy by relocating.  We both noted that the Twin Cities still provide more jobs and a better standard of living than does Sioux Falls.

I don’t mean to knock Sioux Falls, mind, and neither does Matt. It’s a nice place with a great convention center and some powerful banking operations.  I did note the last time I was in Sioux Falls, though, that the streets needed repair….

Entenza has a vision of energy innovation and Minnesota leadership.  Anything that is done to increase accessibility to carbon-based fuels, including ethanol production, is gong to by necessity be a bridge to a future of energy being produced by fewer and fewer carbon-based methods.

On the day I met with Matt, the northern suburb of Shoreview, where I work, was under assault by the power of the sun in the form of wind.  I thought during a smoke break of all the energy pushing me and making my cigarette difficult to light.  I thought of southern Minnesota with its many wind farms along I-90, and since southern Minnesota was the region he grew up, I asked Matt about it.

Matt thinks that with strategic investment, Minnesota has the potential to take leadership in developing a new green economy.  We can grow to be the equivalent of the “Silicon Valley of green energy,” in his words.  He asked me to make note of Dan Juhl, from Woodstock.  Consider the idea of the family farm.  Many people who have migrated from the rural areas to the urban areas tell me that they wish they could live in rural Minnesota, but with the changing economic face of agriculture, can’t see how a family can compete with corporate farms.  Moving back to a small town or to a farm is difficult economically, because the jobs and small businesses that support agricultural regions just aren’t as likely to support a modern lifestyle as they once were.  Juhl Wind, Inc. is just one example of an idea Entenza supports to rebuild Minnesota’s economy.

We met in the wake of the end of a legislative session cut short by the current governor’s unwillingness to negotiate a budget deal.  The DFL managed to pass a budget, and one that met many of Pawlenty’s requests, but the red pen of the veto and unallotment of previously budgeted services cut short a great opportunity to get moving on the new economy.

Matt is not alone in his drive to improve Minnesota.  He is married to Lois Quam, an innovator in her own right.  In the second installment of this post (June 8), I’ll tell you how they met and go into more detail about the leadership and innovation Matt Entenza intends to bring to the head of government in Minnesota.

Shish, at 1668 Grand Avenue, is a Middle Eastern deli in St. Paul.  Menu prices very reasonable and delicious.  Be sure to try the ginger beer.

The Missing $1,000,000 Tax Bracket

Matt Yglesias has this creepy habit of writing about things the very moment that I’m thinking about them. Today I was looking at this handy chart prepared by the National Taxpayers’ Union on the top marginal tax rates at different points in time. If you’re at all familiar with debate over tax policy, this will be pretty familiar territory to you: the top marginal tax rate is now higher than it was under Reagan, but lower than it was under Clinton, and much lower than it’s been at various other points in history. (The average top marginal tax rate since the income tax was established is 60 percent).

What the discussion over the top marginal tax rate ignores, however (and what Ygelsias picks up upon) is that this rate has been assessed at very different thresholds of income. In 1940, for example, the top marginal tax rate was 81.1 percent — but this rate only kicked in once you made $5,000,000 or more in income, which is equivalent to about $75,000,000 in today’s dollars.

FiveThirtyEight

Why Labor Law Doesn’t Work for Workers

Behind the verbal fireworks, workers on the ground say that current labor law has no teeth and must be changed. In Lancaster, California, one of the country’s hardest-fought organizing drives highlights the obstacles they face. A year ago, employees at Rite Aid’s huge drug warehouse there voted to join a union. On March 21, 2008, the National Labor Relations Board certified that union, giving it the right to negotiate a first union contract. But Rite Aid, workers say, has just been waiting for the year to expire. Once it does, the company can stop the pretense of negotiating.

truthout

Competing Views of Government: Universal Medicare or Government-Protected Insurance Companies

We all know that people have different ideologies about the proper role of government. Some people, who tend to be left of center, think that the government’s role is to try to promote the general good, by providing basic services, protecting the poor and the sick, and ensuring a well-working economy. On the other hand, there are others, who usually place themselves right of center, who believe that the proper role of government is to redistribute as much income as possible to the wealthy.

truthout

Capitalism and Moral Sentiments

In recent days, both Tom Friedman and David Brooks urged us to take our attention away from the trivialities of the AIG bonuses (just 0.001 percent of GDP, sniffed Brooks), to focus on truly weighty macroeconomic matters. Friedman bade us to look forward to, and support, the next mega-bailout of the banks, and Brooks applauded the leadership of Mssrs. Geithner and Summers in leading the G20 to macroeconomic stimulus and a rejuvenation of the International Monetary Fund.

Both pieces had the feel of planted stories, with insider tips about what’s coming next and praise for the economics team as it battles against little minds in Europe and populist sentiments at home. Whether or not the stories came from Washington, both stories are wrong.

Huffington Post

AIG

I’ll leave to others the question of who knew or should have known that the bonus firestorm was coming; but it’s part of a pattern. At every stage, Geithner et al have made it clear that they still have faith in the people who created the financial crisis — that they believe that all we have is a liquidity crisis that can be undone with a bit of financial engineering, that “governments do a bad job of running banks” (as opposed, presumably, to the wonderful job the private bankers have done), that financial bailouts and guarantees should come with no strings attached.

The Conscience of a Liberal

Financial Policy Despair

Over the weekend The Times and other newspapers reported leaked details about the Obama administration’s bank rescue plan, which is to be officially released this week. If the reports are correct, Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, has persuaded President Obama to recycle Bush administration policy — specifically, the “cash for trash” plan proposed, then abandoned, six months ago by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

This is more than disappointing. In fact, it fills me with a sense of despair.

New York Times