Did you see the Vikings’ game Sunday?

Do you know someone who’s been treated by a doctor at Mayo Clinic?

Did you sprinkle Crystal Sugar on your Cheerios this morning?

Is there a can of Green Giant peas in your pantry?

Maybe a can of SPAM?

So, what part of Minnesota are we better off doing without?

That’s the real question we need to be putting to our state legislators as they get ready for the 2016 session.

Minnesota is one state, and we all do better when we’re all doing well.

That bit of common sense hasn’t made it to St. Paul in recent years. Political gamesmanship playing off the presumed interests of outstate communities against the big, bad Twin Cities has been used to obscure the reality that farms, small towns, regional centers and the metro all have common needs and depend on one another to prosper and to meet the needs of all Minnesota citizens.

So what does Utica have in common with Mankato, much less Edina or Minneapolis?

Start with a need for essential infrastructure — sewer, water, electricity and ever-increasingly high-capacity broadband digital services — and an adequate, appropriate transportation network. They all need adequate, affordable housing, access to top-quality preventative and emergency medical care, elder-care programs and facilities, high-quality preschool, elementary and secondary schools for their children, and access to world-class, state-of-the-art post-secondary education to train and retrain a world-class workforce to staff state-of-the-art business and industry, and beneath it all, a social safety net to maintain the welfare and dignity of all.

Granted, there are obvious differences in how these needs are met in communities of vastly differing size and location, and those differences must be taken into account as resources are allocated. But funding the needs of Minnesota communities isn’t a zero-sum game.

We all benefit when Twin Cities transit systems get workers to the job quickly and efficiently so the planes can fly, the money can flow, and the trains can roll, just as Twin Cities business and industry depends on customers, workers and raw materials from outside the metro.

Assuring that the needs of all Minnesotans are met — from International Falls to LeRoy, from Moorhead to Red Wing — will require legislators from both parties to set aside the “us against them” attitudes that have pervaded St. Paul politics. If we’re all in this together, we have to quit seeing policy making as a zero-sum game.

A case in point is the approach to local government aid (LGA) taken during the past legislative session. In a nutshell, LGA is a means of equalizing the money Minnesota cities have available to provide city services while holding down property taxes. Last session, House Republicans attempted to pay St. Peter by robbing St. Paul — cutting LGA payments to Minnesota’s largest cities.

The attempt stalled, and for the good of the entire state should be laid to rest permanently, replaced by proposals that recognize there’s no part of Minnesota the state can do without.

 

— Winona Daily News, Jan. 15