Compare and Contrast

Two neighboring states have elected starkly different governors with starkly different ideas of how to solve their financial crises.

In Wisconsin, Scott Walker is charging ahead with tax cuts, evisceration of public unions, and a government-is-the-problem vision that is as pure, and as radical, as any state executive has articulated in modern times.

Facing a deficit twice as large, Minnesota governor Mark Dayton is similarly taking a blowtorch to government spending, but he is almost unique among governors in asking that the rich also pay a hefty price tag to address financial problems that have been ignored for too long.

Walker’s agenda will almost certainly pass in some form. It’s hard to see how Dayton’s tax increases will get by the new Republican majorities in the Minnesota Legislature.

It’s too bad. We might’ve had a chance to see how two opposite approaches would play out. Would wealthy business owners have stampeded out of Minnesota for the greener pastures of Wisconsin, taking their jobs with them? Would Walker’s gutting of schools and presumably health care programs (if you want to address spending you gotta go there eventually) have made Wisconsin an undesirable destination for employers?

It’s too early to tell how it will all play out. But the two men could hardly be further apart in their ideas about what their states should look like.