Paul Thissen: Innovation in Action

Gia Vitali joins Thissen Team as Campaign Manager

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

THISSEN FOR GOVERNOR CAMPAIGN MAKES LEADERSHIP HIRE

Gia Vitali joins Thissen team as Campaign Manager

Minneapolis, MN – 2010 gubernatorial candidate and State Representative Paul Thissen (DFL) announced today he has hired Gia Vitali to lead his campaign for statewide office. Thissen is working to become the first DFLer since 1986 to be elected governor of Minnesota.
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KTSP-TV on Progress of Health Care Bill

STATE UNEMPLOYED HEALTH CARE BILL MOVING AHEAD

KSTP-TV, March 10, 2009

With more people losing their jobs, the number of Minnesotans who don’t have health insurance is also growing—a problem some lawmakers are trying to solve.

Because thousands of people are foregoing health insurance, state Rep. Paul Thissen wants to make the state’s health care program available to laid-off workers automatically.

The plan, which would help the unemployed to have health care while looking for work, passed its first steps to becoming law Monday.

“What we want to do is give them an option at least in that initial time period to get the health care—if we don’t do that, it’s just going to be more expensive for all of us,” Thissen explained.

He believes the plan allows the state’s health care program, Minnesota Care, to cover laid-off workers immediately and bypass the four-month wait the state currently requires.

“So they can get preventative care and keep up to date on everything and if they have an emergency so they can get what they need,” Thissen said.

In order to be considered for the new plan, the unemployed can’t qualify for COBRA. Minnesota Care isn’t free, but costs less than buying insurance from another source.

The plan is temporary, only giving 145 days of coverage. But at a time when the state could potentially cut the health care budget, how will this be paid for? The money would come from tax dollars in the health care access fund, which Thissen said is currently in a surplus.

Contrary View; Renewable Energy

Introduction/Background

My recent editorial from the St Cloud Times, St Paul Villager, Brainerd Dispatch, etc. I will be interested to hear comments.

Rolf Westgard, St Paul (writer is a professional member of the Geological Society of America)

My Idea

In its latest Annual Energy Outlook, the U.S. Energy Information Administration(EIA) is forecasting that U.S. wind turbines will supply 101 billion kilowatt hours(bkwh) of electricity to our electric power grids in the year 2020. That is just 2.14% of total U.S. electric power supply of 4,723 bkwh projected for 2020.

Undeterred by this, our Minnesota legislature has passed SF0004, the Renewable Energy Standard Bill which requires our largest utility, Excel, to get 25% of its energy from wind turbines in the year 2020, ten times the average wind contribution estimated by the EIA.

There’s a reason for the caution about erratic and intermittent wind power by EIA’s analysts. Unlike conventional electricity fuel sources, coal, natural gas, and nuclear, which schedule their down time, wind turns itself on and off, whether the electric grids need it or not. Denmark’s electric grid is widely reported to get 20-30 percent of its fuel from wind energy. It doesn’t.

Denmark’s 5,300 turbines can produce 20 percent of Denmark’s total electric demand, but when they do, Denmark has to look around for somebody to buy it, as the grid can’t use most of the wind power at the time it is generated. Wind farms typically operate at about 25-30% of their total capacity, about one third of the 80 to 90% capacity factor of coal and nuclear.

Hundreds of giant corn to ethyl alcohol(ethanol) stills now dot our Midwest landscape. They use four tenths of a corn bushel to produce a gallon of ethanol which currently sells for $1.53/gallon. The raw corn alone for this ethanol gallon costs $1.50.

That’s before the costs of production and transportation. Even with a 30-35 cent benefit from selling by product animal feed, ethanol production doesn’t pencil out. This is a major reason why VeraSun, our largest independent ethanol producer, recently declared bankruptcy. And the wholesale price of a gallon of gasoline, which has 30% more energy than ethanol, is currently $1.09/gallon.

For ethanol to achieve 20% of our gasoline supply, a dream of state legislatures, would require our entire 10 billion bushel corn crop. Cellulosic ethanol is still a research project, and it is inherently more expensive than the corn product.

Another frequently ignored issue is the time required to bring forth a major new fuel to the world’s energy supply. Until the mid-19th Century, wood burning powered the world. Then coal gradually surpassed wood on into the first part of the 20th Century. Oil was discovered in the 1860s, but it was a century before it surpassed coal as our largest energy fuel. Trillions of dollars are invested in the world’s infrastructure to mine, process, and deliver coal and petroleum.

As Distinguished Professor Vaclav Smil of the University of Manitoba recently put it, “It is delusional to think that the United States can install in 10 years wind and solar generating capacity equivalent to that of thermal power plants that took nearly 60 years to construct.”

There is a role in our energy needs for alternatives like wind and biofuels; but the assumption that they will make a major near term supply contribution is distracting us from hard choices involving aggressive conservation and life style changes.

We do have a looming energy crisis. Coal is an increasing environmental problem, and oil supplies may well peak in the near future. We need to improve energy efficiency with upgraded buildings, high mileage vehicles, and electric public transport. The way we produce and transport food may have to be recast to avoid transporting so much of it for great distances. Funding and encouraging these efforts will require energy taxes, especially on gasoline.

Recent well intentioned statements that we can repower our electricity generation in a decade with alternatives are the kind of delusion that we cannot afford to harbor.

Resources

U.S. Energy Information Administration
Numerous peer reviewed technical papers

Wind Energy

Introduction/Background

I have had a Wind Turbine for about five years. The energy that it produced fed into the grid. There was not much excess after my household consumption, but there was some. I live on White Earth Reservation at the edge of the North Dakota plain. My turbine almost never stops. However it stopped working about a year ago and needs repairs, but there are not enough repair people to keep up with the repair demands.

My Idea

There are a few problems that I have encountered that the state could help with.

1. My Wind Turbine is manufactured in Minnesota just south of the cities. Help that company re-design and re-fit to make their turbine more productive.

2. Assist Minnesota Technical Colleges in developing educational programs for erection and maintenance of farm and family turbines.

3. Give incentives to local Electric Companies to train personnel to help erect and maintain wind turbines.

4. Help companies manufacture different affordable energy packages to including: smaller turbines, battery packs, converts of amperage, etc.

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The Minnesota Budget Symposium

Minnesota Budget Symposium

In my six years at the legislature, budget deficits have dominated state government. The cycle of shortfalls is a result of past decisions, including the large permanent tax cuts approved in 1999 by the Republican-controlled legislature. It is also due to current challenges, like our rapidly changing demographics and the rise in health care costs.

Traditionally, when faced with budget shortfalls, Minnesota used a combination of budget cuts, revenue increases and spending shifts to weather economic downturns. Even past Republican governors, when faced with the toll a cuts-only approach would have on our most vulnerable citizens, agreed to revenue increases to balance the budget.

But the current governor has chosen to address deficits over the last six years that has just put off making the tough decisions. Even if we were not in recession, Minnesota would still be facing a deficit, and we will continue to face large deficits in the future.

Simply put, revenues are not keeping pace with spending.

Minnesotans deserve frank talk on our budget. That’s why I recently organized a budget symposium with my legislative colleagues Rep. Linda Slocum and Sen. Ken Kelash. The symposium brought together some of the state’s leading voices on the budget representing business, labor, finance and nonprofit groups.

The panelists had different perspectives on how to fix the imbalance. But there was a shared sense among everyone that that our past investment in the things that matter, like education, health care and transportation, created a vibrant state in a most unlikely place.

Minnesotans expect a high quality of life, which is supported by smart investments in our people. But we have lived through a decade of anti-tax fervor, one in which Minnesotans were promised that tax cuts would spur economic growth. The reality, unfortunately, is that since 2003, Minnesota’s economy has lagged behind the rest of the nation.

Bill Blazer with the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce summed up the dichotomy between expectations and investment. In polls with their members, businesses say they do not want state tax increases but they also want the state to provide the same high quality services. Clearly, we have some difficult decisions ahead of us.

In this post, I’d like to share some of the highlights from the symposium. You can view the full program here (Windows Media Player required). I will also post shorter video highlights from the symposium soon.

Panelist Jay Kiedrowski laid out the stark challenges Minnesota faces when he began his presentation by saying, “Hang on to your seats because it’s not a pretty picture.” Kiedrowski, a former finance commissioner, was co-chair of the Budget Trends Commission which recently issued its report to the legislature.

One of the most dramatic changes in Minnesota is the growing number of retiring seniors. This change is happening now, and Kiedrowski said that by 2033, there would be more Minnesotans not working than working in our state. Obviously, this has huge budget implications. (I recently wrote about this in the Bemidji Pioneer).

In addition to the changing demographics, Kiedrowski said rising health care costs will consume more of Minnesota’s state budget.

Mark Haveman with the Minnesota Taxpayers Association said that in most major program areas, Minnesota is now spending less than the national average except in health and human services programs.  He noted that Minnesota spends more than the national average, but by most objective measures it is an investment put to good use. Haveman agreed that Minnesota was going to have to make some fundamental decisions about spending if we want to preserve our investment in health and human services.

Blazer suggested restructuring how government delivers and pays for services, and renegotiating with public sector employees, although he acknowledged any savings would be in the long-term and not provide immediate relief for the current budget deficit.

There was some agreement on business taxes.  Dane Smith, executive director of Growth and Justice, agreed with Blazer that many business taxes are regressive because they are passed on to customers.  But he also argued that Minnesota could increase taxes for the wealthiest, who are actually paying a smaller share of their income than low- and middle-income Minnesotans. Smith also noted that the huge, permanent tax cuts in 1999 and 2000 were among the largest of any state in the country.

Blazer argued against such a tax increase because he felt it was bad for the state’s image. Instead, he suggested allowing tuition increases for higher education along with an increase in need-based tuition grants. That way, high-income families that can afford the true cost of higher education would pay more, while low- and middle-income families would benefit from grants to make it affordable.

Blazer also suggested not subsidizing property taxes for high-income families as a way to increase revenue.

Javier Morillo-Alicea, president of the Service Employees International Union Local 26, described our budget challenges as a political problem in need of a political solution. He argued that Minnesotans needed to enter into a full discussion about our budget choices.

I’ve written before about my priorities for balancing the budget in the 2010-2011 biennium. The governor’s approach to the current deficit does nothing to address the structural problem in the budget and continues to put off decisions we should be making now. And he would make drastic cuts in health and human services, just when Minnesotans are experiencing high unemployment and need that assistance most.

Minnesotans have never shied away from hard work and sacrifice. The current governor has lost sight of the fact that Minnesota has always addressed challenges by investing time, energy and resources now to build a stronger future.  If we do not address the current imbalance in our state budget, we will continue to face deficits in the future, and pass off the hard decisions to our children.

Minnesota’s huge budget deficit means we will be forced to make cuts – substantial cuts. But we can do so while maintaining our values and balancing the needs of Minnesotans who have lost jobs and face economic insecurity. Addressing the long-term structural imbalance in our budget will help us weather future economic downturns and focus on the issues that effect all of us, including caring for our aging parents, reducing the costs of health care and ensuring all kids get a fair shake in school. That’s the Minnesota promise and that’s why I am running for governor.