When Democrats and their loyal stenographers in the media all peddle the same verbatim line, that’s a pretty good sign that it’s the opposite of the truth. So the already hackneyed declaration that Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), who Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris hopes will replace her as vice president, is “folksy.”
But the move should be understood by the public as a promise that the Minnesota governor is anything but neighborly, traditional, or sociable. Rather, Walz is a socialist endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, and his record of running the North Star State into the ground should inform the public’s understanding of Harris’s plans.
“One person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness,” Walz said just days ago during a “White Dudes for Harris” livestream. And true to that mantra, “neighborliness” coerced at the threat of gunpoint is indeed how Walz has governed. While conservative and centrist critics alike have correctly honed in on Walz’s abysmal record for enabling and encouraging the riots after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Walz’s economic record quietly rivaled his destructive social policy.
From assuming office in 2019 through fiscal 2023, Walz increased the state’s total annual spending by 42% to $58 billion, and his latest budget proposal would increase state spending by a further 12%, or $8.2 billion. To bankroll his priorities of “free” health insurance for illegal immigrants and public university tuition for students from households earning the state’s median or lower, Walz dramatically hiked taxes across the board. The Tax Foundation rates Minnesota the fourth-worst state for corporate taxes and the ninth worst for individual income taxation, which now amounts to more than $6,000 per capita, the eighth highest in the nation.
From May 2019 through May 2023, real average hourly wages in Minnesota flatlined, while the national average increased in real terms by 3%. Its average weekly wage growth in 2023 ranked 36th in the nation, and now the state’s annual job gains rank 47th in the nation. Whereas national employment has increased by nearly 6% since 2019, Minnesota’s payrolls have essentially flatlined from the start of Walz’s tenure.
All of this has translated to significant outmigration from the state. Despite Minnesota’s population historically growing at a much higher rate than the national average before Walz took office, its domestic outmigration from 2019 to 2023 was worse than 35 of the 50 states. Minnesota’s economy has only grown by 6% since 2019, half the rate of the nation’s overall economic expansion in the past 5 1/2 years.
Just as Harris co-sponsored the original Green New Deal during her limited tenure in the Senate, Walz has proven himself a degrowth zealot at an extraordinary cost. He tried to increase the gas tax by 70%, which would have made Minnesota the fourth highest in the country, and has mandated that renewables comprise 25% of the state’s energy consumption by next year and 100% by 2040. Crucially, this supposedly green energy mandate does not allow Minnesotans to use nuclear energy, the most efficient and viable form of carbon-neutral energy that is similarly banned by the national Green New Deal. The only “clean” energy forms allowed under the law are solar power, wind, water, and burning garbage or wood. An analysis by energy experts Mitch Rolling and Isaac Orr found the mandates would cost the state $313 billion through 2050 and cost individual households nearly $3,000 per year by 2040.
While pro-growth-minded liberals like Matt Yglesias have pointed toward Walz’s permitting reform for clean energy projects, such deregulation was limited to Walz’s pet projects. In his attempt to block the Line 3 pipeline, Walz said the project would need a “social permit” on top of the cumbersome building permit.
And even with the 132 policies and handouts designed to dissuade Minnesotans away from fossil fuels and nuclear power, the state generates more carbon dioxide emissions per capita than the scarlet strongholds of Florida, Tennessee, Idaho, and South Carolina.
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The rest of Walz’s record reflects this penchant for maximal spending and regulation to produce minimal results. Despite increasing education spending per pupil by nearly 20% in inflation-adjusted terms, the percentage of students proficient in math and reading dropped by some 10 points in half a decade. Walz banned post-termination noncompetes and imposed a new mandatory leave program funded by tax hikes on workers. The 2020 riots incurred a record-shattering half-trillion dollars’ worth of damage to the Minneapolis metro area, and violent crime remains 29% higher than it was when Walz took office.
The choice of Walz makes clear that Harris isn’t running away from her past flirtations with nationalizing the healthcare industry or imposing a federal jobs guarantee — she’s embracing it. Walz is fine with us correctly acknowledging that their proposals are indeed socialist as long as we pretend it is neighborly.
