The Republicans and conservative news outlets are, predictably, trying to paint Tim Walz as a socialist. Here’s the list of his sins as recounted in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal editorial:
• Increasing taxes, though Minnesota already has the fifth-highest top income-tax rate among the states, 9.85% at $193,000 of earnings for a single filer. Mr. Walz added a 1% surtax on net investment income above $1 million, while reducing deductions, and the Governor wanted more.
Minnesota is a rare state that still levies a death tax, up to 16%, on top of the federal 40% rate, which is one reason the state is losing taxpayers to better climes.
• Making an estimated 81,000 illegal immigrants in the state eligible for driver’s licenses, along with health insurance through the MinnesotaCare public marketplace.
• Funding “the North Star Promise Program, which provides free college for students with a family income under $80,000,” including illegal immigrants.
• Creating a state system for paid family and medical leave, capped at a combined 20 weeks a year and funded by a 0.88% payroll tax.
• Mandating that public utilities generate 80% carbon-free electricity by 2030, ramping up to 100% by 2040. He’s a fervent believer in “climate action.”
• Subsidizing electric vehicles by “requiring EV charging infrastructure within or adjacent to new commercial and multi-family buildings,” as the Governor’s office bragged.
• Passing one of the nation’s most permissive abortion statutes that has essentially no limits and no age consideration for minors.
• Declaring Minnesota to be a “trans refuge,” with a law saying that the state will ignore a “court order for the removal of a child issued in another state because the child’s parent or guardian assisted the child in receiving gender-affirming care in this state.”
• Establishing automatic voter registration and letting Minnesotans sign up for a permanent absentee ballot option.
For campaign fodder there’s just not much there. The WSJ didn’t mention legalizing marijuana or free school lunches because the editors know that those things are very popular, but so is reproductive freedom, paid family leave and free college.
And the other stuff on the list, while it can be skewed in dark ways, just isn’t likely to motivate anybody who isn’t already solidly in Trump’s camp. Drivers licenses for undocumented migrants help them get to work where they can pay taxes — much of which go for services that can’t use. EV charging stations and easy voter registration are a couple of hobby horses of the grumpy Journal editorial board, but nobody else cares.
As a moderate Democrat I support all this stuff, with the possible exception of the transgender provision. I’m skeptical that irreversible “gender-affirming” treatments for kids are a good idea. But, on the other hand, if that’s a family decision then I’m not sure it’s the place of the government to intervene.
Not only is the “he’s too far left” argument weak on the merits, but it doesn’t work on a visceral level. Walz just doesn’t look the part of a radical. Somebody said that he looks like a guy who just climbed out of a deer stand. I’ve seen a lot of guys after they’ve just left their deer stands and that description sounds just about right to me.
Walz looks right for this job and the good, grumpy old Wall Street Journal is looking desperate.
Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos 
You know what else Walz is doing right? Leveraging his relationship with his adorable daughter on social media and playing up his goofy dadness….people are eating that up. And by people, I mean the youngsters and the dads…..heck, I like it too. Talk about relatable!
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I like it that he’s a graduate of a small, public, mediocre teachers’ college in Nebraska called Chadron State. The GOP ticket has Ivy Leaguers Trump (Penn) and Vance (Yale), which contrasts with Walz’ more relatable academic credentials. I think Kamala made a good choice.
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Just learned that Chadron State is also the alma mater of former Packer receiver Don Beebe, an overachieving fan favorite who took many hard hits in his career.
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Amazingly, in my four years of writing YSDA, this is the first reference to Don Beebe by any reader.
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My wife and I and another couple from rural Polk County (Trump Country!) joined the thousands yesterday in Eau Claire after an arduous process just to get in. We went as much for the history as the politics. It was a bit like standing on the side of the road with my entire Catholic grade school in South Bend, IN to watch the JFK motorcade go by on its way to Notre Dame. I was 9 years old, and the experience still inspires me.
It was a great experience for our time, to be among thousands of people who were just happy and excited to be there. According to a show of hands amiably requested by Tim Walz, not surprisingly about half the crowd was from Minnesota, but no Badger-Gopher scuffles broke out.
We all readily noticed and were impressed by the presence of women of all ages. Many were accompanied by young children who were there for a valuable history lesson, but we also saw many women of all ages in the long vehicle lines all by themselves. Many, like us, had to abandon their cars and walk two or more miles by themselves just to get in. Trump definitely has a gender problem, as he should.
What we didn’t see was anyone who cares about the grumpy old men at the WSJ or the many pundits who addictively consume every latest poll or statistic. What we did see were thousands of happy, excited people anxious to prove them wrong. There was an obvious consensus around, “When we vote, we win.”
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Everything turned around once Biden stepped aside. I can do you one better (sort of) on the JFK front. He visited the shopping center across the street from my house when he was campaigning in the WI primary in March, 1960. My mom took me over to meet him. She said he touched my cheek. Downside: I was one year old and of course don’t remember any of it.
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Walz – “Don’t ever shy away from our progressive values. One person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness.”
‘Free’ college tuition and healthcare for illegal immigrants.
MN expenditures increased 40% from 2019 to 2023.
Passed legislation to make Minnesota a sanctuary state.
8221 people, mostly of higher incomes, left MN in 2022. Replacement rate of 0.86. Tax Foundation’s State Business Tax Climate index of 44 out of 50 states. Economic Freedom of North America rates MN 43rd.
Supports defunding the police. Violent crime increased significantly under his tenure.
Setup a hotline for Minnesotans to snitch on their neighbors for defying covid lockdown orders, generating thousands of reports.
“• Mandating that public utilities generate 80% carbon-free electricity by 2030, ramping up to 100% by 2040. He’s a fervent believer in “climate action.” See socialism above.
The illegal immigrant driver’s license might be ok, if driver’s licenses weren’t used as ID to vote.
The Harris/Walz ticket is classical tax and spend Democratic, with identity politics thrown in for good measure.
From my Independent perspective, it seems that PR has become dramatically more effective than policy, experience and history. Remember way back in 2020? Harris spent $43 million getting 0 electors. She was so unpopular she didn’t even make it to Iowa.
She has had 91%+ staff turnover rate since becoming VP.
More context – We’re spending $2.4 billion per day on debt servicing.
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For an “independent perspective” you sure do seem to support R policies and dislike D ones. Which is fine, but why pretend to be independent? It’s always interesting to see conservatives bring up the debt, yet support R politicians. To my knowledge, no R administration has ever reduced our debt, and their fairy tale ideas for reducing it are absurd. It’s impossible to tax-cut our way to a budget surplus.
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It always cracks me up when people presume to know where someone else is coming from. I’m likely voting for RJK Jr, roadkill non-incident notwithstanding.
No R has, only slower than the Bidenomics hockey stick. The cost of servicing the national debt increased more under Biden than all previous administrations since 1950 combined.
Budget surplus? I’m talking about servicing the debt on the budget.
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I referred to a budget surplus because the only way we can reduce our interest payments is to use surplus revenue to pay it down. Or print more money or just tell the creditors to take a hike 😉
My apologies for assuming you would be voting R. Sorry about that, that was wrong. In our asinine 2-party system I forget that people are out there who won’t vote for either one.
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Question for the Dems on this site – what would you have done if your 87 year old mom had heart surgery during covid? Walz’s response was to isolate her and drop off groceries at her door. Reasonable?
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Tim-Waltz-His-Mother.mp4?_=1
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I didn’t click the link and I know nothing about the story beyond what you said. If I wanted to maximize the chance that my mother would live as long as possible I’d follow the guidance of health care professionals that I trust. Since there are always contrary theories in all of science, there will always be some experts who disagree with the opinions of other experts. So I’d do my best to decide who to trust, and generally give more weight to the opinions and guidance of experienced professionals in positions of authority and the professional associations that represent the health care fields.
COVID was a really difficult, confusing, and unprecedented time in our history. Nobody really knew exactly what to do, but I believe most people is positions of responsibility did their best.
Families all across the world had to grapple with no-good-choice decisions. Do I be with my mother and risk unintentionally infecting her with a deadly virus, or do I isolate from her? I don’t want to disparage anyone’s personal, family decisions when they are faced with no-good-option situations. These decisions happen every day and will continue to for eternity. We can choose to keep our nose out of people’s difficult personal decisions. Or play politics with them.
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