ch: Our Values in Action

Tim Walz: Republican Nightmare

City Pages, one of the alt-weeklies here in Minneapolis, has a great interview with Tim Walz, who is running against Republican rubber-stamp Gil Gutknecht in Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District. Local and national pundits say the race is very competitive in a district that ordinarily goes Republican. A clip from the City Pages interview:

People accuse me of being just tax and spend, with no evidence for that. The actuaries have shown, here in Minnesota, that our 68,000 children who are uninsured, if we get them on to some form of basic health care, it will actually lower everyone’s premium and we’ll save money. My opponent and this far-right group of Republicans always [advance] the false dichotomy: “Well, this guy is an environmentalist; he must be against business.” Where the truth is, the more environmentally friendly you are, the more opportunities you have in business.

I am not this neoclassical Chicago school of economics person, because I have never seen it work. I understand the theory: Give it to the entrepreneurial class and they’ll build and they’ll create jobs. The problem with that way of thinking now is they’ll create those jobs in China without working conditions that provide worker protections, while it takes jobs away from Americans and lowers wages. The way to build a free and open and stable society is by making sure that as many people can enter the middle class as possible. And we know that the numbers aren’t showing that.

We here at Midwest Values are helping out Tim in his race to unseat Gutknecht—consider helping out Tim as well by visiting his website and getting involved.