Click here for an article in the Huffington Post by C. Robert Gibson entitled "This Billionaire Governor Taxed the Rich and Increased the Minimum Wage -- Now, His State's Economy Is One of the Best in the Country."
When he took office in January of 2011, Minnesota governor Mark Dayton (billionaire heir to the Target fortune) inherited a $6.2 billion budget deficit and a 7 percent unemployment rate from his predecessor, Tim Pawlenty, the soon-forgotten Republican candidate for the presidency who called himself Minnesota's first true fiscally-conservative governor in modern history. Pawlenty prided himself on never raising state taxes -- the most he ever did to generate new revenue was increase the tax on cigarettes by 75 cents a pack. Between 2003 and late 2010, when Pawlenty was at the head of Minnesota's state government, he managed to add only 6,200 more jobs.
Dayton raised the state income tax (from 7.85% to 9.85%) on individuals earning over $150,000 and couples earning $250,000 filing jointly; he raised the state minimum wage to $9.50 (in increments until 2018).
Since Dayton took power from Pawlenty in 2011, Minnesota has added 172,000 jobs to the economy; Pawlenty added a meager 6,200 jobs -- in two terms.
Even though Minnesota's top income tax rate is the 4th-highest in the country, it has the 5th-lowest unemployment rate in the country at 3.6 percent. According to 2012-2013 U.S. census figures, Minnesotans had a median income that was $10,000 larger than the U.S. average, and their median income is still $8,000 more than the U.S. average today.
Despite the fearmongering over businesses fleeing from Dayton's tax cuts, 6,230 more Minnesotans filed in the top income tax bracket in 2013, just one year after Dayton's tax increases went through. As of January 2015, Minnesota has a $1 billion budget surplus, and Gov. Dayton has pledged to reinvest more than one third of that money into public schools. And according to Gallup, Minnesota's economic confidence is higher than any other state.
Minnesota is far outperforming its Republican test-tube neighbor Wisconsin under conservative star and Koch brothers' pawn Scott Walker.
It's official -- trickle-down economics is bunk.
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