What must the public be thinking? What is going on over in St. Paul? If you are to believe recent front pages of many of our newspapers, Minnesotans must no longer be concerned about the dire financial straits of our school systems, or the almost 30,000 working adults about to lose access to MinnesotaCare health coverage, or the need to adequately fund Minnesota transportation needs. Many of our newspapers would have us believe that constitutional amendments, stadiums, guns and similar issues are the focus of the current 2005 legislative session. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. As we enter the final weeks of our legislative session, we also enter the most critical period in our budget-setting process. All spending bills will be coming to the floors of the House and Senate for debate over the next couple of weeks. Whether and where to find critically needed funding for jobs, health care and education will be hotly debated. Everyone will declare that they are giving the jobs, health care and education priorities the resources they need and deserve, but what the various proponents will be advocating will differ widely in how they define adequate and appropriate resources. These differences, this debate, is what Minnesotans want and need to read about, so they can know what to talk to their legislators about, and how to evaluate the results of our work. We need to keep these important issues in front of us and in the public’s discourse. We simply can’t afford to let ourselves, neither legislators nor the general public, get distracted from our state’s primary needs: jobs, health care and education. Need I repeat this? Jobs, health care and education! That’s what we, as a state, must be paying attention to. We need for all of us to refocus our attentions on getting more money into our K-12 and higher education systems. It’s what our front pages should be talking about. Making sure we find a way to keep children and families covered with medical care is what our front pages should be talking about. Making sure that decent paying jobs with good benefits are available in this state is what we should be reading about on the front pages of our papers. How many times do the people of Minnesota need to say that what they want our state to be focused on right now is good jobs with benefits, affordable health care for all, and a quality education for our kids? I’ve said it a half-dozen times on this page alone. OK, one more reminder can’t hurt: Jobs, health care, education! Let’s focus!
Al Juhnke (DFL-Willmar) represents House District 15A in the Minnesota House of Representatives.
