A letter from Norm

In the last year our national economy has moved from recession to recovery.

So writes Sen. Norm Coleman in a form letter I received yesterday. I'd written him to express opposition to the president's "economic stimulus" plan that includes abolishing the tax on dividend income, a plan that--as you've no doubt heard--should benefit the wealthiest one percent of Americans (those making more than $102,000/year). Why, I had no idea that our ebullient, ever-upward-arcing economy was so plump and healthy.

Many economic indicators signal a healing economy with a promising outlook, but more needs to be done to instill confidence in our markets.

We sure do need confidence in the markets. Because when I go to check up on my shriveled prune of a retirement plan, I can barely muster the strength to open the envelope. But, last time I checked, the president's budget called for record defecits, and the stock market was faltering due to fear of a war that hasn't yet made it to the president's budget sheets.

I firmly believe that tax relief is the key to economic recovery and job growth. During my tenure as mayor of St. Paul I put this belief to work. We achieved eight straight years of zero increases in the city's property tax levy. The result was 18,000 new jobs and $3 billion in new investments for our capital city.

Now there, Norm, this is some selective truth-telling. Paul Demko debunked--or at least filled in the gaps of--these claims in an October City Pages analysis:

According to the Minnesota Department of Economic Security, there were indeed 18,038 jobs created in St. Paul between 1993 and 2000, a jump of 9.7 percent. What the Coleman campaign fails to mention, however, is that the average increase in jobs statewide during those heady economic times was 20.1 percent. Even Minneapolis, whose two-term mayor was drummed out of office last year, had a better track record than St. Paul, with 28,303 new jobs generated, a rise of 10.1 percent.

Demko goes on to report that St. Paul has the state's highest vacancy rate for commercial spaces (at 21.2%), that the $3 million city-funded parking ramp Coleman built for Conseco now sits empty, and that the $100-million building he used to lure Lawson Technologies across the river from Minneapolis is now half empty (they laid of more than 345 employees in 2002).

"You can't run a city like Norm Coleman did and expect that to be sustainable," says Dan McGrath, executive director of Progressive Minnesota. "Norm Coleman might be a wonderful mayor in great economic times, but look at the economic disaster he's left in St. Paul."

I hesitate to give Coleman more ink, but his scattershot mathematics compels me. As does that fact that he's a rising star on the GOP scene--a "giant killer" who took down Walter Mondale. In the past few months, he's made campaign stops--er, official senatorial visits--to Republican fundraisers and conventions in Florida, North Carolina, Nevada, Illinois and Wisconsin. And some say he's on the short list as a VP candidate in the not-so-distant future. Runs chills, doesn't it?