Yoo-hoo, Gov. Snyder: Minnesota is where you should look for an economic model, longtime business columnist Rick Haglund suggests.
He sees the governor's admiration of Indiana, led by a fellow Republican, as misplaced.
Snyder cited Indiana’s decision earlier this year to become a right-to-work state as playing a major role in his own decision to support the divisive legislation in Michigan. . . .
Indiana’s unemployment rate is lower than Michigan’s and job growth in the Hoosier state has outpaced that of the Wolverine state so far this year. But in most measures of economic health -- including per-capita income, poverty rates and educational attainment --Indiana is worse off than Michigan.
So it seems awfully strange that Snyder, a data geek, would pick Indiana as his economic model.
In contrast, Haglund argues, "Minnesota offers a smarter path for achieving those goals."
Yet Minnesota, a non-right-to-work state, is rarely mentioned in Lansing’s policy debates.
We are left to believe that Snyder and his fellow Republicans who control the Legislature have a different agenda that includes weakened labor unions, more corporate power and lower-wage jobs.
