Minnesota Free Market Institute

In a piece entitled, “Minnesota’s economist worries about the future of the state’s sputtering economic engine”, MinnPost.com writer Britt Robson poses this question to Minnesota State Economist Tom Stinson: “Given our finite resources, how much do we have to prioritize what we do, in both the public and private sector?”

“That question, and Stinson’s response are interesting because both talk around the central issue,” notes Minnesota Free Market Institute Senior Policy Fellow Craig Westover.

Stinon’s response, in part, is, “Whether we make those decisions by making explicit changes in what we are doing or implicitly by leaving things as they are, those decisions are going to have a major impact on our future economic output. Everybody has their own opinion as to what is important and what the balance should be. But there needs to be a public discussion, not on the question of taxes versus government spending, but rather on how we distribute the resources we have in a way that best enhances the future as well as the present.”

“Implicit in Stinson’s response is that discussion will lead to action,” says Westover. “The more one leans on the public sector, the more that action will be coerced and the further away that action will be from the immediacy of market forces. Talk about how ‘we’ distribute the resources ‘we’ have easily becomes talk about how ‘we’ distribute the resources ‘you’ have. I would argue the discussion we need is not ‘how we distribute resources,’ but ‘how we redistriute the control of resources awary from experts and put it back in the hands of individuals operating in a free market.’”