Clean Energy Economy
Getting Minnesota Working Again
Some think we can cut our way to greatness.
Others think we can tax our way to greatness.
I say we must GROW our way to greatness.
We need to get Minnesota working again now, and we need to put our state on a pathway to sustainable economic growth. Right now our state government is crippled by long-term budget problems and is unable to focus on addressing our economic challenges. As tough as times are, we can turn things around with bold leadership, a vision, and the courage and commitment to achieve it.
The foundation of our prosperity has always been education and infrastructure, yet between 2003 and 2011, our real per-pupil spending is projected to decline 13.9 percent, and between 2002 and 2007, our road quality ranking dropped from 8th to 27th nationally. We need a strategy to reverse these trends, and the clean energy economy gives us this opportunity.
Minnesota has the opportunity to be an international leader in clean energy. We have the human capital and natural resources to do it; what we need is a leader who's willing to focus on it. When I'm governor, my administration will focus on clean energy to renew and diversify Minnesota's economy, create jobs and help our entire country move forward.
In Minnesota we spend $10 billion per year on energy - dollars that mostly leave our state, too often going to hostile dictators in the Middle East or South America. We should instead be spending our energy dollars here, on local energy sources that will never run out, and we should invest the profits on world-class schools and innovative 21st century technologies.
President Obama has made a commitment to the clean energy economy, investing billions of dollars in federal funds in jump-starting manufacturing, development of batteries for next-generation vehicles, and upgrading to a smarter, stronger power grid. Minnesota is ideally positioned to capitalize on these investments - again, with the right leadership.
The clean energy economy is characterized by things we have traditionally been good at in Minnesota: innovation, the creation of value-added products and the development of a skilled labor force. We have an abundance of natural, clean energy resources like wind, biomass, solar and geothermal. To not take advantage of the opportunities presented by the clean energy economy would be to cheat our state of future prosperity.
As governor I will:
1. Create tens of thousands of jobs leveraging clean energy sources that never run out, making our state and nation more secure in the process.
2. Reinvest the energy dollars we keep here in our people and our state, with the potential to create many more thousands of additional jobs.
3. Modernize the way we encourage business development.
