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tim walz
Why Guaranteed Income Is the GOAT
Minnesota's three-year-old Guaranteed Income for Artists pilot program offers a small yet mighty payment that has unlocked creative freedom and opened new opportunities that ripple through our communities.
Nov 21, 2024
If you were driving by a remote stretch of Minnesota County Highway 210—connecting Wahpeton, North Dakota and Fergus Falls—you would see a massive billboard depicting a painting of three goats. It looks out of place—colorful and vibrant on a desolate stretch of highway mostly used by westbound truckers and locals. On the top left-hand corner of the billboard rests a stark reminder to anyone looking up: "In rural we tend to the herd."
My wife and I share a farm with Edith, Willa, and Milagro—our three goats and the willing subjects of the billboard—and 10 laying chickens, two inside dogs, and three outside cats. As a recipient of Minnesota's three-year-old Guaranteed Income for Artists pilot program, I was inspired to create the billboard as a tribute to the state's guaranteed income pilot, which tends to the community and is changing the lives of artists like myself.
Since moving to Otter Tail County in 2017, I've deepened my connection to the land and the rhythms of rural life. I am attuned to the changing of the seasons, and the serene landscape outside my windows becomes inspiration for paintings in my home studio. Living in a rural setting provides the space I need to get into the creative flow. And the quiet, slower pace of life has unlocked the creative freedom to make my large-scale narrative paintings.
As policymakers and community leaders consider implementing guaranteed income programs, I hope they look to Minnesota's example.
But making a living as an artist in rural Minnesota is no easy feat. It often requires having many different income streams to stay on top of student loans, car payments, and grocery bills. So, when I received an email telling me I had been chosen by lottery to participate in a new pilot providing guaranteed income for rural artists, I breathed a sigh of relief.
The program is set to expand, soon providing no-strings-attached $500 monthly payments to 100 artists for five years—far exceeding typical 12-18-month pilots. This growth cements its position as the nation's longest-running guaranteed income pilot focusing on both urban and rural creators. For me and my fellow artists, this small yet mighty payment has unlocked creative freedom and opened new opportunities that ripple through our communities.
As Minnesota finds itself in the national spotlight following Gov. Tim Walz's candidacy for Vice President, our state's innovative approaches to social and economic policy are garnering renewed attention. As of 2024, 10 states have introduced legislation attempting to ban guaranteed income programs. The misplaced fear stems from ideological and economic concerns about the effects of guaranteed income even though more than a dozen studies have shown that it leads to higher employment rates, housing and food security, and more family time.
When artists have the freedom to create and engage, we become catalysts for positive change that benefits entire communities. Take Jess Torgerson, a multidisciplinary artist and community organizer in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. Before the guaranteed income program, Jess was working 60 hours a week. Now, she has partnered with another artist to create sculptures from found materials, simultaneously making art and ridding her community of unwanted waste. Then there's Torri Hanna, a fiber artist. The program helped Torri and her daughter improve their living situation and stabilize her yarn store business. Torri, too, has expanded her community involvement, working with the local senior center to create art for downtown storefront windows.
Recent data from the program shows its remarkable impacts. Participants reported a decrease in financial stress, an increase in their ability to pay for basic needs, and an increase in their ability to take on creative and community projects they wouldn't have otherwise pursued. The success of Minnesota's program is part of a larger movement, with over 100 pilot programs across the United States testing the impact for different groups of people. Programs like the Works Projects Administration coming out of the New Deal made it possible for artists to make a living and beautified our nation's infrastructure. We have a history to look back on in guiding public investments in artists—we already know that investing in artists pays back manifold.
In my community, we understand the value of tending to the herd—and we've all taken an important lesson from Edith, Willa, and Milagro, who sit in formation with their backs to each other so that they can share body heat, and each can observe a different direction to keep an eye out for threats. Our communities are strengthened when we tend to each other with the same dedication. This, to me, is what guaranteed income does for artists. It says, "We've got your back."
As policymakers and community leaders consider implementing guaranteed income programs, I hope they look to Minnesota's example. Include artists in your pilots. Recognize the unique value they bring to your communities. Understand that by supporting artists, you're nurturing the creativity, resilience, and interconnectedness that make our communities thrive. In Minnesota, we know that the strength of the herd depends on how well we tend to each individual. We know our rural parts of the state enable our strong urban centers to thrive. As you consider the future of your own communities, look out for each other. Share your warmth. Face different directions, but always stay close and connected.
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I Want What Minnesota Has for Michigan—Kamala Harris and Tim Walz Are Our Best Shot
I certainly do not agree with Harris and Walz on every issue, but since electing them is one step closer to climate progress, free school lunch, fast trains, and legal weed, I will be voting for them on November 5.
Nov 02, 2024
During my childhood, one consistent theme was bragging to family and friends out of state about Michigan’s lakes, great and small. I remember being horrified when I got to college in Chicago and met a Minnesotan who was equally proud of her lakes and believed they had more lakes and better hockey.
Eventually, I got over the lake contest to focus on protecting freshwater for everyone, but in 2023, I became green with envy for what Minnesota has anew.
Under Gov. Tim Walz, Minnesota passed one of the most impressive legislative packages in the United States, developed by a diverse coalition of climate experts, transit activists, union leaders, and racial justice organizers over years.
When I think of Minnesota today, I think of learning from them about the future we deserve.
I want to achieve what Minnesota signed into law with a one-seat Democratic majority in Michigan—and I believe it’s possible if we elect the Harris-Walz ticket on November 5.
Gov. Walz signed a renewable energy standard into law in Minnesota, even while supporting the best green bank law in the country, with strong labor and environmental justice standards, to implement and maximize the Inflation Reduction Act signed into law by U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. As our air is sullied by Canadian wildfires and our water is threatened by agricultural runoff, Michigan needs stronger standards too.
Thanks to Walz’s leadership, no kid in Minnesota is hungry at school, with free breakfast and lunch guaranteed to students. Some don’t need it and bring their own lunch, but guaranteeing full bellies will keep kids healthy and help them learn. No student in Michigan should be hungry during math class either, and Harris has already put forward policy proposals. That would be an excellent start at reducing food prices.
Minnesota has also passed arguably the best transportation policy in the country, pushed by legislators and advocates for safe streets and celebrated and signed by the governor. This bill would prioritize projects that protect clean air, expand freedom of movement, and reduce traffic too.
Imagine if Michiganders could take a reliable train home from the bar or have the option to take a speedy bus to work if a car was in the shop. We need policies like this that benefit people in Michigan and across the country. Harris was inspired by these efforts and picked Walz in part to invest in clean transportation and safe streets.
Minnesota also legalized marijuana, and under Gov. Walz’s leadership, they didn’t stop there. They created an office to expunge records of people impacted by over-criminalization of weed and provided incentives and benefits for impacted families to get a head start in the legal marijuana business. Our state incarcerates far too many of our neighbors, and many more would be supportive of recreational use and growing the tax base. Vice President Harris has echoed that she would support legalization, and creative public policy work like that in Minnesota is what will be needed to do so in an equitable way in states like ours.
I certainly do not agree with Harris and Walz on every issue, but since electing them is one step closer to climate progress, free school lunch, fast trains, and legal weed, I will be voting for them on November 5.
I still brag about Michigan and Detroit-style pizza to anyone who listens, and I still play pond hockey in February with my siblings when I can. I’m even still riding our Lions’ win over the Vikings to be first in the conference.
But we all deserve healthy kids and safe streets, so when I think of Minnesota today, I think of learning from them about the future we deserve—and I believe it is within reach.
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It's Not Too Late for Democrats to Ditch Cowardice
Harris has learned little from Hillary Clinton’s disastrous loss to Trump in 2016. Bernie Sanders has shown the party what it looks like to champion working-class politics over corporate interests and an imperial foreign policy.
Nov 02, 2024
Over the years, the Democratic Party’s blunders, arrogance and dependence on commercial campaign money and corporate-conflicted political/media consultants have put the two-party duopoly races for the Presidency, the Senate and the House next week into razor-thin elections.
The polls show Democrats in neck-and-neck races with the worst GOP since its creation in 1854. The GOP is led by a delusionary, daily lying, violence-inciting, bigoted, misogynist, serial election denier, convicted felon, and wannabe dictator, Donald Trump, who can’t process information but has openly boasted that he knows more than everybody.
The Party of the Donkey deteriorated years ago and opened the door to unnecessary close cliff-hanger elections. The Dems wrote off nearly half of the country (the red states) to the Republicans. This abandonment included the prairie states (North and South Dakota) and the mountain states that used to have many Democratic Senators. Now they have only three Senators from seven states.
The next Democratic party blunder was not to support the National Popular Vote drive to overcome the Electoral College. (See: nationalpopularvote.com). This is the anachronism that cost the Democrats two presidential losses — one in 2000 and one in 2016 — even though the Democratic presidential candidate handily won the national popular vote.
Third, the Democratic Party decided to robustly compete with the GOP and dial for the same business campaign cash in return for relenting from progressive policies.
Fourth, the Dems lost the gerrymandering drive in 2010 when they were caught napping against a vigorous GOP drive to control key state legislatures like Pennsylvania and get more GOP members in the House of Representatives.
What should the Dems do for the people in the next four days? Bernie Sanders is the most popular elected politician in the country. Why? Because Sanders, two-time presidential candidate, wants social safety net policies that are well received by working families where they live, work, and raise their families. He has urged Kamala Harris to authentically campaign to raise the federal minimum wage frozen at $7.25 per hour to $15 per hour for over 25 million workers, raise Social Security benefits, frozen for over 50 years for over 60 million elderly, and raise taxes on the undertaxed wealthy and big corporations (for a hike supported by 85% of the people.) These three measures also appeal to many self-described conservative voters.
So, what does Harris do? She does not campaign with the popular Bernie. She advertises heavily and campaigns instead with Liz Cheney who supported the war criminals Dick Cheney and G.W. Bush in their criminal invasion and sociocide of Iraq taking over one million innocent Iraqi lives and leaving that country in ruins. Liz Cheney, an avowed Republican opponent of Trump, is also a confirmed corporatist. Forgetting Sanders and heralding Cheney is not the way to turn out low-wage voters who make up a good portion of the expected 85 million eligible non-voters in next Tuesday’s election.
Unable to adjust, the Democratic Party keeps pouring billions of dollars into the same mediocre ads showing Trump to be unfit for office. These repetitive video spots by now have reached diminishing returns, as a vote-getter. Almost everyone has already made up their mind on Trump’s deficiencies.
The ads should shift quickly to overcoming an astonishing amnesia by a majority of voters who think they were better off economically under Trump’s term than under Biden’s. They have forgotten Trump’s closing down any efforts to secure full Medicare for All, enact higher minimum wages, and initiate enforcement efforts against corporate crooks squeezing money from the American people. All the while he was early mocking the oncoming Covid-19 pandemic and calling intense climate catastrophes “a hoax.” His deadly delays regarding Covid led to the preventable loss of some 300,000 American lives and worsened the associated recession. The Democratic Party ads have been largely AWOL on this abysmal record while focusing expensively on Trump personally.
Instead of aligning with worker unions and progressive civic groups working to benefit all people, Harris ogles up to big business bosses, thereby jettisoning media and video opportunities to be with pro-party groups with millions of members.
Harris has learned little from Hillary Clinton’s disastrous loss to Trump in 2016. She continues to be supportive of the U.S. Empire and, despite more dulcet tones, is aligned with Bibi-Biden’s massive weapons and diplomatic engagement with mega-terrorist Netanyahu’s genocide of the Palestinians and now the Lebanese.
She cannot even get herself to propose immediate peace negotiations over the Russian/Ukrainian war bogged down month after month with large casualties on both sides. These stands would separate her a little from Biden which would help identify her as her own person.
Vice President Hubert Humphrey, running for the presidency in 1968, declined to break with President Johnson on the Vietnam War. Analysts believe that cost him in the tight race against Richard Nixon because many Democratic voters stayed home.
There is still time to highlight Bernie Sanders’ protections for the people. There is still time to recognize the millions of midnight shift workers who do not see a candidate and would welcome recognition by Democratic candidates – local, state, and national. (See: winningamerica.net/midnightcampaigning).
There is still time to pledge compliance with six federal laws being violated by unconditional weapons shipments to Israel’s war in Palestine. Backed by majority public opinion, she should strongly DEMAND an immediate ceasefire, entry of U.S. humanitarian aid trucks to the starving, dying innocent people of Gaza, and a cessation of the Palestinian Holocaust by the Israeli regime that has already taken at least 400,000 Palestinian lives, mostly children, women and elderly.
If Harris doesn’t advance these policies, she’ll be telling people that she will just be an extension of the Biden presidency. These actions may not be enough to bring out the stay-at-home voters who in the past had voted for the Democratic candidate, but they have a higher probability than just staying the cursed course.
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