Mark Dayton's Economic Minnesota Miracle

For the past couple years I've had the occasional brainwashed Minnesota leftist automaton regurgitate cud it received, pre-chewed by the Minnesota democrat party and say,

"Oh yeah!!! But what about Mark Dayton's economic miracle!!!!????  About how he taxed the rich and now Minnesota is the fastest growing state in the nation?  Huh?  What about that!!??? Huh huh???"

I'm old and experienced enough to ignore this because 100% of the time...

not 97%
not 98%
not 99%

but ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the time when I hear anything coming from the left it is either an outright lie or it is a half-truth making the entire statement a lie.  Combine this with the fact no leftists (and not that many rightists either) care about empiricism or proof, I don't bother wasting my breath trying to argue, and just let the naive fool continue on his/her doomed leftist career path of non-profit work, academia, panhandling, or slinging Uptown coffee.

But when I heard it the fourth time, it was getting annoying.  And so to have the data very handy I decided to look up this "economic miracle" and see for myself just what a great job Mark Dayton (and not the hard working people of Minnesota) did to get this economy booming.  And true to form, you find out the left's claim of an economic miracle here in Minnesota, just isn't true.

Right off the bat there is no "miracle" happening here in Minnesota.  If you look at GDP figures of Minnesota vs. the United States, we averaged a whopping 1/10th of 1% more than the nation since Mark Dayton has been governor.  This right here is not a "miracle."  It's a rounding error.  Minnesota's economic growth has been IDENTICAL to the nation's.

Of course, then the left immediately cites unemployment as success of Dayton's trust-fund baby socialism, pointing out Minnesota's unemployment rate is much lower than the country's.  This is true, but has always been true.  Minnesota has always had a lower unemployment rate than the nation.  Chalk it up to sociological factors of its people, not the governor:

About the only thing approaching "miracle" status is that of the government budget, which went from deficit to surplus under Dayton's reign.  This is hardly shocking that the left would point to a growing state as "success" since they largely parasitically depend on it for their survival, but state finances are NOT the economy.  Furthermore, this was the trend NATION WIDE.  All states went through the worst recession in 2006-2010, most of their budgets went into deficit, and when the economy (sort of) rebounded, they went into surplus.  About the only thing Dayton did was his same ole same ole Trust Fund Baby Socialism or "tax the rich" which may have begotten a healthier surplus than most, but at the expense of driving long term capital and investment away (um for those leftists reading this, "capital" and "investment" means companies who provide jobs).

In short, I would like to say that I am writing a biased or political piece.  I would like to say I have a personal hatred for Dayton (which I do).  But I don't have to.  An empirical and intellectually honest assessment of Minnesota's economic performance will plainly show there is no booming economy here, let alone a "miracle."  It's simply a lie that should be a text book case study for any student interested in studying political propaganda.