We have people who want to be in Minnesota for the good things we have here, and then claim residency in a place with low or no income taxes so they don't have to help pay for it. Rather than negotiating with himself and pre-compromising, I'm glad Dayton offered what he thinks makes sense. The nits I'd pick aren't the same as other people's nits, so I say just pass it as proposed. I'll tolerate some imperfection in a pretty good tax reform.

always have to come from Wall Street? It's like they get their own government department that just happens to affect all of us. Still, could Lew be worse than Geithner?

Why are we mucking around with these tax benefits for commuting? About a third of the stimulus was some form of tax credit or tax cut, which was a waste of a third of the stimulus. Car drivers would have benefited from catching up on road maintenance. Mass transit riders would have been better served by bigger fare subsidies and improving our bus and rail lines. Bike commuters have benefited from nothing so much as designated lanes. Set up more bike racks or open a repair shops in areas...

Crime is down in general, so much so that big cities are hardly more dangerous than anywhere else now, and our crime rates look like other western nations. But our gun crime doesn't. We had about 10,000 gun homicides last year, while Britain had about 60. Those numbers are rough but double Britain's gun homicides while halving ours, and the picture is the same. And Britain is typical of other western countries, not us. The fact is our crime is much more lethal than anyone else's, and it's...