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ENEWS: Blueprint Priorities, Health Care for All & Equitable Recovery

Date Published: 12/10/2020

Author: Erin Wilson

Last call for Blastoff registration & prioritizing Blueprint policies! 

Our second and final Minnesota Equity Blueprint Blastoff is happening next Wednesday, Dec. 16 from 12-1 p.m., so make sure to register if you’d like to provide your input for our 2021-22 legislative agenda! This meeting, which will be over Zoom, will build off the priorities ranked during the first Blastoff and create a masterlist of Blueprint priorities. Even if you weren’t able to attend the first Blastoff, you can still attend this one! If you register, we will send you a Google form to fill out asking for your input on the priorities highlighted by attendees in the last session. Take advantage of this opportunity to engage with policy prioritization and give your valuable input! You can find more information and registration here. Check out the executive summary of the Blueprint to see our 2020 priorities, which we will base our upcoming agenda on. 

Top priorities from Dec. 2 Blueprint Blastoff 

If you were unable to attend our first Blueprint Blastoff on Dec. 2, here’s the lowdown on the priorities attendees selected. 

For our Human Capital chapter, the top priorities are: 

  1. Improve access to affordable health care, including a Minnesota Care buy-in and pursuing other pathways to universal coverage.
  2. Improve the economic security of households through successful safety net programs and ensure that pay and benefits for workers provide a route out of poverty.
  3. Increase investments in Cradle to Career educational programs, promoting Career Pathways into technology, trades and entrepreneurship. 
  4. Disrupt the “school to prison pipeline” and keep children out of the juvenile justice system.

For our Economic Development Chapter, the top priorities are: 

  1. Invest in creating greater access to affordable quality child care and improve measurement of children’s program participation and their outcomes.
  2. Increase state bonding bill investments in local placemaking projects, particularly in Greater Minnesota and in communities of color.
  3. Expand access to capital for small business - support community banks.
  4. Issue driver’s license for immigrants.

For our Infrastructure chapter, the top priorities are: 

  1. Expand and increase funding for Broadband partnerships and the Border-to-Border Broadband Development program.
  2. Maintain and preserve existing affordable rental housing while building thousands more homes each year for the next five years to meet demand.
  3. Realign governmental regulations and taxation structures to stimulate the creation of new housing and to permit subsidized housing that includes intergenerational housing and housing that permits former felons to live with their children.
  4. Intensify renewable and high-tech strategies in public transit and road planning.

And finally, for our Environmental Resilience chapter, the top priorities are: 

  1. Set new goals and create action plans for a 100 percent carbon-free power grid by 2050.
  2. Support sustainable land management strategies that promote climate resilience, natural resource protection and a regenerative food economy.
  3. Respect sovereign rights and help protect native lands and waters.
  4. Enact Clean Car standards and provide incentives for electrification of vehicles.

A virtual event to check out 

Health Care for All Minnesota (HCAMN) is hosting an interactive workshop called "Building the Power to Win Health Care for All" tonight from 6:30-8 p.m. Dan Engelhart, a professional labor organizer, will lead the workshop. You will be able to learn “strategies for organizing and growing our base to build power.” Register here!

What we’re reading this week

Check out this new brief from The Aspen Institute titled “Equitable Recovery and Resilience in Rural America,” written by Brian Dabson. It analyzes COVID-19’s impact on rural communities in the U.S. and the deepened disparities within them, as well as the ways the pandemic has made opportunities for structural change more visible. The analysis touches on several important “fault lines and impacts” of COVID-19 within rural America, such as racial inequity, broadband, and small businesses and entrepreneurship, and proposes both “short-term strategic” actions and “longer-term transformative proposals.”

Quote: 

“Rural America is a special place – or more accurately a mosaic of many special places – where connection to the land is the defining characteristic, reinforced by history, culture and lived experiences. Equity in a rural context is complicated – in its relationship with urban and suburban America, in terms of who owns and controls the land and its resources, and in the very present legacies of broken promises to Native peoples and of slavery and discrimination. Yet, it still is a place of both majestic and intimate landscapes, of resilient and resourceful people and communities, and a vital part of the United States, past, present and future.” — Brian Dabson, “Equitable Recovery and Resilience in Rural America”

Posted in:
Economic Development · Economic Justice · Environment · Government · Greater Minnesota · Rural Equity · Health Care · Political Divide · Social Justice · Racial Equity · E-News · By Growth & Justice

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