Don't Forget the Future

Yes, I know the legislative session is practically half over, and yes, I know the governor and the legislature are agonizing over how to most effectively and fairly address the budget problems facing us during the two years ahead. There are no easy answers, and there are no solutions that won’t hurt some voting constituency or some citizens who feel they’re being unfairly treated. It’s not a happy situation, and I pray that those in charge will be able to summon up both the objectivity and the wisdom to move us forward.

What frustrates me terribly is that the economic situation is so demanding that it will inevitably reduce the amount of time and creative effort that can be devoted to other challenges that face us, not just in the coming biennium, but in the decades ahead. Long-range planning always seems to get shortchanged, even in “normal” years. But when the budget problems are as dramatic as they currently are, they just gobble up all the available time. Long-term thinking takes not only the back seat, but the rumble seat.

Long-term, strategic planning almost always seems to take the rumble seat because current problems, current pressures, current constituents invariably eat up today’s hours and today’s dollars, and while many acknowledge the fact the “something has to be done about that” (whatever “that” is), it too often just doesn’t get done.

So maybe it’s time to ask all the existing state commissioners and department heads to slide over on the bench and make room for a new Commissioner of Long-Range Planning. This individual, the CLRP, would be charged with peering into the future, seeking input from experts in all disciplines, and then developing ideas and scenarios to strengthen the state in the decades ahead.

If I were that commissioner, in addition to technical experts, I would bring in people who could look at future trends and come up with out-of-the-box ideas. I’d want Minnesota’s equivalent of Steve Jobs on the team, or people like Michael Francis and Jon Olson and Thom Sandberg.

We’d look at population trends and demographic and psychographic and climate patterns. We’d gather all available studies on the future development of automobiles, trains, and other forms of transportation; on economic trends; on education and health care and cultural directions; on media and recreational and shopping patterns; and lots of other categories, starting with technology. Then we’d explore ways of combining disciplines, and how anticipated developments in one field might open previously unthought-of opportunities in another.