American Experiment Podcast
Why are so many Minnesota high school graduates unable to read or do math at grade level? Does Tim Walz actually think he's going to be the next president of the United States? And why does he keep swearing so much?
These are the kinds of hard-hitting questions we get into every week on the American Experiment Podcast, where we unpack the week's biggest stories, interview Minnesota's movers and shakers, and "stop the tape" on clips of our state's most ridiculous elected officials.
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American Experiment Podcast
Episode 133 - Bathhouses, Dog Parks, and CHAOS: Inside Minneapolis' BROKEN Priorities
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What happens when the "No Dog is Illegal" crowd battles the "Stolen Land" crowd?? Grab your popcorn...
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Minneapolis is struggling while leaders focus on bathhouses and dog parks, the state’s Clemency Review Commission seems a little too eager to let convicted killers walk free, and the Social Security fund is finally about to run out of money (here’s how Minnesotans will be affected). Later, economist Martha Njolomole shares how our state’s policymakers could actually address the affordability crisis in housing and childcare.
QOTW: Do you think the dog park should be shut down or not?!
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Welcome back to the American Experiment Podcast. Catherine, what do we have on the docket today? Well, this week we're gonna walk you through how Minneapolis is struggling while their leadership focuses on bathhouses and dog parks. Then we'll take a look at Minnesota's Clemency Review Commission that seems to be a little too interested in letting convicted killers walk free. Finally, a new report found that Social Security will run out of money in six years. How will Minnesota be affected? On the back half, we're talking to Martha Jolamoli about a new report on the affordability crisis for families in Minnesota.
SPEAKER_05Let's dive in. If this is your first time joining us, welcome. Things are pretty crazy here in Minnesota, and we try to bring you a more sane perspective and take on things. As always, I'm Grace Keating here with Catherine Johnson.
SPEAKER_06And we have another audience question for you guys this week. And it might not make sense yet, but it will once we get to our first story. So the question is: are you pro or against the mini haha dog park? Okay, you might know what we're talking about, but if you don't, we're gonna talk about it soon. It's really a difficult choice, okay? I gotta tell you. I've been looking into it and I don't like anyone involved, I have to say. I think both sides are deeply flawed. So uh we'll get into that, but leave a comment on our YouTube page in particular if you would. Um it helps people find us there.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, the comment section last week really popped off. We were talking about the whole Walls Ellison fraud report. Uh, loved hearing your guys' thoughts on that. That was pretty crazy. So I am very interested to see where you land on this dog park issue. Uh, we also did just want to know, you know, there were these 15 arrests of uh Antifa members who were in Minnesota protesting. That happened last week. We're gonna dive, I think, deeper into those charges and what these Antifa members were actually accused of. That's all I'm gonna say for now. Uh, so stay tuned for that. Make sure you're subscribed, notifications are turned on, all those things so you don't miss that breakdown.
SPEAKER_06And if you are watching this podcast versus just listening, maybe you're on YouTube or Spotify, you might notice that Grace and I are color coordinated today. In fact, we match our new set to a T. Um, Grace, did we plan this? No, we did not. No, we did not. We just happened to think so simpatico. Is that the word? That we are just on the same wavelength and we completely match with our set. So maybe tune in to YouTube if you do want to check out how kind of absurd we look today because we are twinning. Okay. Uh let's get into the first story, which starts when news broke last week of the continued dramatic decrease in downtown Minneapolis commercial building values. City Council member Michael Rainville, who he's actually kind of one of the few reasonable people on the Minneapolis City Council, he reported to KSTP that this sector of real estate has dropped in value by 45% in just the last five years, which is obviously crazy.
SPEAKER_05Oh my gosh, which is crazy because it's so easy to point at that and say, oh, well, COVID killed, you know, economic activity. But other cities are recovering. So Minneapolis cannot use that excuse anymore.
SPEAKER_06Well, and it's the decline seems to be accelerating. Despite six years having passed since the economic downturn from COVID, like you said, city data indicates the five highest-valued buildings downtown saw a 20% drop in value in just the past year. Earlier reporting of this trend was met with a very uh amusing and dismissive response by a city spokesperson when asked about the impact of this declining tax base on Minneapolis homeowners, because that is, of course, um one of the biggest effects is if commercial, if companies, corporations, and commercial real estate, if they're not paying the taxes, someone has to cover that. And so that then goes um over to the homeowners. Well, that Minneapolis spokesperson said, quote, when one says that declining market values mean homeowners will pay more, it can be misleading because it implies a direct automatic shift, which is not how the system works. Well, that response did not age well, given recent reports that the percentage of property taxes that Minneapolis homeowners are now responsible for has increased by 6.2% since 2021 and is now approaching 56%.
SPEAKER_05Right. It might not literally be like an automatic, you know, lever system shifting. And at the same time, it kind of is, because that money has to come from somewhere, and it happened exactly the way we said it would.
SPEAKER_06And not to mention the city is facing a $30 million budget deficit going into 2027, so I can't imagine it's going to get better. So, what is our Minneapolis City Council doing to address this worsening crisis? You might wonder. I mean, affordability is kind of um the word of the day. People are struggling to get by, especially in our in our middle class families across the state. Uh we're talking about it a lot here at American Experiment. And on the back half of this episode, we're gonna interview Martha Golamoli about specifically um housing and childcare and the things that really matter to families. So you would think the the city council would be doing something about this, right? Well, sort of. Here's what they are doing. They continue to take steps to legalize bathhouses, catering to anonymous gay steps. Sex excuse me, anonymous gay sex. I didn't want to get myself quoted there, you know, so I had to misspeak a little. Um, okay. They entered into a $1.4 million contract with a firm to provide coaching and counseling between council members and Mayor Fry's office.
SPEAKER_05Oh boy.
SPEAKER_06For executive coaching and mediation to improve teamwork. Oh God. Because they're fighting so much. They need to pay a firm $1.4 million so that they can get along. The city council is also continuing to reduce main roadways like Hennepin Avenue to one lane in each direction and eliminating parking to enhance bike and mass transit access.
SPEAKER_05That should be great for businesses, right? Yeah, that's really great for economic activity.
SPEAKER_06It like look at Uptown. It's done a huge number on Uptown and the businesses there. I mean, Uptown is struggling, and yet they continue to do this all over the city. They think this is just a great idea to get rid of parking.
SPEAKER_05Parking. They want to make it more and more difficult for people to access the businesses that are helping fund all of the city's nonsense. It's absurd.
SPEAKER_06They've also opposed multiple plans to rebuild the burned-out Third Precinct police station. They've spent time and resources on proclamations and resolutions denouncing all kinds of federal policies, including, for example, on Cuba, Gaza, or ICE enforcement. Thank you for your input. Minneapolis City Council. Totally. Totally. Uh they opposed ordinances uh on enforcement of livability issues, such as loitering, begging, spitting on sidewalks, possessing drug paraphernalia, and what they call urban camping.
SPEAKER_05Wait, so they stopped people from passing rules against those things? Correct. They're pro-loitering, they're pro-pro-drug paraphernalia. Again, great for economic activity. This is really gonna make Minneapolis like a thriving hub that people with children want to visit and spend their money in.
SPEAKER_06Well, just wait, we've got one more. Last but not least, they hosted the first ever transgender drag show in Minneapolis City Hall to honor Pride Month in 2026.
SPEAKER_05Thank goodness. Am I wrong? Wasn't this the first drag show held in a city hall anywhere in the country? I think that they were like trendsetters.
SPEAKER_06Wow, glass ceiling breakers. Yes. Incredible. Thank you for your work, Minneapolis City Council. Good frickin' grief. All right, David Zimmer summed it up on our website like this: When the city's leaders are mired in high-profile infighting and symbolic social activism, they lose the ability to focus on the issues that matter. Providing for public safety, establishing a business-friendly environment, and ultimately enhancing the tax base.
SPEAKER_05And that's that's the problem, isn't it? Is you've got a city that's struggling and they're working on issues that, I mean, even under like perfect utopian conditions, I would still think the stuff that the city council is doing is absurd and should not be pushed. But they're doing it while they're facing this huge economic downturn. Homeowners are paying way too high property taxes. You know, the city is just struggling. You know, a precarious state showed this so well, and I think really broke through to a lot of people. You got a $30 million deficit that they're facing, and it's like they don't want to talk about any of that. They just want to keep adding more bike lanes and bathhouses. Yeah, bathhouses, drug paraphernalia, apparently, and uh hope no one notices, maybe.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, exactly. Well, the city council isn't the only elected board in Minneapolis that's experiencing some drama. The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board has been navigating a heated debate over an off-leash dog park that culminated in a vote last week. The Minnehaha off-leash dog park has been in existence for over 34 years. Apparently, it's really lovely. It has water and is well maintained. Everyone loves it. It's big, too, I guess. It's like over six acres, I think. But in recent years, activists have argued that this site is sacred to the Dakota people and was once actually a burial site. So, to sort out this disagreement, last year the park board commissioned a $16,000 archaeological assessment of the dog park land. Good use of funds. Staff has denied to release the report in full, saying everything in the report was too sensitive for public consumption. There's no way that's true.
SPEAKER_05They found nothing in that report. And Paulana, right now there are nobodies there. Why else would they release the files?
SPEAKER_06Why else would they not release it? Well, Grace, eventually they released a non-confidential version that, according to the Star Tribune, stated that while burial sites are not confirmed, the area could contain unknown archaeological resources. So they learned nothing.
SPEAKER_05They spent $16,000 and ended up with, we couldn't find anything, but there might be some stuff there.
SPEAKER_06Some unknown archaeological resources. What, like fossils?
SPEAKER_05So no bodies is what I'm hearing. I seriously, this might, I hope this doesn't come across as insensitive, but this is absurd. We just came off talking about how this city has a $30 million deficit. They literally spent $16,000 and learned nothing.
SPEAKER_06And again, this dog park has been there for over 30 years. People have been taking their dogs there for over 30 years. Well, since that report, the board has been taking input from the public, and I figured we might as well hear from those who are most passionate and went to the recent board meeting to advocate for their positions. So let's start with one of the pro dog park advocates. She's really a leader here. You'll see her holding up a sign in the background later that actually says coexist, and it features both a dog paw print and a teepee. Well, that's nice. I feel like that's where I land. I feel like we can all the dog's a coexistor. Yeah, we can all just get along. All right, well, let's hear from her. Let's hear her point of view.
SPEAKER_04Good afternoon. My name is Jody Wynan. I live at 16 Thomas Avenue South in Minneapolis, and I have been part of the Minnehaha Dog Park community for 15 years. The Minne Haha Off-Leash Recreation Area is currently the only place in Minneapolis where it is legal for dogs to swim, and that if this dog is park is decommissioned, dogs will functionally be banned from swimming within the city. The summers are getting hotter, and dogs need access to water. Water is life, and they have a right to it just as much as we do. The lakes aren't an option because of the seasonal algae blooms. There isn't any readily available land with river access in the city to turn into an alternative dog park. Mini haha is all that we have. It's the only place left. Coldwater Springs and Pike Island are both nearby and are already established as tradition traditional cultural spaces with protected prayer space. The dogs only have mini haha. We, the off-leash permit-holding long-term users of the dog park, would not be in this crisis if the park board had gone through with its normal procedures of public engagement and planning. The land is not incompatible for us to coexist. I strongly encourage that you all adopt a Ben A's amendment. Thank you, Jody.
SPEAKER_05Stop the tape, stop the tape. That is so fascinating. So she is she kind of saying that the park didn't go through its normal like public feedback period where they could have talked about this?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, so basically they've rushed this whole thing and they have not heard from a lot of people and immediately just listened to a couple of really loud activists and decided, okay, we're just gonna keep moving along with this full steam head. And so what a lot of the pro-dog park people are most upset about is they don't feel like they've been heard and they don't feel like there was any chance to like come to some sort of solution in the middle. Sure. Right? So I think that's the main thing. But you can tell, you know, emotions are high.
SPEAKER_05I did get that sense from that video. That woman, yes, is upset. She's very upset. She needs a place to bring her dog, and water is life. Yeah. So yeah, she started losing me there a little bit. A little bit. I get that water's important. The water is life, though. It had me go, oh, okay.
SPEAKER_06Uh okay. Well, uh, another defender, another park defender told the Star Tribune, it's a place I go to kind of process and engage with nature. When I lost my dad, the ice surge, whatever it is in the world around us.
SPEAKER_05Okay. Now c now correct me if I'm wrong here. So so the dog, the dog part, like like what is what are they speaking out against? What's on the table here? Is the dog park gonna like get bulldozed? Is it gonna be like off limits to everyone? Like, if if the anti-dog park people get their way, is there not gonna be a park for this person to go to anymore? Crazy. Just wait.
SPEAKER_06You're asking about too many questions. We will get there because they have come to somewhat of a solution. Okay. Maybe. Good for them. Um, but it's a good, it's a great question.
SPEAKER_05Like, what are we gonna do with this space? Because she certainly makes it sound like if this goes ahead, you know, I won't have a place. Which is also kind of crazy. I get that it's been around for a really long time. People have been coming here for years, but like Minneapolis, I'd say one of the few things it's got going for it. It is it has so many parks. It has so many parks. Now, are there drug paraphernalia and homeless encampments in the parks? That's another matter.
SPEAKER_06The offering people are very passionate about the being able to let your dogs run around off your leash.
SPEAKER_05Yes. Yes.
SPEAKER_06So I think we should also hear out the anti-park folks. So we got two of them speaking in this clip here. Let's go ahead and roll that.
SPEAKER_03Um, we all know what's gonna happen. This park is gonna be closed. Um it's gonna happen. And um, I just don't know why it's not closed today. You already know the harms that it's been doing. You already told what's been going on. And to all you all, imagine that area before the white man, before the pilgrims, pioneers, and settlers. The extreme white Christian terrorists.
SPEAKER_05Stop the tape. Stop the tape, stop the tape. Sorry, just so the extreme white Christian terrorists is what he said there, if you didn't catch that.
SPEAKER_06Imagine this area before the extreme white Christian terrorists. It's that's a good thought experiment. Imagine the area.
SPEAKER_05It's pretty funny because I mean it must be pretty close to what it was, to what it is today. This is we're talking about a park here. We're not talking about like an apartment complex or like a like roads or anything. Like we're talking about a dog park here. And he says, let us go back and remember what this was like basically pre, you know, pre-settlers, pre-colonization. I'm thinking it's gonna it's gonna look pretty similar. It's gonna be very nature heavy, is that vision.
SPEAKER_06That's such a good point. And the dogs can even roam free. Which wouldn't you have thought animals roaming? Would have been part of that back in the day.
SPEAKER_05I'm not getting why he's I'm not yet clear on why he's so upset about this. Well, well, let's hear, let's keep going. Okay.
SPEAKER_03Imagine what the Dakota we're going through. Beautiful. And then they hit turned it into a concentration camp. Not quite. And uh you think of uh uh Ergen Bels and Auschwitz and Birkenau.
SPEAKER_06Is he name a concentration camp? Yes, he is named Auschwitz, not the same name.
SPEAKER_01So I did have an experience down here and I didn't like it. So, like I said, have some freaking respect. Because dogs are sacred to us. They are.
SPEAKER_06Oh, now she's storming around yelling.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, if you're listening on audio only, she's just kind of walking around the room pointing at people.
SPEAKER_06She seems to have brought the whole thing to a halt. A man with a black lives batter fist on his back wants to speak.
SPEAKER_05And he can only imagine what he's gonna say. I'm just getting such such crazy mixed messages from these speakers. Like dogs are sacred, but we want to shut down the dog park. And then also, let's go back to pre-settlers landscapes. We hear you, but then we want to shut down the park.
SPEAKER_06Well, let's stop the tape on this nonsense. I will add one other quote from a community organizer who spoke actually at a previous meeting. Um, she pointed out that dogs are spiritual beings and can absorb prayers that were intended for a native soul. And so that's kind of why she is displeased with the dog park. So, like, I guess the prayers could get diverted to the dog instead of the native that was supposedly buried there.
SPEAKER_05Okay, but then but then see, now we're getting to the point of like, can any person be? Can any soul be there, right? So if you've got this space and we don't want prayers getting diverted away from the, you know, people that are buried there, um, this is sounding like a no-go zone. No dogs, no people, no one can Am I he am I hearing this right? Well, I I kind of think maybe the same thing. Like, what do we just keep keep this whole place flocked off and no one can ever enter it again? Yeah, right, right, right. Well that's when again they paid for this $16,000 like archaeological survey and didn't find anything. I keep coming back to that in my head. They didn't find anything here. Right. They did not find anything.
SPEAKER_06Um, and and in the end, however, given all of this feedback and the fact that they did not actually find anyone buried here, only possibly some fossils. Um, the board voted eight to one to move forward with getting rid of the dog park. Oh my god. So they are gonna get rid of the dog park, but here is the kicker. Dogs will actually still be allowed in the park, but they just have to be kept on a leash. So I guess starting December 31st, this is the deal. Like, there's no off-leash dog park, but you can go with your dog on a leash because apparently then the dog on the leash doesn't suck up the prayers of the whatever.
SPEAKER_05Well, that guy's that one speaker's confidence, I guess, really paid off. He walked into that room and he was like, we all know how this is gonna end, the park's getting shut down. And at the time I was like, Well, you're jumping the gun quite a bit, and I I eat my words now, he was right. I don't really know how each of these pro dog park people are gonna feel about that solution because I I'm see, yeah, I'm sensing some discrepancies in what they wanted versus so now it's just a park. Now it's just a park. Now it's just a park. I don't really see how because again, if it if it's if it's an issue of this is, you know, a sacred burial site, I would assume you would then say, no one's gonna come here, we're not gonna have any, you know, park activities here, no dogs running around. And we're still gonna we're still gonna have that. So this feels like sort of a mixed bag.
SPEAKER_06Other activists within actually the native community have said they don't agree with some of these louder voices that have been anti-dog park. They've said, you know, look, it exactly what you said, Grace, it seems like an off-leash dog park is um not really disrespecting the way the land used to be used. Right. Um, but those are not the voices that were listened to. The ones that were listened to were the loudest and the wokest and the most insane, if I may say, as so often is the case in places like Minneapolis, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_05Well, rest in peace, the Mini Yaha off-leash dog park.
SPEAKER_06Enjoy your last couple months out there, everyone. You might have to take a journey, a pilgrimage, if you will.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_05Moving right along. Uh, we are gonna take a quick look at Minnesota's new clemency review commission. Um, this was created back in 2023, which ding ding-ding, if you remember, was the off the cliff DFL trifecta sessions. The jar ready. Yes, alarm bells should be going off for those astute listeners. Now, the commission's role is to review applications for clemency from convicted individuals and then make recommendations to the Minnesota Board of Pardons. Now, we're gonna throw some definitions at you guys before we get in too deep here, because it is important to be sort of precise with these terms. Clemency, according to this review board's website, is any act of mercy or compassion shown towards someone who has committed a crime. The most common types of clemency in Minnesota are pardons and commutations. A pardon is for people whose sentences are complete and are no longer active, and a commutation is for people that are still serving part of their sentence. Okay, pardons, commutations.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, commutations is the one I always find kind of wild because like they've gone through the system that we all have agreed to, and then someone somewhere decides, eh, you're good actually. I I don't go along with what the jury and the judge decided, and I think often it's a panel of a couple people, we think you should just be done, which I find kind of crazy.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's really interesting. So pardons basically happen, you know, once your session or uh, excuse me, sentence has already been served, commutation can alter a sentence, making it less severe. Uh worth noting, by the way, if a commutation is denied, an applicant must wait five years before reapplying. So you've got this clemency reward commission, clemency review commission that's reviewing all of these cases, and then they pass long recommendations to the Board of Pardons. Who sits on the Board of Pardons, you ask? Well, the Attorney General, Keith Ellison, the Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, Hudson, and the governor, Tim Walls. So Not like an all-star assembly, I would say, in terms of making sure justice is right, appropriately meted out.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, when I think of justice, I'm not sure that's who I'd go to.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Yeah. Uh so then from there, each board member, right, so Walls, Allison, and Hudson, they choose three members each to sit on the Clemency Review Commission. So they're deciding who is reviewing these cases. So, of course, given the current makeup of the Board of Pardons, the Commission is decidedly more progressive. These members predominantly hold social justice advocacy positions. Now, the commission's still pretty new. It started operation July 1st, 2024. And we're just gonna run through some stats, and then I'm gonna give you the context and I'm gonna leave it at that. Here's some stats. Second half of 2024, the commission received over 200 pardon requests and 78 commutation requests. It held hearings on 67 of the pardon requests and 11 of the commutation requests. They granted pardons in 91% of those cases and commutations in 27% of those cases. So that was the commission's work. Now the Board of Pardons responded by granting 100% of the pardons and commutations that the commission recommended. So these recommendations carry serious, serious weight. Now that was only six months. They weren't in operation the full year. In 2025, last year, their full year in operation, the commission uh received over 300 pardon requests and almost 100 commutation requests. They held hearings on on most of them, a majority, and they granted pardons in 88% of the cases that they heard and commutations in 53% of the cases that they heard. Now the Board of Pardons was a little bit more, you know, discerning this time around. Again, that's Walls, Ellis, and Hudson. They granted 95% of the pardon requests and 90% of the commutation requests. So, you know, we're not at 100%. That's good.
SPEAKER_06Interesting. Okay, but like I it's hard for me to understand like what were they doing before this board existed? Were people getting these commutations and pardons at all, or no? Right, exactly.
SPEAKER_05So before, you know, because the board of pardons has always or has existed for quite a while longer. Um the Board of Pardons, for reference, did not grant a single commutation in the 10 years between 1992 and 2001. And more recently, yeah, so 10 years, 92 to 2001, no commutations. Okay. And then in 2021, the board granted one commutation out of 93 applications. Oh, okay. So you now granting There's been like hundreds in the last couple years, hundreds of pardons, and I think dozens of commutations.
SPEAKER_06Okay. Not great. That does add some context.
SPEAKER_05Yes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Because it is a big deal to have like a commutation of someone's sentence. Like I was saying, I'm always distrustful of that because it seems like what could possibly have changed. If there's like some huge new evidence or something, I don't even know if that would be a commutation. I think that would be more of an appeal situation. I don't know. I'm not lawyer. But okay, that's a situation I can see where, you know, there's maybe something needs to be done, but the vast majority of the time they went through the system, let the system's results stand. Right, exactly.
SPEAKER_05So one of the cases that this commission had voted to or had voted for uh commutation, they were gonna approve this guy's, you know, request. Uh that case was Adrian Riley's, who was convicted of convic of killing three people in 1995, received three consecutive life sentences for those murders, exhausted all appeals up through the Minnesota Supreme Court, and has refused to ever accept responsibility for the murders. The commission wanted to commute his sentence. What?
SPEAKER_06Why? Was there like new evidence or something? Not that I'm aware of.
SPEAKER_05Okay. Well. Now, this, I will say, happily, the Board of Pardons, good ruling here. They did not side with the commission on that one. All right. This guy is still serving his time, but oh my gosh, this commission has to be watched so carefully moving forward. They've only been in operation for two years now-ish. We should be getting new data by in the next month or so on what they've been up to in the first six months of 2026. Um but if this if this is the kind of guy that they're voting to, you know, release early, basically, uh, we've got to watch this commission very closely.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, we talk about this a lot on the podcast, but for some reason it seems like the left is only concerned about criminals and making sure criminals get to walk free instead of the innocent people, especially in places like Minneapolis and the metro areas that are suffering under out-of-control and rising crime.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, exactly. Now, the last story we wanted to share with you guys is uh something that even I've experienced, you know, I'm younger, but for years I've been hearing about how Social Security is gonna run out of money very, very soon. You know, we're not gonna have anything to retire on. Is that finally coming true, Catherine? That's the big question. John Phelan was writing, oh, and we should say that entire story that we just heard, that was all from David Zimmer at AmericaneExperiment.org. He's tracking, of course, what this commission is doing very, very closely, so you can read way more of his work there. Now, John Phelan, one of our two economists here at American Experiment, was reporting on this Social Security situation. The Social Security Board of Trustees released its annual report last week on the financial status of the Social Security Trust funds. Now, Social Security, what we have in the US, this is a pay as you go system, which is also called pay-go. Crucial. Yes, very, very important to note. So payments made into the scheme today fund the payments made out of the scheme today, right? So there's no like pot of money that's accruing. You know, I'm paying into the social security system now, I'm gonna have money waiting for me when I retire years and years from now. That's not how it works. What I'm paying today is getting spent today as well. Now, when the total payments into the system are greater than the total payments taken out of the system, this works really, really well. And if payments in exceed payments out, we start to accrue extra money, and that's how you end up with a trust fund like we've had for years and years and years and years. That's great. Now, since 2021, so for about five years now, payments out have exceeded payments in. So we're taking more out than we're currently putting in, which means that the trust fund has been dipped into to cover that gap. And of course, as of right now, the trust fund reserves are projected to be completely depleted by, I believe, the fourth quarter of 2032. That's pretty soon. That's pretty soon. That was my thought as well. Yeah. Six years away? Yeah. Now, as the law currently stands, when that point is reached, there will be an automatic reduction in monthly payments to recipients estimated at around 20 to 24%. So, like, you know, a quarter or fifth. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a committee I can get behind, estimated that in Minnesota, more than one million people, that's 18% of our state's population, will see their payments cut by an average of $530 every month. That represents a total hit of $6.3 billion, or over 1% of our state's economy. Insane. Again, this is just six years away.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_05This is like looming. Now, in a pay-go system like this, your contribution to your own retirement, again, is not the money that you're putting in today. It is literally the children and grandchildren that you have that will pay into this system who will then finance your retirement in this social security system. And that's a problem when one generation ends up having fewer children than all of the other generations. And this whole situation was predicted back in 1978 by an economist named Paul Samuelson. He said, There is no obligation for this generation to have children at the same rate as did previous generations. Therefore, when those born during the baby boom period of the 50s reach retirement age in the next century, their stipends will be felt as more of a burden by the thinner ranks of the then working population. Hello, that's us. Yes, we're getting hit with this. Oh man. And of course, all of those predictions came true. The fertility rate fell from 3.7 births per woman in 1960 to 2.1 in 2008, and I'm sure it's around there or lower even today. Fewer women, I feel like, are having kids than ever. John Phelan said at AmericaneExperiment.org, boomers, to put it bluntly, did not have the children needed to finance their retirements. So we can't say we weren't warned. You know, this economist was warning about this back in 1978. So of course the question on my mind is, you know, how are we gonna solve this and why have we waited until now to address it?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, really, I see a lot of discourse about this on X too, about um this the whole scam that is Social Security and also some criticisms of um, especially people in the boomer generation who have um surveys have found been giving less money than previous generations ever before to their children. And I think young people are really feeling the effects of this, of extremely high taxes, of um having to pay for these huge welfare state that we have now. Um I think it's really hurting young people, and it's part of what is making young people so um kind of depressed or down and and sad about about their place in life, you know. People see we've we've had this polling here at American experiment. Young people think, you know, they're they're not going to be well off in America now. And it's partially because of things like this. So it's a huge bummer and it's a situation where I don't understand the way out. Like, how do we get ourselves out of this mess? I don't know. It sucks that we were ever put here.
SPEAKER_05It's interesting too because you've got this political dynamic of, you know, politicians and elected officials until now have been able to sort of kick the can down the road, like literally for decades and decades and decades. And now the senators elected this November, this coming November, will be in office when the trust fund run runs out in 2032. So it's gonna be sitting on their backs. And so I don't know, maybe something will finally get done about it.
SPEAKER_06But here's the other thing is the largest voting block is boomers. And so when you have the largest voting block that's obviously going to want to defend their interests, which is keeping up their social security payments, versus the younger generations, which are a smaller voting block, they are maybe not going to want to do that, but have a lot less power. Well, then what wins out? And it's the money coming out of those younger generations' pockets. So it puts you in a situation that seems kind of unfair.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's uh I'm sure John Feelon will keep writing about this at americanexperiment.org and we'll probably keep talking about it because this issue is not going anywhere anytime soon. Yeah, absolutely. Now, on that happy note, we're gonna sit down with American Experiment economist Martha and Joel Moley to talk about how we can possibly uh bring some level of affordability back into areas like childcare and housing. Stick with us. American Experiment is supported by thousands of individuals like you. To join the movement, go to www.americanexperiment.org and click the yellow donate button. From all of us here, thank you. We are so happy to welcome to the show today one of our two economists here at American Experiment, Martha and Jola Mole, who is also one of the co-authors on our new affordability agenda report. Welcome to the show, Martha. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to talk about this. Obviously, affordability is one of the, I think, biggest political buzzwords that have has come up, you know, in the last uh year or so. I think it's gonna be a big issue as we head into the election later this year. And uh, we've been talking about it at American Experiment for quite a while. Even last December, we had done as part of our, you know, Thinking Minnesota magazine poll um how Minnesotans are feeling about the economy and their own personal finances. And, you know, we found that almost half of Minnesota's young men and 55% of our young women are struggling to make ends meet financially. And I think two of the biggest, you know, areas of concern for young people are, of course, housing for first-time home buyers and then childcare as they start to have kids.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, and you mentioned uh the current elections. Uh Governor candidate Amy Klobuchar, one of the first things she did was release a housing affordability plan, which I thought was interesting. Clearly, people on all sides are seeing that this is an issue that people, especially young people, care about is housing and then also childcare. We see, you know, young people struggling to make ends meet, and childcare is one of the things that takes up the majority of their budget. It's crazy. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it it's interesting. These have been long-standing issues. Uh, and part of the reason is that even though both housing and childcare are expensive nationwide, they are especially the more expensive here in Minnesota. We have uh much more acute issues with both of these. So I'll just give some examples. We have this data in the report. Uh, for instance, if you're trying to buy a house in the Twin Cities region, the median home price in 2024 was around $440,000. That's the most expensive among the top 10 largest Midwest metros. Oh, and that was 2024. That was 2024. So now it's it could be a little bit higher. Uh when you account for high incomes, we we do tend to have high incomes over here. We dropped down a beat to like number four, but still we are more expensive than Chicago, uh, which is you know the largest metro in the Midwest.
SPEAKER_06Well, I saw I pulled something from the report that I thought was crazy. A new home in the Twin Cities costs approximately $82,000 more than one built by the same builder in the southwestern Chicago suburbs. That's insane because to me those areas seem pretty comparable.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, this was a really good report that was done by the Housing Affordability Institute. They're their Minnesota-based organization. What they did is they surveyed some contractors on how much it would cost to build a house here compared to certain areas in the Midwest. One of those areas was Chicago, of course. Taking a same builder, same kind of house, same size, it's gonna cost you $82,000 more in the Twin Cities compared to Chicago. That was around 2018. They did the same comparison with uh Lake Elmo in Hudson, Wisconsin. Again, if you just go across the border, it's gonna cost you about $47,000 less to build a house and here in the Twin Cities. What's happening there is that of course part of that is land cost, uh, other differences that are not really part of government. But we also do have very stringent regulations that add on tens and thousands of dollars to the cost of a new home. This includes things like uh energy saving mandates. Uh, you know, I'm happy to talk a little bit about it. Yeah, wait, what is that? Just say what that is. So uh essentially every state uh has to follow a building code. Uh and part of the building code includes energy saving mandates. They tell you uh you have to do certain things to reduce the amount of energy that you're using in your home. So maybe you need to have better insulation so that your home is not losing as much heat. Maybe you might need to have thicker walls. Uh, and then if you're filling in your walls because you have to put stuff in the wood, maybe instead of fiberglass you're using like uh spray form. Again, those costs are different. Uh the way you construct your slab when you're filling in the foundation also has to hold in more heat. So you're gonna spend more money on that as opposed to if those rules weren't there. Uh, one example I do use in the report is what we call uh a balanced mechanical ventilation. So you have different kinds of ventilation system. You have you know supply exhaust system, uh, or sing what you call single supply system.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I don't know any of these things, but I I trust you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so so with the with the exhaust system, uh the one side kind of system, what you have is essentially like a fan in your house just taking cold air out, sorry, warm air out. Uh but then because your walls are getting in cold air from from the outside, it means that your house is working a little bit harder to heat the home. So the Minnesota state government requires you to have a balanced mechanical ventilation system. So these kind of what this does is in addition to the one fan that's taking air out, you also have another fan that's taking air in. So your house is working at least harder to heat up that air because when by the time it comes in, it's it's a little bit warmer. But for that system, it costs at least two to four times more than the exhaust type of system. So it's really uh the government making a decision for you on what kind of ventilation system you have in your home, as opposed to the homeowner being like, you know what, maybe I can live with these uh uh lace efficient uh energy you know uh ventilation system, as long as I I'm able to at least get my food in front, you know, get that house to begin with. Right, you don't even have that choice because the government has made that decision for you. So things like these, you know, the add-on, the pile on, and before you know it, you have fifty thousand dollars extra on top of a new home.
SPEAKER_05And that's why it's so frustrating. Like the energy saving mandate is such a good example of like you were saying, government taking that choice away from you and making and just putting up as many, it feels like as many barriers as possible to people becoming first-time homeowners. And it's it's especially frustrating when you know you know that you could drive across the border a few hours and go to Wisconsin or go to North Dakota, South Dakota, and you wouldn't be facing these same types of issues.
SPEAKER_02No, you wouldn't be. And and the really unfortunate thing about Minnesota too, all of the numbers that are provided earlier, this is about just the current laws that we have on the book. Sure. Now, beginning in 2024, we adopted a new energy code, which is even stricter than the one that we had in 2018. Of course we did. And then we had we have what we call now a 2038 mandate. And what that does is part of the net zero campaign. What that does is it's supposed to reduce uh energy use in new homes by 70% by 2038, which means that all of these things that I have mentioned, you have to do those and even more. So the Housing Affordability Institute actually estimated that just to comply with this new mandate, a new home could cost up to $44,000 more. So just imagine you're already having issues, young people being able to afford a home right now, but by 2038, that's gonna be even worse. And because of a new mandate that we have in Minnesota. So this was passed in in 2024. It's called the 2038 mandate. That is so frustrating. Yeah, so every three years we're going to have to update our our international energy code. Uh so every new update comes with new rules, new things to do. Uh you have to buy more expensive materials for your home. You have to uh, you know, go through all of this complex process just to get a home constructed.
SPEAKER_06I saw something that said that when our kids, this was an economist speaking on um, you know, I can't speak with credibility, but it was a headline I saw on X, and it said when our kids are looking for a house, the median house price is going to be something like a million dollars. And I thought it was an interesting discussion because how much of this is just inflation versus government regulation and these different things, um, lack of supply, all these different factors. What do you think? Like how much of these costs that we're seeing right now is strictly just inflation and how much of it is based on other factors?
SPEAKER_02Um, you know, it it's hard to say because uh I again if you come into an area like uh the Twin Cities, we we have the the Musa Line, which is the uh Metropolitan Urban Service Line, uh sorry, service area, which is like an urban contentment boundary. What that does is essentially says if you're inside that line, it's easier for you to get certain kinds of services like sewer, for instance. So that inflates the cost of land inside the line. But if you go outside of that line, you can have cheaper land. So obviously, cost of land is gonna be part of the final cost uh of the home. Uh, if you're importing certain kinds of materials and there's maybe tariffs on that, you know, that's gonna be the final part uh of the home, too. There's just been general inflation too, with a lot of money printing during the pandemic. So that's driving part of that increase. So really everything plays a part. It's hard to isolate what's what. But as far as the energy mandates are concerned, a lot of the estimates have been in the tens of thousands of dollars. For instance, like the new 2038 mandate, I just said about $44,000. Uh, there's also other things that usually encourage developers to build larger houses than what the market needs. Really? One of those examples is the minimum load size requirement. So if you have uh in a lot of the parts of the state, if you have single zone, single-family zoned areas, you have to have a minimum load size. If you go to Minneapolis, for instance, uh now Minneapolis abolished this the single-family zoning, so you can, in theory, you can build any type of housing anywhere. It doesn't usually work out quite as quite as well. But they have a minimum load size requirement for say 5,000 square feet in a lot of the parts of the city. That means that as a developer, because one, the land costs you a lot of money, you are incentivized to build a very large house because that's the only way you can make a profit. Sure. So instead of building maybe a 1,500 square feet home, you're now building a 2,500 square feet home. Sure. Which means the young family that's just starting out, they have young kids, they could do with a smaller house. Right. Uh, they don't even have that option for that smaller home.
SPEAKER_06Wow, that's super interesting. Cause yeah, it does seem like that's what we're missing is a lot of those like smaller single family homes. I remember. You know, my husband and I were just recently shopping for a home and we saw all kinds of houses that were like, we don't we don't need this much space, you know. We like to pay for something smaller that was still nicer. You know, a lot of times you can get something smaller in Minneapolis that's run down and then you have to spend a bunch of money to, you know, fix it up. And we're like, what if we got something that was a little newer and smaller? It's impossible.
SPEAKER_02It's like you can't find it. It it is impossible. And then, you know, we you have zoning also adding on to that. Uh, if you want to build uh uh, say a triplex, a duplex, or even multi-family, you know, housing apartments, it's difficult to find land that is zoned for that specific type of housing in most of the of the state. So you end up having these large single, single family zoned lots. But if you go to Minneapolis and St. Paul, interestingly enough, uh the zoning rules are more liberal, so you you have uh a diverse type of housing that types that you can build. It's legal now to build duplicates, duplexes and triplexes in a lot of uh Minneapolis and St. Paul. But then they also have these rules that essentially render those reforms meaningless, right? For instance, if you go to St. Paul, uh they said, well, we've abolished a lot of our minimum load size requirements. You can have a lot as small as 1,500 square feet and build a house on that. But in reality, uh St. Paul requires that you you can only cover 45% of the load with the physical structure. Okay, the rest of it has to be open space. Okay. So for you to build a 1,500 uh square feet home, you have to have a lot that is at least 3,000 square feet and above. So even though if you abolish the minimum load size, you still have another rule in place that essentially makes that reform meaningless. Right, right. So a lot of these things they interact, they just make it difficult to build small homes, uh, you know, town homes, modify family uh housing units and all of that, really pricing out young families in a lot of parts of the state.
SPEAKER_05So one of the solutions that always comes up when something is too expensive is of course, you know, artificial government-mandated price controls. You see this happen with uh, you know, rent control, for instance. Yeah. Can you explain at just a very basic level as an economist why that is not the best solution to something like this?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, uh, all of these solutions really, really sound good. You just put money on the on the issue and it goes away. But you know, anybody that understands basic economics, demand and supply, the first thing you learn is that the price of anything, be it childcare, housing, healthcare, is really determined by the interaction between demand and supply. So if you have 100 people looking for homes, but there's only 90 homes, what is going to happen? It means that those hundred people are going to beat up the price uh of those existing homes. So home prices are going to be high and they're going to keep rising in as long as you're not building uh homes to meet that demand, which is the issue that we do have uh in Minnesota and really the rest of the country. There is uh one study that tried to estimate the shortage of homes uh uh in the United States uh and they found that we need, I think, at least three million homes. Uh we and then in Mini, if you come to Minnesota, we have a shortage of at least 100,000 homes. Wow. Right? So if you give people a subsidy and say, well, we are gonna give you $40,000 toward your down payment assistance, the number of homes in the market hasn't changed. Right. What you've now done is intensified the competition between the number of people that now are looking for new homes. So you're beating out prices even further. So the only way you can really put a downward pressure, the true solution to that is just to build new homes. Uh, some people come out, you know, like Emma Clubershire, for instance, she suggested tax credits toward developers so that they can build more homes. Uh, some research has found out that a lot of tax credits, when they go to developers, they don't create additional homes. It's mainly going towards homes that would have been created in the first place, even without those tax credits. But then you're putting that cost onto taxpayer. So, again, in as long as you're not really uh fixing the mismatch between demand and supply, anything else doesn't work in the long term.
SPEAKER_06So, how do you fix that? If you were to have your way in Minnesota, what public policy would you implement to try and do something about the housing shortage and also the cost of housing in general?
SPEAKER_02So there are a lot of things I think that can be done, both at the at the start, state, and local level. Uh local level, you ideally want to uh do zoning reform, make it easier to build certain kinds of housing uh in in a lot of places. Uh, Minneapolis and St. Paul, for instance, have done away with single family zoning. Uh you can just make it easier to build triplexes, duplexes. Because the thing with triplexes, for instance, instead of you having one uh family in a single home, if you have like three units in there, now you have three families living on one lot. That means you know, two more homes have been created. So uh that's the first step. There's been a lot of um kind of controversy about how you get zoning reform. On one hand, the state uh is saying we are tired of cities, they're not really uh uh taking the lead to to uh enact the kind of changes that we want them to enact. So we are going to calm down, we are going to require them to do so and so and so. You could argue maybe if you value the local autonomy, that's not the best way. So you really need the cities themselves to take the lead and be like, we need more housing. So we are going to make it easier for developers to come in and build all sorts of types of housing. Uh and then you you can do away with the do away with the minimum load size requirements. And really, uh we have parking mandates uh for multifamily housing units, for instance. Uh, we have aesthetic mandates, things that don't have anything to do with safety. It's just something like, yeah, you need to have a front porch for your house. Well, is this necessary for safety? No, but it's gonna add to the final cost uh of that home. Now at the state level, uh the state government has something also to do with uh these energy efficiency mandates. We have to have some reasonable standards, make sure that home buyers themselves are able to make that decision of how much they want to invest in the home upfront, you know, whether they they can make that trade-off of paying a little bit more for energy as long as they're able to uh to afford a home. Uh we have the made council, they have the MUSE align, as I previously said, they're inflating the cost of land in the twin cities. Maybe the state government needs to renew the Made Council, maybe abolish the Muse Align entirely, you know, make sure that the price of land uh comes down. So all of these is is gonna take some coordination really between state and local government. I don't think it's uh it's an either-o situation, or it's a state government coming down in localities, it's just gonna need each and every single part of this to play their role.
SPEAKER_05And it's a great reminder of why, you know, local elections and local governance is so important for you to be involved in, too. Uh if you don't like the idea of the state government coming in and telling your local city council, for example, how to, you know, run their city, get involved at those elections and that governance at, you know, just within your city, and maybe you can stop that from happening. Um so those were the some of the some of the solutions for housing laid out in our new affordability agenda, which is available if you want to read all of them at americanexperiment.org slash reports. Uh, but of course, we covered a lot of other affordability topics as well, including childcare. So let's move on to child care because that's another industry where Minnesota has some of the highest costs in the Midwest and even in the country.
SPEAKER_02We do, yes. Um, I just would like to point out though that when we are talking about childcare being expensive, usually we we are talking about standard-based childcare. You know, any if you have a child, there's usually two options that you have as to where you can send your child. So you can either go to the licensed childcare centers, these are the large commercial centers. They take in maybe hundred, hundred or so kids at a time. Uh, these are the ones that are really very stringently regulated, and this is where it's going to cost you at least $20,000 to have your infant uh in there. So if you account for income uh in Minnesota, uh you're spending at least, if you're a family, both of you are working, you're spending at least 18% of your household income just to send an infant to a licensed daycare. Now, if you go to what we call home-based childcare, which is usually a single person working from their home, they're taking in maybe 10, 12 kids at a time. They are likely going to be cheaper and more affordable, even cost half as much as going to a center. Wow. So we are actually one of the most affordable states for family childcare. But what's happened over the years is that a lot of these family childcare providers have been exiting the industry. Right. So we are being left now with a less affordable uh option. So we have certain kinds of rules and regulations that we place on centers that essentially raise the cost of them providing uh childcare. Uh, one of those examples is what we call staff to child ratios. Uh, you have to have, say, one staff per four infants that you have at a center. Uh if you added one additional child per that one staff, that's a that's a difference between a parent paying $16,000 or $20,000. So each additional child that you're taking out raises their per cost of operating uh that that center. We have uh stringent hiring requirements for our teachers as well. Uh I'm glad though some of this was addressed in the last session. Uh, I'll just give one example of something that I feel is particularly egregious. So prior to the last session, if you wanted to become uh a teacher at a daycare center and you graduated high school, you needed to take eight college credits uh first. Um and then you needed to have a year of full-time experience to become an assistant teacher. Not a teacher, but an assistant teacher. And then after that, you needed to take eight more college credits and work two more years as an assistant teacher to then become a teacher at a daycare center. So you can imagine how hard it is for centers to find people that are qualified to do this job, right? Because you're going through all that.
SPEAKER_05I'm sure they're not bringing in the big box after they're finally like an assistant teacher at a council center.
SPEAKER_02This is a job that's paying $17 an hour, but you need five years of training, education, work experience. Now, if you go to Wisconsin just across the border, if you want to be a teacher, you need one college credit, sorry, one college class and then three months of work experience. So much easier to find a teacher there than here. Yeah. So what usually happens is that you you can't find enough teachers, it means that you can't have, instead of you having 100 kids at a daycare center now, you have 50 kids because you don't have the right kind of staff. So you're restricting supply and the prices are going up. This was partly addressed in the last session. So now the amount of experience you need to become a teacher is like three months, but the college credits is still 12 college credits. So we can bring that down a little bit still, maybe next year or you know, the next session.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Yeah. Well, one of the things I hear when um you talk about, you know, fewer regulations on childcare centers is people worry about safety because there are issues with safety in childcare centers. You hear, and it's not frequent at all, but you you know, it always hits the news when there's an incident that happens, a child is is in danger in some way. Um and it's sad, it's awful, it breaks your heart, you know. And so I think people get very worried when they hear what we need is fewer regulations at childcare centers. So if we were to reduce regulations, would that make childcare centers less safe? Or how do you balance those two needs?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's a really good point because a lot of that fear really goes down to what is happening, you know, in that center when the when the parents leave their children with with the teachers. What I have found though, what a lot of the research does say uh, and we we did see this like maybe 10 years ago in Minnesota, there was an issue with uh a number of kids that that died in in family childcare settings that was really sad, uh heartbreaking, shouldn't have happened. What what the some of the studies found though was that a lot of the places where those kinds of incidents happened were uh providers that weren't following the rules that were on the book. So you didn't necessarily need new rules, you just needed to make sure that the rules that you have on the book are being followed by all of the providers. So it was a tiny segment of providers that kind of ended up sort of muddying the waters, you know, kind of incentivizing the state to pass new rules on all of the providers. So now sort of like everybody suffering in a sense. Right.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. So when you go to This is like uh we talk about this with like gun laws all the time.
SPEAKER_02It's like if we were to just enforce the laws we already have, we would be doing so much better. So if if you can just make sure everybody's following the basic rules, a lot of the providers uh have been really safe. Uh if you go to the centers themselves, there's been some research that's been done on how you know staff-child ratios affect maybe rates of accidents. And the evidence has been uh a little weak on the staff-child ratios. Uh, some studies have said, well, if you require the teachers to have extra education beyond the high school, you're actually going to reduce the number of accidents that you have. Uh, but again, that doesn't necessarily mean you require them to have 12 college credits. It can be just one class, uh, you know, in maybe early childhood development. That can can do the same impact as you forcing somebody to to take two years of college classes. Right. So there there is uh a purpose to some of these rules. Uh if you're especially knowledgeable in how the the the the mind of of a child works, how they develop, you're able to interact with them in a way that's stimulating, that's that helps them think, grow. But again, the threshold to which that extra education starts to kick in is much, much lower than what we're requiring our teachers to go through. Yeah, right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Now, before we wrap up, I just this might be an unfair question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Um if all of the reforms that we've talked about today in housing and childcare were passed, say in the next six months, yeah, how long would it be realistically before prices started to come down in each of those industries?
SPEAKER_02Um, you know, that that's that's pretty hard to say. It all depends on how people how much people are willing to come into uh the industry after those reforms have been done. The difficult thing with a lot of the reforms is they they tend to be uh partial, you know, halfway, so they don't really address every single thing enough for people to be able to now come in like, oh, I can actually build a house here uh without you know following 10, 12 steps, right? So it's always been difficult to see a place where uh you've had comprehensive reforms, but it's hard to say. But there's estimates to how much you can you can save though, with things like staff-child ratios. If you just added in one more child per infant group, you know, have a teacher take care of five little kids instead of four. Some estimates, you know, suggest that you can save up to as much as two thousand dollars per year. And that's kind of immediate, it seems like, right? Because you already have the stuff. So you already have the stuff, you're just adding in more kids. But the timeline of it really depends on the on the response and the level of reform that you end up uh enacting. Sure.
SPEAKER_05Well, again, if you want to read all of those solutions, I think there are 41 solutions for our state policymakers to enact here in Minnesota and make life more affordable. You can find our full affordability agenda at americanexperiment.org slash reports. Martha, thank you so much for coming on the show today. All right, thank you for having me. This was fun. Thank you to everyone who made it all the way to the end of this week's episode of the American Experiment podcast.
SPEAKER_06Remember to answer our question of the week in the YouTube comments. Whose side are you on in the whole dog park debacle? Even if you don't wear and live anywhere near Minneapolis. It's just so interesting. I need to know what side people are on because I don't know. I feel like it's a tough one. Really, everyone involved is a little, a little bonkers, if you ask me.
SPEAKER_05And as you Minneapolis, classic Minneapolis. Stay sane, you guys, stay safe out there, and we will see you next week.
