For Minnesota's continued prosperity, it's essential to hold State Government and local municipalities accountable for keeping sales, income and property taxes in pace with inflation-adjusted increases in people's take-home pay.

It is also critical for the Governor and the State Legislature to continue to manage the state budget responsibly and to keep Minnesota in the black

To keep pace in the world, we need to properly educate the evolving workforce and our children to compete in the incredibly globalized workforce.

Making this possible includes encouraging and creating environments of success, modeled after our competitive, innovative and robust free-market.

We need to reduce roadblocks and bottlenecks that would make healthcare more affordable. These include tort reform, frivolous lawsuits and uncompetitive markets where many times, the status quo wins.

We also need to make sure that we as a society are providing healthcare for those who are incapable of providing it for themselves. This would include children, the disabled and seniors not drawing sufficient coverage from their existing plans.

In order to alleviate the ever-increasing congestion in the metro area, associated pollution and transit times; we need to work on coordinating with metro-area city governments, the Metropolitan Council and the State, effective transit solutions.

Solutions include bus rapid transit, extension of light rail transit and bike path and lane interconnectivity.