Lights back on in Minnesota state government

The partial shutdown of Minnesota state government is over, 10 days after a deadlock on the state budget

The situation is just the opposite of Wisconsin. The governor, Tim Pawlenty, is a Republican, but the Dems (DFL in Minnesota) control the legislature. They finally agreed to a compromise Saturday morning.

Here's how the Minneapolis Star-Tribune explained it the new deal in an editorial:

"It will stop the fiscal bleeding in most of the state's school districts, and initiate a performance pay system for teachers. It will preserve much of the state's health care safety net for the working poor, improving coverage for those with costly illnesses. While it will raise school property taxes, it will also send more state money to cities and counties, curbing their property tax appetite. And it will put a deterrent to smoking back into state law, by raising the price of a pack of cigarettes 75 cents.

"None of those things could be said about the skimpy budget that Pawlenty proposed six months ago. This session's central drama has been the effort by DFL and moderate Republican legislators to do better by education, health care and the rest than the governor's initial budget did."

From that brief description, I could live with that budget. What is it that makes our neighbors so different from us, and even willing to pay more taxes to pay for the needs of education and health care. Is it just that they are closer to Canada?