Liberal dream: Walz signed free college tuition, free meals for kids, and 100% renewable energy

Before he was selected as Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) signed laws that reflected left-wing priorities.

Waltz, 60, has been governor of the North Star state since 2019 and served in Congress for more than a decade prior to that. Walz’s economic agenda as governor included making public college tuition free for low-income students, transitioning to 100% renewable energy, implementing paid medical and family leave, providing free meals for students in schools, and more.

Those in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party quickly praised Harris’s choice of Walz for vice president. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), one of the country’s most liberal lawmakers, publicly pushed for Harris to choose him and praised the pick as a win for the working class.

“He is a former public school teacher, football coach, and strong union supporter,” Sanders said on social media. “As governor, he delivered for working families in MN. As VP, he will deliver for the working families of the U.S.”

“Squad” member Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) praised Harris’s pick and emphasized that Walz “signed universal school meals, paid family and sick leave, marijuana legalization, and protections for reproductive rights into law.”

One achievement for Walz was ensuring Minnesotan students whose parents earn less than $80,000 annually can attend public colleges and universities for free. Subsidizing education has been a goal of Democrats and will likely be a feather in Walz hat in appealing to the base of the party.

But Republicans will point out that the legislation didn’t include citizenship requirements and that illegal immigrants are able to apply and receive the same state scholarship funding as long as they meet the income requirements.

Ryan Young, senior economist at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told the Washington Examiner that Walz has a track record both in the House and as governor of “being a pretty big spender.”

“One thing he benefited from in Minnesota was that he was up against a divided legislature, so he tried to push through some big spending increases, a big income tax increase, and he got probably less than half of what he wanted because the legislature blocked a lot of his initiatives,” Young said. “So fans of spending restraints should hope for a divided government more than anything else.”

Republicans are already seizing on the pick of Walz over Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) to brand the Harris-Walz ticket as too far-left. Steven Cheung, communications director for the Trump campaign, said the choice “solidifies the Democrat ticket as the most dangerously liberal in American history.”

Former Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain’s daughter Meghan McCain said Walz is not a centrist and that “you would be hard-pressed to find a more extreme progressive running mate.”

Still, despite the praise from liberals, some Democrats say Walz shouldn’t be categorized as being too far to the Left.

“Tim Walz is wonderful,” former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “She had many good choices. Tim Walz, I know very well. He served in the House. To characterize him as left is so unreal. It’s just not — he’s right down the middle. He’s a heartland of America Democrat.”

In terms of tax policy, Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said Walz has generally favored lower taxes for lower-income workers. That mirrors efforts by the Biden administration at the federal level to not raise taxes on lower — and middle-class families while attempting to hike taxes for the very wealthy.

“So what we’ve seen over the last few years in Minnesota is taxes go down pretty significantly for working class families and we’ve seen slight tax increases at the top of the income scale for profitable corporations and for people with a lot of capital gains income,” Davis told the Washington Examiner.

He said that, as a whole, Minnesota’s tax code is “moderately progressive.”

“Minnesota stands out in that way, as having among the more progressive codes in the country, but that’s not to say that it’s deeply progressive,” Davis added.

Walz also gets high marks from environmentalists and those concerned about climate change.

Last year, Walz signed a bill that required Minnesota utilities to transition away from fossil fuels and be 100% carbon-free by 2040. That is among the most ambitious transition plans based on timetables in the United States, according to the Clean Energy States Alliance.

“Minnesotans are not going to wait any longer. They made it clear with their voices … They made it clear with their votes that they expect movement around climate change to happen, and it is happening today,” Walz said at the time.

He also campaigned for reelection in 2022, during which he pushed for electric vehicles to make up 20% of cars on Minnesota roads by 2030. Under his leadership, Minnesota adopted stricter limits on tailpipe emissions for cars.

In March 2023, Walz signed into law a bill that provided free breakfast and lunch for students in participating schools across the state — regardless of their parents’ income. Just eight states in the country provide free meals for students without income considerations.

On trade policy, Walz had a history while in Congress of opposing trade deals and favoring protections for manufacturing in the U.S. Young said, in general, Walz is “a bit of a trade skeptic.”

“He likes putting a lot of environmental provisions and trade-unrelated policies into trade agreements, basically stuffing them with progressive wish list policies,” Young said. “That’s become the norm since [the 1992 North American Free Trade Agreement], and more so in recent years.”

Republicans have also seized on recent remarks Walz made during a campaign call for Harris, where he mentioned socialism.

“And for one thing, don’t ever shy away from our progressive values,” he said on the call to supporters. “One person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness. Just do the damn work.”

Despite his fans on the liberal left of the Democratic Party, some centrists have also praised him. Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV), known for occasionally voting with Republicans, said he was a unifying choice.

“I can think of no one better than Gov. Walz to help bring our country closer together and bring balance to the Democratic Party,” Manchin said. “Gov. Walz is the real deal.”