SAD: Goodbye, Minnesota.

The last reason I’m leaving Minnesota is because of a lack of hope. I’m a realist, and realism tells me there’s nothing more I can do to help prevent Minnesota’s decline. Not only its declining public safety, but also its declining public schools, its hopelessly irrational light-rail transit system and its eroding future.

I know our current leaders won’t solve these problems because they won’t even acknowledge they exist. Minneapolis recently unveiled a new multimillion-dollar ad campaign to draw visitors into the city to “see what all the fuss is about” because “negative perceptions” have “overshadowed” the positive. Unfortunately for that campaign’s credibility, the “fuss” on the day it was announced was about six people under the age of 18 shot in Brooklyn Center.

Plus: “I know I’ve benefited greatly from the excellent public education and wonderful career opportunities that Minnesota provided me. I can leave knowing that I’ve repaid the state many times over with the millions in taxes I’ve paid and the hundreds of jobs I’ve created. That reciprocal history makes it painful for me to say goodbye, but it’s time to end my dysfunctional relationship with the new Minnesota.”

Losing an entrepreneur like Howard Root after he retired is bad enough. What really hurts is the next generation of entrepreneurs who will give up on Minnesota before they pay those millions in taxes and create those hundreds of jobs.