Too bad that Republican Zach Lahn dodged a forum last Thursday with Iowa City-Cedar Rapids business leaders to talk mundane things like budgets and taxes with his Democratic opponent for governor, Rob Sand. Lahn reportedly begged off because it was too soon after the primary election. Sand is ready for prime-time, and he warned the folks in blue suits of a “ticking time bomb” set up by piling up billion-dollar annual budget deficits.
Bloated spending and slashing income taxes resulted in a $1.3 billion deficit this year. It will be as bad, probably worse, next year as the state economy has been battered by Trump’s trade wars and bombing war on Iran (with no real end in sight). Gov. Kim Reynolds used savings accounts to cover the deficits and paper over the real cost of private-school vouchers and flattening the income tax at 3.8%. Within a couple years, those savings accounts fed by Covid funds will have been spent dry.
Sand says that some of the tax changes are necessary. He is wrong. Iowa is no better off because we have essentially eliminated corporate income taxes. At least the sitting state auditor is willing to discuss it. Lahn would have to defend subsidizing wealthy people from West Des Moines so their kids can go to Dowling or Des Moines Christian and they won’t have to sell the jet ski. Lahn’s home schooling company benefits from vouchers.
Sand is opposed to vouchers. It will be difficult getting rid of them. At least means-test them. He wants to legalize marijuana to create a new revenue stream. That won’t be enough. Income tax tinkering will be required, or else property taxes will continue to rise. Storm Lake already is cutting the school budget — $500,000 this year, maybe $500,000 more next year? How long can that go on?
Lahn needs to step up and contribute to the conversation. He says he wants to make Iowa’s education system world-class again. Just how does that happen amid the current property tax reform and flattened income tax. Shall we raise the sales tax and put the burden on the back of the person shopping at Dollar General? It sounds as if Gov. Lahn wants the vouchers to carry on. Where do you come up with about $400 million overnight? If we intend to clean up our surface water, we wonder if Gov. Lahn would agree to much higher taxes on anhydrous ammonia. He has not said how he will restore funding to statewide water quality monitoring.
We liked the sound of Lahn going after big ag and big oil and big pharma but there wasn’t a whole lot of meat on the bone.
Randy Feenstra was absent so Lahn didn’t really have to explain much. Now he does. Rob Sand is putting forth ideas and plans, some of it Republican lite, but he is showing up and talking about it with Iowa voters. The first thing out of his mouth, almost, was this budget time bomb. We do not have a whole lot of time to figure out how to fix the mess, and so far Lahn has not been required to weigh in. Sand wants four debates and is ready. Polling indicates that Sand may have a lead. Lahn won’t close that lead by hiding behind the Kim Reynolds deficit agenda. It is illegal. The next governor must come to grips with how to fund schools and get the roads in decent shape. Lahn is absent from the discussion.
We would like to say it doesn’t matter much who is lieutenant governor, unless it is Terry Branstad or Kim Reynolds. Terry Branstad, lieutenant to Bob Ray, became the longest-serving governor in US history, and might have served longer than Herod of biblical tenure. It seemed like Reynolds was in office for way too long. She was in lieu of Branstad when he set off on a slow boat to China.
So it does matter who the No. 2 is. Democrat Rob Sand made a smashing choice with Crawford County Supervisor Dave Muhlbauer of Manilla, from a lineage of Democrats where it is not easy being a Democrat. He is a farmer and a cattleman, and knows what hard work is all about. Sand is making a bid into Republican territory where Democrats don’t spend much time. It is hard to think of a stronger running mate. Muhlbauer is the real deal, no snowflake, who understands the property tax complex perfectly well, and can talk water quality with the credibility of someone who has been there and done that.
This is what moderation and good sense look like.
Zealots who want us to toe the company line created the Center for Intellectual Freedom at the University of Iowa to get a right-wing perspective on civics. The center offered a course in which nobody enrolled, so of course the legislature now demands attendance. So-called civics centers also were established at Iowa State and Northern Iowa that bypass the normal humanities departments and head straight into indoctrination.
Republicans think that professors are injecting dangerous thinking into young minds. In the name of freedom they proffer authoritarian ideology. So much for the Enlightenment, the marketplace of ideas, the diversity of viewpoints. You can get the viewpoint you need at the academic center for proper thinking.
Understanding civics is a good thing. You should have a fair command of it by the eighth grade, for certain by the time you earn a diploma. Here is how a bill becomes law, this is what the Constitution is for, and states operate in a federal system. It seems like overkill to require going through indoctrination at college. This is not what Jefferson had in mind with free inquiry and all that. Forcing political virtue down young throats is a sure way to create subversives.
Fortunately, you can still escape it by attending a private school like Buena Vista or Drake that are not academic extensions of single-party government.
As if Congress did not have enough trouble producing a farm bill, which already is three years overdue: Corporate livestock interests want to set aside state animal welfare standards, such as California’s Proposition 12 that establishes minimum gestation spaces for sows. This argument is likely to complicate passing the farm bill through the Senate.
The courts have ruled that the voters of California can have their say, as they did in the referendum governing gestation crates. Industry would prefer to ignore its customers who are telling the market how they expect their food will be produced. Consumers want cage-free hens, they should have it. It is unwise for the pork industry to ignore and rebuff their customer base.
Pork producers who want to serve the California market have adjusted. We are not aware of any ham shortage or even a complaint that pork cannot be found in San Francisco. Beef prices sure are high because of drought. Egg prices were high because of the flu. Pork prices are relatively cheap. Demanding that sows can move is reasonable. Niman Ranch, the pasture-pork outfit, has no problems with Prop 12.
It’s a battle not worth waging when the farm bill already is long overdue. It takes a sort of arrogance to hold your customer base in contempt.
The Storm Lake City Council selected Bolton and Menk to design its water plant despite having a resident engineering firm in town, ISG, which descends from Kuehl and Payer. Nobody knows more about the water situation than Julie Sievers of ISG. The council was skeptical because ISG partnered in its proposal on the $100 million project with a design firm from the Twin Cities.
That would have seemed the best of both worlds: intimate local knowledge combined with big-city engineering chops. The city should pick the firm with a significant Storm Lake presence. Unfortunately, the city administration does not understand who keeps the economy going and pays the water bills.
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