Miner Queries: What’s the vision for Iowa?

In 2001, I moved back to Iowa with my family. I am on the brink of my second child graduating from Iowa schools, but I’m not encouraging her to stay in this state – because Iowa has no economic vision. Her brother ended up in Minnesota, whose economy is more stable.

Since I was a kid, I have watched this state lose ground. And state leaders have done little to stem the bleeding.

Instead, I’ve watched leadership, particularly under Republican administrations, cut funding for vital services and defund government under the guise that lowering taxes stimulates growth. That’s a marketing message with no evidence to back it up. Lining historic U.S. tax cuts up with periods of growth quickly debunks it. More recent state level experiments with it in Kansas also clearly demonstrate its debilitating effects.

I’ve also watched legislation written in recent years focus on outside entities and their interests, rather than constituents in Iowa. Iowa’s Stand Your Ground law is an example.

As is education and its funding. In 1992, Governor Branstad politicized school funding by doing away with the funding formula, which was one of the premier school funding models in the U.S. By eliminating it, Branstad and his Republican colleagues were able to consistently defund our schools and erode our public education system.  This is death by a thousand cuts. Meanwhile, the state has increased funding for private schools, home schooling and online schools. If an educational program is private, it should NOT receive public funding. Parents choose private schools; they should pay. Period.

But decreased school funding doesn’t just affect schools. Iowa communities fighting for life have constricted further as schools, often the largest employer, close. Meanwhile, state government has not invested in building Iowa-based businesses and infrastructure to sustain and attract residents. Instead, we’ve courted outside corporations to bring in jobs – most of which haven’t materialized.

These decisions are always disguised as balancing the budget and being fiscally responsible. But it’s more marketing messaging. Take it from this former marketing and PR professional. As the state has cut, cut, cut, local taxing authorities have hit property owners harder. So our state officials may say, “We cut taxes,” but really all they’ve done is shift the burden. Eventually people catch on.

If we want to rebuild Iowa, we must invest in our people – starting with education. We also must take care of our people with health care (This includes mental and women’s health care. As a woman who experienced recurrent miscarriages and had multiple D&Cs, I know abortion needs to be part of that.), and we need to provide support for economic development with financing and infrastructure.

So does our one-party state government even have a vision for Iowa? Or is it simply out to protect the interests of that party and its primary funders? Do representatives vote with the caucus and accept the party’s talking points, or are they really dreaming big for Iowa?

Iowans don’t have to be fighting for crumbs. We can build a better state if we have a vision and political will. But we must stop being led around by unproven political and economic ideologies and engage in some critical thinking. We must get over party loyalty and be willing to stand up and question leadership, especially our governor and state legislators.

Miner Queries: Sharpening your pitchfork yet?

As we prepare to begin week three of our federal government shutdown over 45’s border wall tantrum, I’d love to know where individuals’ heads are. While we struggle, living paycheck to paycheck, our out-of-touch legislators seem to think we have unlimited savings to tide us over.

And when I say legislators, I’m talking at the state level, too. In Iowa, we’ve continued to elect Republicans to the statehouse who blindly support the agenda of corporate America. This includes stripping many Iowans’ health and mental health care via our Medicaid debacle, strangling funding for public schools, and cutting corporate taxes and thus shifting the tax burden to individuals and local property owners. I suspect many of these state legislators don’t even realize they’re working against the interests of their own communities and constituents. They simply follow the party line without questioning what they’re told.

Years ago, as a school board director, I was engaged in conversation at the statehouse with a former Iowa senator. We were chatting about education and her work as a senator, and she began to tell me about a fabulous retreat she’d been to out of state at a balmy resort. As she was “educated” about various policies, she had plainly been bedazzled by the setting. Her enthusiasm struck me at the time and stuck with me.

Several years later, I began to read about the work of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). This group, funded and led by the Koch Brothers, works to write legislation called “model bills,” which they introduce to federal and state legislators at swanky conferences. Although ALEC works to influence legislators of both parties, over the years they’ve determined the Republican party fits their agenda best. The Center for Media and Democracy has researched and published about ALEC’s work at https://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed. Suddenly, a light bulb went off over my head. This legislator, a Republican, had been attending ALEC conferences.

Do we want state laws written by corporate attorneys from who knows where? But that’s what’s been happening. Much of Iowa's recent legislation bears a striking resemblance to ALEC's body of model bills. And thanks to corporate media outlets and shrinking independent media sources, citizens don’t know.

How did this happen? Back in the late 70s and early 80s, Terry Branstad was involved in the initiative to build ALEC. Then, Iowans elected him governor. Iowa’s ability to fund schools and other services for the common good have been shrinking ever since. We’re on the road to Kansas.

Meanwhile at the federal level, in 2016, underinformed Americans were scammed into voting for the current occupant of the White House. And what has the 45^th president done for them? He’s alienated our trading partners and allies, wrecked our markets, and now he’s left thousands of federal workers with no income. Congressional Republicans have been no help.

So, I’m ready to get my pitchfork out and protest. If you want to see any progress, you better, too. Because until GOP politicians can feel our pain, I don’t think they intend to move.

Can the House move beyond horsefeathers?

Last weekend, my husband mentioned the cold weather was making him hungry for duck soup, something we’ve been anticipating since we carved up a duck for Christmas dinner.

“Now why does that always make me think of the Marx brothers?” I asked.

“You know they made a movie with that title,” he said. “It includes the song ‘Whatever it is, I’m Against It.’”

I shook my head, noting I could remember seeing Groucho perform the number he described. “Are you sure it was in Duck Soup?”

Sure enough, after searching online, he found the song in the 1932 movie “Horse Feathers.” Groucho Marx plays Quincy Adams Wagstaff, the new president of Huxley College. In the opening number, Wagstaff and other college professors sing and dance in full academic robes and mortarboards:

I don't know what they have to say
It makes no difference anyway
Whatever it is, I'm against it!
No matter what it is
Or who commenced it
I'm against it!

Your proposition may be good
But let's have one thing understood
Whatever it is, I'm against it!
And even when you've changed it
Or condensed it
I'm against it. . .

As my husband played the clip for me, we heard our 13-year-old daughter stirring in the next room. “What is that?” she asked. “It sounds just like the Republicans!”

She’d read my mind.

For the last five years, I’ve been continually amazed at the recalcitrance of congressional conservatives, and House Republicans more specifically. No matter the proposal, if it is supported by President Obama, they oppose it. Even policies based upon conservative blueprints, like the Affordable Care Act which was originally conceived by The Heritage Foundation, have been vigorously attacked.

Last June, when Edward Snowden leaked information about the activities of the National Security Agency, conservatives blasted the administration for potential violations of citizens’ civil liberties. Yet after 9-11, they enthusiastically supported the Patriot Act in the name of national security, arguing some loss of liberty was necessary. Also last summer, after the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration bill, conservatives in the House refused to take up the bill.

In October, this same group felt it was more important to oppose President Obama than to negotiate and compromise their way to a working budget for our government. Before Christmas, they decided that their absolute (and irrational) loyalty to austerity was more important than extending unemployment benefits for workers seeking jobs and funding the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance program to feed the needy, including many elderly, disabled people and children.

Elected to govern, these folks have decided to stand in the corner and pout instead of conducting themselves with statesmanship and working across differences to develop working policies.

Time to vote them out. I took the first step last Tuesday when I attended my party caucus, wearing my “Democracy isn’t a spectator sport” T-shirt.

You know what? Governing isn’t a spectator sport either. I want my representation in there talking to the opposition and looking for common ground and workable solutions for the common good. Enough with the horsefeathers.