Straw Pooff

Subject:   the Iowa Republicans’ Straw Poll

To:          Des Moines Register

               National Public Radio 

               New York Times

               Wall Street Journal

14 August, 2011

I love you all and rely on you for news and information.  I write today because, as an Iowan, I know that you have put the Straw Poll in a completely incorrect perspective.  So I ask you to rely on me for a change for news and information about the Straw Poll to which you have all given too much attention.

First, it is a fund raiser.  Second, there is nothing democratic about it.  Therefore, and third, it is not important.  Like the scouting report on the new recruits for the football team which declared them all to be small, but slow, this event is meaningless, but insignificant.   And irrelevant.

So please quick treating it like a big deal! 

16,683 ballots were cast over the course of several hours during a party in Ames, Iowa on Saturday afternoon.  Those who voted either paid $30 for an admission ticket or, as was probably even more common, received a ticket as a gift from one of the candidates.  Some drove a long way to attend this party.  All went to far more trouble to attend than would be involved in participating in a normal election.  So while the participants may represent someone or something, it is neither Iowa nor the USA, and certainly not the typical Iowa or US citizen or voter.

Iowa Republicans should discontinue this event even though it raises money.   It does Republicans a disservice because it fails to represent them, and it does Iowa a disservice by undermining Iowa’s reputation as a credible host of the nation’s earliest election cycle caucuses. 

Being realistic, we should not count on Republicans to discontinue the Straw Poll.  You, however, could quit making such a big fuss over it.  It happens.  Every four years.  Please leave it at that.

How NOT To Create More Jobs in the US

If one were making a list of things Congress could do to guarantee that our nation’s economic recovery will remain painfully slow with maddeningly high rates of unemployment, the first item would be to cut government spending.

The second would be to eliminate government borrowing.

The third would be to make income taxes more regressive.

It appears Congress is concentrating its efforts in all the right places to prevent a strong economic recovery with vigorous job growth.

— David J. Nelson, Des Moines

Branstad Bullies Iowa about Biennial Budgeting

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad’s recent insistence on biennial rather than annual budgeting is unreasonable.  The advantage of biennial budgeting is that it requires planning further ahead.  Since there is nothing about annual budgeting that prevents planning ahead, however, this single advantage is hardly a persuasive reason to switch to biennial budgeting.  The disadvantages are several.  It is less flexible, it is less responsive to changing circumstances and it concentrates power in the hands of the executive branch at the expense of the legislative branch of government.   

Of course the concentration of power factor is attractive to Branstad.   It is convenient for him to overlook that what is important to him is also important to the legislature and to the people of Iowa, both of whom are better served by clear separation of power and the greater flexibility and responsiveness of annual budgeting.

The legislature should override his veto and adopt the budget they have carefully crafted by working through the compromises that were necessary to make it acceptable to a majority of the legislators of both parties.  Let us hope that our legislators will have the fortitude to keep Branstad from bullying them.

Relaxing gun carrying regulations = Craziness

If our legislaturers make more changes to gun laws like the ones now under consideration, we may need to change the country's name from the USA to the VSA.  (The Vigilante States of America.)

The Iowa Impeachment Debacle

Perhaps the Democrats of the Iowa House are taking too seriously the threats of their Republican colleagues calling for the impeachment of Iowa’s Supreme Court Justices.  In spite of the fact that a majority of Iowa voters were persuaded to vote not to retain the three justices on the ballot last November, it seems that hardly anyone is so thoroughly misinformed as to believe that any judicial ruling constitutes grounds for impeachment.  I suggest that, if the Republicans do propose impeachment, the Democrats should let the issue come to a vote without stretching out the debate.  It is unlikely that such a resolution will be approved by the House because only a small minority of the Republicans will be foolish enough to support it.  Even if the resolution should pass the house, it will surely not succeed in the Senate where 34 of the 50 members would have to find the justices guilty.  That simply will not happen, but the process will expose the proponents of impeachment as the fools that they are.

Stretching out a debate on an impeachment resolution will divert the House’s attention from other matters of considerably greater importance.  I say “give the fools a little rope, and they will hang themselves.”