City service cuts in Iowa
Hello friends,
I think most people who read my little blog don’t live in Iowa. (“Is this thing on? Test test test test test. Can you hear me now?” though maybe a better line to quote is “this is a real god damn emergency.” Anyway.) But I do live here, and I’m concerned about something here - namely, the prospect of Iowa cities, and especially Des Moines where I live, cutting services in response to caps on property taxes passed by the clique of Republican troglogytes who run the state. I’m especially worried they’ll cut hours at or close the library branch in my neighborhood. We live near it. We bought our house specifically because it’s near the library. My family and I are at the library easily three times a week, and there are many services there that we don't have time to take advantage of, that others do use. Whenever we go, we run into friends and neighbors there regularly, and we have made new friends and met neighbors for the first time there, many times. I love my neighborhood and the library is a key institution in our community. Since we’re a low and mixed income neighborhood, and since shit rolls downhill, I wouldn’t be surprised if we get shat on. Ugh. Anyway.
The way I think of it, Iowa Republicans are waging war on public services and the people who use them, and they’re trying to make municipal and county governments act as loyal proxies in that war. If those local governments make cuts that please the troglodytes in state government and the ghouls who support them (like cuts to the libraries or cuts to services for homeless people) that will encourage similar legislation in the future. So local governments need to ask themselves, how can they respond in ways that upset the troglodytes and their ghouls, to make them hesitate to pass such legislation in the future? That’s the gist. I tried to articulate this in an op/ed piece that I’ve not been able to place so I’m just throwing it here - atheist’s prayer, penny in a wishing well, kinda thing. (“Me and my anger sit folding a paper bird.”) I also include email addresses for the Des Moines City Council if you're inclined to write them.
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Iowa legislators recently passed a bill capping property taxes. Tax cuts have been a hobbyhorse for Governor Reynolds, and she and her fellow Republicans have had important successes in pursuing such cuts. It’s worth noting that Reynolds has been found to be the least popular governor in the United States more than once. This is worth noting because it gets at a real difficulty we face in Iowa politics right now. Reynolds is unpopular because her politics are not good for the majority of Iowans, and yet she and her fellow Republicans have not changed their politics. It follows logically that they are not really trying to govern for the good of the majority of Iowans. The cap on property taxes are a case in point.
The majority of Iowans live in urban areas. Iowa’s cities will be hit hard by the property tax cap. Many of my friends and neighbors here in Des Moines are especially worried about cuts to the public library system. This is worrying because the library is a hub for many wonderful things - I bought my house because it’s in walking distance of a library branch; my kids are at the library multiple times a week, we run into friends and neighbors there regularly and make new friends there often - and is also a hub for many crucial public services for older and lower income neighbors. I spoke to a friend who works at the library recently who summarized the services they provide this way: “in a single hour, I get a bandaid and antibiotic ointment for a hurt patron, help a kid do the library scavenger hunt, do an interlibrary loan request for a 94 year old man, help another kid find books on dragons, and help another neighbor find a bus schedule, bus token, and a map to Joppa, a service provider for people experiencing homelessness. That was one hour last week.” In short, our libraries help neighbors connect with each other in lots of fun and educational ways, and to find information on whatever needs they need help meeting, often very high stakes needs.
The larger issue here isn’t only about libraries or about urban areas, though. Generally speaking, local governments provide important services that are very high value. This is true not only of cities, but for Iowa and the United States in general: county and municipal governments provide services that matter tremendously in the lives of ordinary people. Here too there is a disconnect between what is good for the majority and the agenda pursued by Iowa’s legislators. Public services are very valuable, but they are less valuable to the very wealthy, and Iowa Republicans govern like it’s only the very wealthy that they care about. Reynolds, like Brandstad before her, has relentlessly pursued an agenda that helps the wealthy get more wealthy at the expense of worse lives for the rest of us. It’s no wonder, then, that Reynolds has been found to be the least popular governor in the country. It’s troubling that this doesn’t matter more.
This raises the question, what will make Reynolds and her cronies in the legislature change direction, if they don’t care about being unpopular with the majority of Iowans? If there was a simple, easy answer then Iowa politics would already be very different. If this cynical minority stays in power then the rest of us will have to do some hard thinking to figure out how to make our state an actual democracy in the long term, which will mean inflicting political consequences on the cynics in the medium term. More short term, the question of what Iowa’s ruling clique actually care about should be on the mind of Iowa’s local governments as they respond to the budget shortfalls that result from the legislature’s property tax caps.
Budgets are moral and political documents. Local governments will no doubt be aware of this, as they will very likely have to make budget cuts, which will involve hard tradeoffs. Good governments will ask how these tradeoffs align with their and their constituents’ values. In my view, they should also ask how any proposed cuts align with the values of the legislators who created this mess. As I mentioned, a lot of people I know here in Des Moines are worried about cuts to our public libraries. There’s little reason to think Reynolds and company will care about that. If anything, there’s good reason to think they’ll be happy about cuts to libraries. If I’m right about that, then cutting public libraries would reward the Reynolds Republicans for passing the property tax cap. Instead, if cuts must be made, local governments should cut things that Reynolds and her ilk and their supporters care about.
I admit that I find this a little daunting because, to be blunt, I have a hard time telling if they care about anything at all. Maybe they enjoy causing vulnerable people to suffer? They clearly value causing rich people to get richer. In any case, I’m sure the people who run Iowa’s local governments have a better sense of Reynolds’s priorities than I do since they interact with the state legislature more than I do. We in the public might help them by looking over and discussing the state legislators’ agenda to help identify what they value. We could use that to suggest ways to focus any cuts to make them most affect things that they value, rather than things that the majority of Iowans value. Perhaps Iowa’s cities and municipalities could introduce wheel taxes. The fee could be higher for non-residents, and it could be higher the more expensive the automobile is - the rich people who donate to Republican politicians do come into sometimes. Or maybe taxes on charter schools. Or on ivermectin sales.
In a sense my point is the very simple one often made by Spiderman: with power comes responsibility. The state legislature has once again exercised power in a way that is bad for the majority of Iowans. This is the behavior that has made Reynold’s so unpopular. As local governments navigate these difficulties, they should try to make sure that any resulting consequences will bother the people actually responsible. Since they can’t directly control the legislature, their only option will be to channel consequences so they fall as much as possible on the minority of very wealthy Iowans. Those are the only people the state legislature actually care about.
City officials’ emails:
connieboesen@dmgov.org,