Iowa on the path to bankruptcy
The state's budget surplus is an illusion built on everyday Iowans' misery and death.
To paraphrase Herman Melville, bankruptcy happens a little bit at a time, and then all at once. A little debt here, a little expense there, a slightly lower revenue this year. And everything can seem fine until those small decisions together suddenly become very big problems.
Iowa is staring down a very big budget problem.
If you have listened only to our Republican leaders, you might think that Iowa’s budget is in excellent shape and wonder why we’re bringing this up. Des Moines Republicans tell us that we have enough money banked that we can cut taxes further, even do away with the state income tax.
Unfortunately, the outlook of our state finances is only rosy if you ignore the “Bridge Out Ahead” sign.
In recent years, Iowa’s majority party has been burnishing its libertarian credentials by skimping on state expenses and hacking away at future revenue sources. By cutting corners on expenses, they’ve brought in short-term cash while increasing the state’s risk and jeopardizing our future prosperity.
Consider what it would be like if you canceled your insurance, stopped buying medications, stopped fixing your house and car, cashed out your retirement savings, and then cut your work hours. Sure, your bank account might look really good for a while, but only fools and liars would call this a sound financial position. And apparently, politicians do, too.
Evidence of corner cutting is everywhere. Here are just a few examples from recent news.
One fundamental government function that even most libertarians support is building and maintaining basic infrastructure. Iowa ranks worst in the nation on bridge maintenance. We’re somehow even worse at dams, where we spend less than 4% of the national average on maintenance and have far fewer emergency plans in case they fail. Meanwhile, our Mississippi lock and dam systems are, on average, 35 years older than their intended lifespans. These systems both enable our economy and fail in very expensive ways.
Public safety is another basic function. Most police costs are local, but the state pays for prisons, the State Patrol, and other agencies. As of 2021, the State Patrol was down almost 25% of its road troopers, some of whom Gov. Kim Reynolds has been sending to Texas, while Iowa experiences more traffic deaths. Meanwhile, record understaffing of our prisons contributed to the 2021 escape attempt that caused the first staff deaths at an Iowa prison in half a century.
Governments also have a duty to look after their most vulnerable. Instead, Iowa neglects the elderly, ranking 49th in the nation for nursing home inspectors. Recent reporting shows the consequences of this lack of oversight: residents dying of gangrene and suffocation at facilities with backlogs of complaints.
Things are equally bad for the mentally ill. Iowa has had insufficient mental health care resources for years, especially for children, who can wait days for emergency care and months for regular therapy.
Skimping on these services causes misery and death. It also trades relatively low, regular costs for expensive, long-term problems. And these deferred-maintenance issues are peanuts compared to the situation with education. But that is a topic for another time.
They say your spending shows your values. Does all of this match your values?
And then there is the other side of the budget, revenue. Not only is Iowa cutting corners on basic expenses, we have also committed to over $1.3 billion more in future tax cuts, and still the governor wants to eliminate the state income tax that provides half of state revenues. All together, almost two-thirds of annual state revenue could disappear.
So don’t let the exuberant political declarations fool you: Iowa’s political leaders have been working very hard at the “gradually” part of going bankrupt. Unless something changes soon, we’d better all get ready for the sudden plunge.
Kelcey Patrick-Ferree and Shannon Patrick live in Iowa.
Originally published in the Iowa City Press-Citizen on December 9, 2023, under the title “Iowa Republicans set course for a budget nightmare.”
Well said. Of course, Covid Kim and the rest of the Iowa Republicans are counting on voters who aren't aware of or concerned about this, voters for whom reality is whatever the right-wing noise machine tells them it is.