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Letter: Supporting ed? GOP only pays lip service to it
Op-Ed · April 16, 2015
If you’ve seen the movie A Few Good Men you will recall Tom Cruise and Demi Moore trying to solve the mysterious death of a marine.
After a lengthy investigation amid much intimidation, the climax arrives with the commander of the base, Jack Nicholson, on the witness stand blurting out “you can’t handle the truth.”
Our governor and his Republican legislators don’t think we can “handle the truth” and they are afraid of the consequences. Why else would they claim there is only $181 million of new revenue available for budgeting purposes when the Revenue Estimating Conference is projecting 6.0 percent or nearly $400 million of revenue growth? What you will not hear them mention is the property tax backfill they approved two years ago to hide the true cost of the commercial tax rollback.
Branstad and the legislature knew the tax cut would reduce the taxable valuation for every city, county and school district in the state leaving them with only two options: either cut their budgets or increase taxes on all property owners to make up the difference. Fearing the backlash this would cause, the legislature came up with the backfill from the general fund which amounts to $281 million in the next budget year.
Cities, counties and schools are getting this backfill to replace the lost property tax, but in the process Iowa’s general fund is $281 million short of being able to fund education adequately. This means our K-12 schools and our children are paying for tax cuts for the large corporations.
Lip service is defined as: verbal expression of support or agreement, unsupported by real conviction or action, hypocritical respect. So the next time you hear our governor or any legislator tell you education is a priority for them, ask them how they voted on the tax cut and backfill and why they don’t think we can handle the truth.
Larry Hodgden,
Tipton
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