Out in Greene County, Iowa

Here’s one Republican favoring the economic stimulus plans & urging bipartisan “yes” votes

By CHUCK OFFENBURGER
February 9, 2009
COOPER, IOWA

This may mean I will never be elected chairperson of my Republican Party here in Greene County, but I am going to say it anyway: I hope my representative in the U.S. House, Congressman Tom Latham, and our U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley – both of them Republicans – will vote for the federal stimulus package that President Barack Obama is advancing.

Here in Iowa, I hope my State Representative Dave Tjepkes, a Republican, and my State Senator Daryl Beall, a Democrat, will both vote for the stimulus programs being considered on the state level.

There aren’t many Republicans like myself out here taking that position.

But, you know, I grew up in the 1950s and ’60s, and once I began to realize how things had happened in our society, I guess I put a lot of faith in government spending programs when they’re essential, especially in hard times. I began to understand how government bailouts and make-work programs during the Great Depression helped in saving businesses, communities and lives.

Iowa’s state parks probably would never have been built without those government employment programs of the 1930s. It took massive government spending programs to get many of our early mud roads turned into decent highways. City halls and school buildings got built. Public art programs were created. After World War II, the “G.I. Bill” transformed our society by paying for college educations for our military veterans.

In my own situation, the Social Security program helped pay the costs of my college education because my father had died when I was in high school. I was able to borrow money to meet other college expenses at three percent interest under the terms of the National Defense Education Act.

When my wife Carla and I moved into our rural neighborhood in 2004, we became aware over the next two years that the farm economy operating around us might well have collapsed, except for one thing – farm subsidy payments from the U.S. government. Many of our farm neighbors were getting half or more of their net income from these ag subsidies. You know what? That enabled a lot of them to stay on the farm. And over the next couple years, the ag economy began to stabilize and then grow. And when some farm prosperity resumed, the subsidy payments dried up.

Of course, we can all cite government programs that turned into financial boondoggles. And we can identify many government swindlers, cheats and whores, too.

But when I really think about it, I’ve seen so much good come from government spending – when it’s done at the right moment and for the right reasons – that I just don’t have the antipathy for it that most Republicans seem to have.

Capitalism, private enterprise and self-sufficiency are of course preferred, and they work great most of the time. Except when they don’t. And they’re not doing so well right now.

Some howl that the stimulus programs will build unimaginable public debt that we will be putting on the shoulders of our children and grandchildren.

I have three thoughts on that: 1) The programs will enable a complete overhaul and redevelopment of the infrastructure of this state and nation, and I like the idea of giving my next generations a system of roads, bridges, trails, schools and communications systems that really work. 2) Never underestimate how quickly the debt can disappear when Iowa’s and America’s economies return to their normal robust capacities. And 3), because our children and grandchildren are bright as heck, they’ll understand what we did, and they’ll figure out ways to carry their load.

All of those are reasons why I ask that those Republicans who represent me – and those Democrats who do, too – to vote in favor of the stimulus programs at both the federal and state levels.

We need them. Much good will come from them.

My fellow Republicans should be pro-active right now. Vote for the stimuli. Then take active roles in the project management and oversight. Help make sure that specific projects are undertaken and completed in the most efficient ways possible. Keep an eye out for ways to help encourage, even leverage, new or expanded private businesses that can sprout in conjunction with the new public projects. That way we become part of the solution.

ONE REASON I FEEL THIS WAY, undoubtedly, is that I am deeply involved in one project that could really benefit from either or both the federal and state stimulus programs. It is a major expansion and enhancement of the Raccoon River Valley Trail, which is the reason Carla and I live where we do in west central Iowa. It is a project that has endorsements and financial participation from 14 communities, three counties, hundreds of individuals and dozens of private businesses and corporations.

It is far more than a recreational project. We see it as a serious economic development project for our whole area, one that will bring hundreds of thousands of tourists into our communities. That will sustain many businesses and help start others.

We’ve worked nearly four years on it, and have raised a tremendous amount of matching money, and with $2.1 million more, it is “shovel ready” and can be completed within two years. That would create a hundred or more construction jobs immediately.

We got a major boost last week when three state senators took a very public stand at the State Capitol in Des Moines, urging that the $2.1 million be found in one stimulus program or another, as soon as possible. Those senators are Matt McCoy of Des Moines, Staci Appel of Ackworth and Daryl Beall of Fort Dodge, all of them Democrats, and all of whose districts include or connect to parts of the RRVT. They “get it.” And I was glad to speak in support of their position at the event at the Capitol.

You can read a story about that by CLICKING HERE.

ONE DAY LATER, THERE WAS A REPUBLICAN RESPONSE. State Senator Steve Kettering, a Republican from Lake View who serves as the party’s “whip” in the senate, issued a statement that said:

“In a time when Iowans are losing their jobs, losing their health insurance, and watching significant amounts of their retirement savings disappear, Iowans want real economic stimulus not taxpayer dollars being siphoned off for pet projects. Trails make for nice recreation but given the employment and economic circumstances and the need to improve our roads and bridges, these trail projects are not a priority to taxpayers…

“These trail projects are not going to create the kinds of job growth that Iowa needs. If we are to grow Iowa, we must stop growing government and remove the barriers to job creation and retention that are hurting our employers and businesses. Young people like trails but require good paying jobs.”

I know Kettering fairly well. He was my own state senator when I lived in Storm Lake in northwest Iowa. He is a good man, but he is a rock-ribbed conservative banker who distrusts government spending as much as I respect it.

Storm Lake, as many of you know, had the highest per-capita benefit from the state’s Vision Iowa Program of any town or city in the state. Vision Iowa awarded Storm Lake $9 million to help leverage a $40 million resort on the lakeshore, and it is transforming the community.

The Vision Iowa Program is, bar none, the more successful state government program of my lifetime. Senator Kettering has opposed it from the get-go. How he gets a single vote out of the community of Storm Lake now, I don’t know.

And, I guess around his hometown of Lake View, he doesn’t hear the clamoring for a recreational trail like you hear in so many Iowa communities now. That’s probably because Lake View already has a nice one.

His town is the north trailhead of the Sauk Rail Trail, which runs south through Carroll – the largest town in Kettering’s district.

There are a lot of Kettering’s constituents who would like to see the unpaved portion of the Sauk Rail Trail finally be hard-surfaced, which would vastly increase trail usage and tourism. That project ought to be included in the federal or state stimulus programs, too. But those constituents obviously need to talk to their state senator about his views on trails. He doesn’t “get it.”


You can write the columnist at chuck@Offenburger.com.