Healthier, wealthier Iowa disappears into thin air.
jon@dmcityview.com

Was it the fact that fewer people would be smoking or the millions of dollars for the state that bothered legislators the most about a proposal to increase taxes on cigarettes? Being healthier, one would think, shouldn't bother them. And with all the bitching about money going on up at the capitol, one might also hazard a guess that having more of it wouldn't have been a bad thing either.

Two months ago, when lawmakers should have been thinking about winding down the legislative session, we started hearing all sorts of numbers regarding how much the state was going to up the tax - 60 cents, 36 cents, a buck - but it was going to happen. It wasn't a matter of if, but when.

And why not? Our Medicaid and healthcare programs in Iowa aren't exactly up to snuff, while smoking-related illnesses continue to spread like cancer. Not to mention, studies have shown that nine out of every 10 smokers started when they were children. And according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are only two things that can stop a child from smoking: peer pressure and the price of cigarettes - not to mention, for every minute a person smokes, that's a minute off his or her life.

So let's get this straight. With an increase, we'd be helping the people already in trouble, helping the state's bottom line and helping stop the problem before it ever starts. Add to it the fact that even a meager increase of 36 cents would have allowed the state to assume more of the costs of public schools from local property taxpayers and this thing should have been a slam dunk.

Oh yeah, and a majority of Iowans also wanted to see an increase. Case closed, right - a bunch of great stuff happening for Iowans that most Iowans want? It's a piece of cake. Nothing could make more sense.

Unless you're Christopher Rants.

Make no mistake about it, Speaker of the House Rants runs the state of Iowa. He'll likely never be governor or take his game to Washington, but this guy continues to serve up the best his special interest buddies can get, while ensuring the rest of us eat shit. He is what is wrong with Iowa statehouse politics and he does it with a smile on his face. It's absolutely shameful that a man like him enjoys so much power.

This past Sunday's Des Moines Register proclaimed Gov. Tom Vilsack a "winner" this session, but Vilsack was unable to accept the award because Rants still had him by his nuts, going for one last squeeze. Sure the governor got his money for his early-childhood education program and more money for a renewed Grow Iowa Values Fund (a lot of rural back scratching), and, yes, we are going to get tough on meth and sexual predators, but despite insisting that a cigarette tax increase would save lives and that it was one of his most important objectives for 2005, he couldn't make it happen.
Why? Because Chris Rants wouldn't let him. That's why. Despite a dead-even Iowa Senate coming to terms on a 36-cent-per-pack increase and the full weight of the governor's office behind it (even though Vilsack wanted 80 cents, which would have brought in $130 million) Rants wouldn't introduce the debate, offering up numerous excuses (except the most obvious one: his campaign coffers are stuffed with big tobacco money from companies like Altria) for not doing so along the way. An increase isn't necessary to balance the budget. It's just another tax. It threatens border towns that might lose their Marlboro business to other states. And he's right about all three. The budget did get balanced. It is just another tax. And it would hurt border town cigarette business. But he's dead wrong for thinking that any of those excuses are good enough for Iowa - especially our sick and our children.

Sadly enough, though, we'll never realize the positive things that such legislation would have helped us accomplish. In an effort to get out of town and back to the farm, legislators panicked. This is our state, our lives. It should never be reduced to a notion of "OK, let's just get this over with."

I understand compromise. You have to give to get. It's a game and whatnot. But with the necessary votes in the Iowa House purportedly ready to follow the Senate's lead on an increase, lawmakers should have been chained to their desks until a deal on this was reached. Instead, we have them patting each other on the back and claiming "job well done."

Wrong again.

Things can never be too good in Iowa to not strive to make them better. Despite what Rants and his minions think, there is no such thing as being too healthy or too rich. There are rainy days ahead - there always are. And so-called leaders who are OK with just getting by in the meantime don't deserve to be leaders for long. We have the wrong people doing the wrong things at the wrong time. Killing this cigarette tax increase has done much in the way of proving that. And with next year likely to be tied up in all things political, this was, quite likely, our one good shot.

When speaking about the session this past weekend, the governor told the media, "It's going to make a difference. It's going to improve life in this state." Just not nearly as much as it could have. CV

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