GOP may have lost Hispanic vote for future

One of the most important and controversial issues in the recent campaign was immigration reform, which has split the Republican Party down the middle with moderate Republicans supporting the Senate Immigration Reform Bill and the far right Tea Party opposing it. The Democrats unanimously supported the Senate-passed bipartisan Immigration Reform Bill and campaigned to promote it. However, Republicans couldn’t act responsibly by discussing immigration reform honestly in the recent midterm campaigns. They knew that by dishonestly defining the Senate Immigration Reform Bill as an amnesty bill, they could confuse the public and hurt Democratic candidates. The Republican’s nasty ads falsely accused Democrats of supporting amnesty by supporting the Senate Immigration Reform Bill. They knew full well the Senate bill received the votes of 14 Senate Republicans (including McCain, Rubio, Hatch, Flake and Graham) who never would have supported it had it included amnesty. The Republicans may have been successful in spreading amnesty disinformation, hurting Democrats and scaring the public in the short term. However, the Republicans, by intentionally distorting and manipulating Immigration Reform for quick political advantage, may have destroyed their long-term goal of gaining Hispanic support for any future GOP Presidential candidate.

Enough of Rick Smith

I wrote this letter before the actual election, so perhaps I am going out on a limb.  However, I don’t think so. Apologies if Hades froze over and I was wrong. Well here we are post-election 2014. Despite dire predictions by both sides, the sun still came up this morning. Depending on your preference, Iowans either elected someone whose more than $40 million in ads claim “won’t work for Iowa, is not right for Iowans, women, students, elderly and veterans, will be a rubber stamp for the President, will ship jobs overseas or create high-wage jobs here, will cut $1 billion from education, will (or won’t) put Iowa first, will fight for the middle class or give tax breaks to the wealthy, and be someone we can (or can’t ) trust.” What we do know is that Iowans (and all other state citizens) for the most part re-elected incumbents. The old quote “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” comes to mind. With the elections over, I wonder if Rick Smith might be able to use his writing talents to pontificate on topics different than his normal “all of this political party are evil and all of that political party are perfect.”

Gee, another issue of Cityview, another letter from Rick Smith. O.K., I get it. Democrats good, Republicans bad. What a simple world it is. Now right up front I’ll admit I’m just a plain old country boy not nearly as smart as Mr. Smith, but here’s a thing or two I’m certain of:

Regardless of Tuesday’s vote, the sun will come up on Wednesday. Pretty sure some Democrats will win; pretty sure some Republicans will win. (And on behalf of the majority of us average voters, pretty sure it won’t really matter.)

And that split vote makes me proud. It means us lowly voters actually thought for ourselves and didn’t allow ourselves to be bamboozled by a shrill from either party. What a concept.

More gas tax

Now that the election is over, let us hope our legislators get some work done.

Here in Iowa, they need to move on a gasoline tax. The price of gas is down. We all could stomach a bit of an increase in the gasoline tax. Our roads and bridges — especially in rural Iowa — need help. Think of all the well-paying construction jobs.

Let us go high-tech. Maybe the gas tax could fluctuate a few pennies based on the price of the pump. Hy-Vee and Dahl’s give us great discounts if we buy groceries and pharmaceutical items. When I get a discount and I am paying $2 per gallon, I could afford to pay a little more gas tax.

Let us hope the legislators could be a little innovative. Also, perhaps there could be some way that they could divulge how much gas tax they collect every month and then perhaps even explain how the money is spent.

We have the technology. We have the capabilities. A sliding gas tax based on price could be possible.

Is there any chance Branstad can truly lead us in the 21st century?