Thanks, Iowa GOP, for saving our hard-earned taxpayer dollars

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Thanks, GOP-controlled Iowa legislature, for being such good stewards of taxpayers’ money. It’s thrilling to realize all the funds that were saved by the bills passed in your most recent session.

How wonderful to cut a reading program for our youth. You so wisely decided that helping our children reach their highest potential is wasteful spending. It’s much better for our children not be proficient in reading. It builds character and toughness for the real world when those less-than-proficient reading skills make excelling in other school subjects challenging.

Better to save my taxpayer dollars.

I’m quite sure there’s no relationship between reading ability and future career success or between career success and future taxes paid or contributions to society. So what if low reading ability results in school challenges that result in lower attendance and maybe higher dropout rates?

Seems like a cost savings in teacher salaries to me. What do I care if kids fail in school or drop out? Put ‘em to work and let them earn an income and pay taxes.

Surely our prison populations and crime statistics have no relationship whatsoever to the education and career success of our citizens. Do my taxes pay for police officers and corrections employees? And you’ll need more of them along with more infrastructure as crime rates and prison populations rise?

That sort of makes sense, but my senator and representative say they are saving me all sorts of money, and why would I doubt them?

Thanks also for saving us so much money by not allowing cities or counties to pay above the federal minimum wage or allow public-sector union employees — with the exception of public safety workers — to bargain for anything beyond their wages.

If people want to make more than minimum wage, then they should have worked harder in school and gotten themselves jobs that pay more. Circular thinking? No, reading well doesn’t matter in today’s high-paying tech jobs. I didn’t need extra hand-holding when I was in school, and I did just fine. We’re creating success by cutting reading programs — we’re helping Iowans.

And it’s about time we stopped paying for abstract art that a monkey could paint or for sculptures that look like something stolen from the junk pile in my backyard. If you want to give me one-half of 1 percent of the cost of my new garage, then I’ll give my junk pile a title and call it art.

Just pave those campuses and save on lawn care, too What purpose do those trees and flowers serve in my kids’ education? You don’t need the expense of art to understand other people’s perspectives, experiences and emotions. Some ugly statue can’t improve people’s health and well-being.

Critical thinking skills? You don’t need those. Just do what your elected leaders say. That’s why we elected them. Who has time to question or think?

Good riddance, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. Our water is clean enough, and just because I drive for miles without seeing cover crops or other nutrient reduction strategies doesn’t mean we don’t already know more than enough about this topic.

Sure, we got to keep doing cancer research, but all this environmental crap is just a waste of money. No one is dying because of water or air quality. The planet is here for humans to use in any way that can be profitable. Most scientists should just ask me. I can tell them what’s what without all those expensive experiments. I have good gut feelings about things.

I’m probably most overjoyed to know that I can now stand my own ground, and I’ll be so proud when my kids, who can’t seem to feed the dog or turn a light off, are able to skillfully handle a weapon under my supervision.

Those liberals who think their right to live is more important than my right to stand my ground are soon going to learn how much our freedoms soar when people who I alone decide are threatening me die.

AP Photo/Nati Harnik

It’s not my job to figure out your grandpa with dementia is lost, your kid is deaf and can’t hear me or your cousin visiting from Iran can’t speak English. I was scared, and it was within my rights and the rights the founding fathers gave me to fire my weapon.

And after I stand my ground, if I time it correctly, I can shoot off some fireworks to celebrate my freedoms and how I selflessly protect everyone as long as they don’t surprise me or catch me after I just watched “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” That movie always frightens me.

I don’t see any reason for increased police levels or more calls to emergency services. All my gun-carrying friends and I will be providing more protection to Americans. And learning is by experience not by books. There’s no need to be able to read and understand gun regulations or manuals or instructions or warnings on fireworks.

If that’s a concern, maybe we just pass a law to make sure they are written at a third-grade level, or maybe we could best explain gun safety by showing relevant clips from John Wayne movies.

Yup, it’s a great day in Iowa with all the money taxpayers are saving. I don’t see how it could cost us more down the road when we are saving so much today. But if more people do become costly prison detainees or start needing food stamps or emergency services or other programs the entitlement-dependent moochers expect, then we just cut those programs during the next legislative session and save even more taxpayer dollars.

If it’s not there to molly-coddle you, then maybe you’ll pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and start being a patriot.

If you don’t have the money to buy seed, then don’t buy seed. True, you don’t have a crop that year, but with all the money you saved by not buying seed or fertilizer or having to care for and harvest the crop, you’re sure to have saved enough money to buy seed next year, and then you’ll be rolling in the money.

We can’t be number one in the world if we don’t do everything within our power to prioritize profits over people, and thank goodness our brave Republican leaders understand this American value. Government working for business is the American success story and the envy of the world.

Corporate welfare is what fuels America’s success. If CEOs aren’t making at least 300 times what their lowest paid employees make, then our values and freedoms could be under attack. Sad.

4 COMMENTS

  1. Gee, it’s very nice to realize there are other Iowans who hold the GOP in as much contempt as I do. No, I’d better retract that. Nobody holds the GOP of Iowa in as much contempt as I do. My unequaled level of disgust is exponentially higher than any runners up.

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