Commentary: Storm Lake Times Editorial Blasts Legislators For Dismissing ‘Little Guy’

Commentary — ArtCullen shows in the recent edition of The Storm Lake Times why Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Gartner calls him one of the best editorial writers in Iowa.

With a uniquely western Iowa blend of populist and libertarian instincts that pops with pizazz and overflows with soul, Cullen, the progressive editor of the paper his family owns, takes up for “Joe Six Pack” with a brilliant point-by-point condemnation of both Democrats and Republicans in the Iowa Legislature. The editorial is a must read for any thinking Iowan. It is in the tradition of that great community journalist of early last century, William Allen White of The Emporia Gazette.

Here is Cullen:

The legislature appears to be dismissive, if not contemptuous, of the little guy – Joe Six Pack who makes 10 bucks an hour, works hard, keeps his head down, stops by the neighborhood bar on his way home from work for a couple bumps and a brief respite.

Last year they took away his Touch Play machines – slot machines, really – because the casinos and self-righteous didn’t like them.

This year they will tell him that not only he can’t pull the slots, he can’t have a smoke with that beer that the state taxes and controls. (The casinos will be exempted, of course, because they make bigger political contributions than the Association of Little Bar Owners.)

If his skin is brown and he speaks Spanish, they might have a state trooper trying to track him down to tell him he is not welcome here. If he owns a small business, he could face a year in prison or $10,000 fine for hiring an illegal immigrant with phony papers.

If he has a kid ready for college, and his wife works, too, he probably can’t get a dime’s worth of aid at a state university while the tuition keeps going up. If he looks at the community college, he’ll find little help there, either.

If he has a pickup, they’re going to jack up the registration fee.

If his kids need health insurance and he can’t afford it, the state will make it as difficult as possible to get covered under the Hawk-I insurance program. He will be made to feel like a welfare queen. And if he fails to apply because of the mountain of red tape, the state might force sanctions on him.

If he pays union dues, he does so knowing that his job pays half as much as it did in 1975 because the unions have no power or they are in bed with management, while the politicians that the corporations and unions own wink.

If he has a cheap little acreage just to get away from it all and a huge hoghouse moves in next door, the legislature has made certain he can do nothing about it.

If he likes to fish every now and then, and he finds that his lake looks like a manure lagoon because the state has ignored it, he has the legislature to thank for appropriating a mere $9 million per year for restoration statewide.

When will someone in Des Moines stand up for him?

When will someone say live and let live? If you want to kill yourself smoking in that bar and gambling your life away, have at it.

When will someone return to the quaint notion that state universities are for everyone, not just the entitled?

When will someone recognize that immigrants are our neighbors, not our enemies?

Or that every poor child should be able to access health insurance without having to hire an accountant?

Or that Iowa has cut $800 million in annual income tax revenue and shifted it to sales taxes borne primarily by the poor?

Or that thousands of Iowans are locked years in prison for minor theft and drug offenses so legislators could look tough on crime?

Until someone steps up, Joe Six Pack can figure out that the Democrats and Republicans holed up down there until April are really out for themselves and the preservation of their power.