By Liz Mathis —- Self-government must include the right and means to know what your representatives are doing and why they are doing it. Today, Iowa Republicans and Democrats are working together to make that right a practical reality for average Iowans. Here are the details. When government operates in the dark, a [...]
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The weather may be warmer, but last week’s Sunshine Week came and went with a fraction of the attention paid to a single temperate day. Sunshine Week is a time to trumpet the importance of transparency in government. But this year, that trumpet was hard to hear. There were some highlights that I should [...]
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CEDAR RAPIDS — More than 10,000 children in Linn County have potential mental health issues. Sound bad? Now imagine this: Fewer than half of these children will get the necessary accompanying services. Eugenia Vavra, manager of community building for United Way of East Central Iowa, presented those statistics during the Iowa’s PTA’s Saturday forum, “Children [...]
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Farmers could stand to lose as much as any segment of the economy if political leaders don’t avert the fast-approaching “fiscal cliff.” The impact on farmers of potential changes to the estate tax is “extremely dramatic,” compared with other fiscal cliff effects, which include income and payroll tax rate increases, said Dave Miller, director of [...]
continue »By David Swenson —- Our economy is approaching $16 trillion in gross domestic product (GDP), and whoever is elected in November will not change that total. They would have us believe otherwise, but our presidents and presidential aspirants have little power over business cycles. A president’s policies and preferences, though, can profoundly influence the [...]
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By Tim Trenkle —– Before the Janesville, Wis., General Motors plant closed in the Great Recession year of 2008, it hummed with prosperity, a great assembly line begun in 1919. Legend had it as the biggest GM plant on earth. In the 1980s, sweethearts graduating from nearby Craig High School could combine incomes [...]
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By David V. Wendell —- Skyrocketing debts, unfair foreign trade advantages, jobs transferred overseas, unemployment at record highs, unstoppable foreclosures. This is a description of our nation in 1786. Under a loose confederation of 13 states and a weak central government, the federal lack of power to regulate trade and the financial system [...]
continue »By The Gazette Editorial Board —- Openness in government, as you would expect, is a subject near and dear to us. Last winter, The Gazette and several other newspapers contributed to a reporting project, coordinated by the Iowa Freedom of Information Council and Iowa Newspaper Association, about the state of openness in Iowa. Since [...]
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By Linda Upmeyer —- At a time when our nation needs to be focused on job creation and a more effective and efficient government, I am thankful there is a place where state legislators are already hard at work. The American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, brings legislators together to share and [...]
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By Judith Whetstine —- International tabloid news practices concern news ombudsmen. Are they also a concern in the United States? Yes. The News of the World/Murdoch phone-hacking scandal and other tabloid news practices are under investigation by a British commission. The commission is weighing the need for press oversight by the government because [...]
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