Letter to the Editor: Properly fund education in Iowa

The rebuttal on 29 April by Katie Dodge Hanson to my original letter to the editor is a canard based on a false premise. No where in my letter did I claim that Representative Patti Ruffs effort to obtain increased funding for education was “pet project” for “big spending politicians.” The entire thrust of my editorial was that Representative Ruff had failed to provide a real solution for the proposed increase in spending on education and she never sought any new sources for acquiring funding her proposed spending. The sign of an effective representative is the ability to provide solutions where no one else has been able to. Representative Ruff has not done that. So I will reply to Katie Dodge Hanson with her own words that “You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.” I will not let someone so misrepresent my words as she has done in her rebuttal.
The statistics quoted by Ms. Hanson are correct. She also reports that Ruff has frequently reported on how the current education funding crisis came about and the amount of money potentially available in the reserve fund. I have no quarrel with information that is readily available to the general public.
So as the legislative session comes to a close we still have no solution to the problem. The fact remains that Representative Ruff, who claimed in the campaign that she had a special ability to work across the aisle with Republicans, has failed miserably in that endeavor. It’s possible she could have found her Republican neighbors a bit more amenable to a compromise had she not tried to ram down their throats a six percent increase in funding.
I want education in Iowa to be properly funded. I would be delighted if we could have an increase of six percent in the funding. Show me how it will be funded and I will support it. I want a representative who is willing to search all avenues for a solution.

Lowell Engle
Harpers Ferry