Viewpoints

To the Editor:

Curtain up, light the lights, we’ve not nothing to hit but the heights!” This weekend the Allamakee Community Players gave us a back stage look at the mystery that is theater.

Jonathan Buhl in his directorial debut tackled Rick Abbot’s “Play On” to great effect. Turning the mirror on the players, all was exposed in taking a play to the stage.

I started going gray early. I tried to ignore it at first - just plucking out any stray, wiry, rebellious hair the moment I saw a streak of whiteness. But eventually, they became more and more prolific, and I couldn’t just yank them all out.

One morning when I had first joined the Navy, I was sitting in Chinese class, when all of a sudden, I felt as if I’d been stung on the crown of my head. I jerked up only to see my native-born Chinese teacher, “Wang Laoshi,” looming over me, studying the top of my head with laser sharp focus. Much to my chagrin, between her tiny fingers she already grasped one of my stringy, gray hairs, and she was eagerly searching for more. I leaned towards the door in a desperate attempt to avoid her prying fingers.

To the Editor:

November 3 Iowans will be asked to vote on an amendment to the Iowa constitution that would require a two-thirds majority of both Iowa House and Senate to pass any bill that raises individual or corporate taxes. As a teacher and principal for 36 years, I believe the amendment would cause further harm to an already stressed education system.

Iowa was once a proud education state. In fact, we chose a schoolhouse to represent us on the quarter. Iowans knew that for our state to grow, to be a place for families to settle and work, we needed strong public schools.

However, as has been widely reported, our school’s funding has not kept up with inflation. Public schools have been starved for more than ten years. Surprise, performance drops when it is no longer valued. Iowa is now ranked in the bottom half of our fifty states for school performance, a dramatic slide from first not so very long ago.

To the Editor:

Here are some questions to ponder:
1) Are we better off now than we were two years ago?
2) Why are our groceries and gas costing us more?
3) How are we being hurt by the Iran war and tarriffs?
4) While some in Washington D.C. are making millions, why are we having a harder time trying to make ends meet?
5) As legislators are guaranteed healthcare for life, will our healthcare costs go up even higher?
6) Do we realize how much corruption is going on in Washington D.C.? Don’t we need to send people there who will fight this?
7) Will we have our freedoms much longer (freedoms of speech, press and freedom to vote)?
8) Will we continue to have a democracy?

We wonder. There is much more, but we’ll close with this: Please try and support those who can and will be our voices for our freedoms and democracy.

Dick and Betty Dinan
Elkader
 

To the Editor:

A simple test to determine if government is managing the economy for you is answering the question, “Are you better off now than you were two years ago?”

If the answer is “yes”, then those leaders should stay in power and you will be better off. If the answer is “no”, then those leaders should be voted out, because their policies are hurting you.

Let’s look at different facets of affordability for the middle class in Iowa based on October 2024 vs. October 2026 prices:

Inflation: 2.6% vs. 3.7% (up 42%) - U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Ground beef prices:  $5.59 vs. $6.79 (up 21.5 %) - U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Median Sales price for single-family homes:  $250,000 vs. $262,500 (up 5%) - Iowa Association of Realtors

30-year mortgage Interest rates: 6.5% vs. 7.5% (up 15.4%) - Iowa Mortgage Rates

Electricity: $0.11675/kw vs. $0.13398/kw (up 14.7%) - Alliant Energy

To the Editor:

Have you ever received a nice-looking package that you hoped was holding what you anticipated was in it?  When you opened it, you found there were parts you never wanted.

That describes what’s in Amendment 1 on the Iowa ballot this fall. The package looks good but the contents spell trouble. Any proposed amendments to Iowa’s constitution need to be studied. Iowans need to understand its short- and long-term impacts. Guesses and assumptions won’t provide protection from the consequences.  Any amendment to the constitution is much more difficult to change than a law.

Amendment 1 would require a two-thirds majority vote to increase taxes rather than the current simple majority. That would apply to both personal and corporate taxes. If passed, corporate tax rates would be nearly impossible to raise. Big businesses and corporations don’t carry their own weight and pay their share of taxes and Amendment 1 would eliminate any chances to raise them.

To the Editor:

Everyone has an agenda. Agendas, or goals, are not always a bad thing. We can agree to disagree on certain views as they are laid out on the table. Hidden agendas, however, can present a real problem.

Organized religion, like politics, can have its agendas too. Sometimes these are hidden agendas.

As for myself, I am of the Christian religion, and I do admit I have my own agendas. But they are not hidden agendas. I have nothing to hide; I will lay them out right here. My life goal as a Christian is to evangelize the world. I eat, sleep, and breathe to see others converted to Christianity. I want to further this cause every chance I get.

Now, some may not appreciate my agenda and may be offended by it, but one thing is for sure: It is not hidden. All my cards are laid right out on the table.

To the Editor:

You know, I’ve been thinking about this constitutional amendment on the November ballot - the one that requires a supermajority to pass any new tax reforms. The way I see it, the party in power wants to remain in power and affect our state’s financial well-being into the future. They also want to keep those corporate lobbying dollars coming to them.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t like this flat tax for income tax. It seems that the upper class is benefiting way more than the rest of us. Those of lower income pay the same percentage of their income as the wealthy - who could really afford to pay more.

To the Editor:

Iowa voters will decide on Iowa Amendment #1 during the November 3, 2026 election to determine whether a two-thirds supermajority vote in both the Iowa House and Senate should be required to raise new income taxes.

The current requirement in Iowa to increase or establish a new income tax is a simple majority in both legislative chambers. Majority rules, not supermajority.

We in the Allamakee School District took eleven votes to pass a bond for a new high school and that was a 60% voter approval. They are talking 66% voter approval.

This proposed amendment would require personal or corporate income tax increases to be approved by two-thirds of the majority in each chamber - virtually locking in extreme tax cuts skewed to the wealthy that majority lawmakers put in place between 2019 and 2025.

If this amendment passes it would encourage lawmakers to solve our budget problems by raising the sales tax or other tax fees.

To the Editor:

Likely most of us are aware that in approximately two years our Main Street R-O-W (right-of-way) will be reconstructed. You may have noticed in The Standard that from time to time the City Council has approved various contracts with consultants and received reports related to this project.

When will the Mayor and City Council tell us about the project? Hopefully, we will be informed sooner rather than later. It’s not too early to begin actively enrolling us.

Some questions which would be of interest to us are likely the following:
• What is the project concept?
• What is the role of the community?
• What are the time lines?
• What are the challenges?
• What are the opportunities?
• What will be the fate of Main Street between Front Street and 2nd Street?

Others likely have other questions - what are yours?