A sterling idea

The  Republican lawmaker probably didn't mean to be  taken too seriously when he said the deadlocked Iowa legislature should throw up its hands, go home, and try again next year. I suspect he was just amusing himself  by jerking chains.

Our Capitol Theatre of the Absurd is skivvy-knotted over -- you guessed it -- how much to extort and spend. Most of the hot air is being belched over commercial property taxes which are too high. Republicans want to cut them. Democrats, secure in their knowledge that all business people are thieving plutocrats, don't.

If our solons go home without writing a budget, the state would, theoretically, have to shut down. And we learn the results from Senate Boss Michael Gronstal, who represents  AFSCME, SIEU, the teacher's union, and, incidentally at best, the people who elected him.

“Therefore, one-quarter of all people in nursing homes would be thrown out ... and schools would lose thousands of teachers. It’s not really a plan that works.”

Of course. And conservatives, being what they are, would delay evicting your nonagenarian grandma from the care center until a nice January blizzard. Just to make the point more vividly. Gurneys in the snow banks. What a photo op.

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Both sides bring considerable financial lunacy to the tax debate.  Democrats argue that lower business rates will mean higher residential rates. Quite true. Republicans say,"So what?" although in much subtler terms and accompanied by various plans to delay and disguise the rape of the smaller taxpayer.

Neither likes to soil its hands with the ultimate solution to confiscatory  property taxes. Which is, broadly sketched, to ravish goofy spending programs, swinging sabres and thrusting spears with all the fervor of a Mongol horde riding down a Crimean village.

True, school districts might have to do way with a few administrators who never deal with an actual student from one year to the next.  Cities and towns would face survival without the services of a a third-assistant deputy  zoning administrator. Other horrors would likewise exist, but, in the end, the more lightly taxed proletarian might no longer need to pick his neighbor's pocket to finance great-gram's bedroom.