How much is your safety worth?

He is out there somewhere and he is one of the keys to the Democrats taking back the Governor’s chair in Iowa. He might have already done his crime. Maybe his victim is already in a hospital bed or a morgue.  Maybe he is behind you in line at the grocery store or sitting in his car outside your house.

The commercial would be simple.

Close up of two hands on a steering wheel.

The lights of a police squad car appear in the rear window. The car pulls over to the side of the road. A police officer walks up to the car.

“License, insurance, and registration, please,” the officer asks.

As the officer goes back to his car, the crimes the person committed scroll across the screen as a narrator intones a summery of what the gentleman has done.

Then the unseen narrator states, “But thanks to Governor Terry Branstad and the Republican Party of Iowa the officer did not know this.”

Up pops a booking photo of a real life criminal.

 The narrator goes on, “In order to cut taxes for millionaires and corporations Governor Branstad ordered a hiring freeze of public employees. One of the offices affected is the office that processes criminal warrants. They were two months behind schedule because they are overwhelmed due to a lack of manpower.  [Name of offender with warrant] was one such criminal. He was pulled over on a simple traffic violation. The officer did not know it.”

The camera moves in for a close up of the eyes of the criminal.  The eyes morph into Terry Branstad’s eyes and the camera pulls back, showing the governor surrounded by rich donors. As this is happening the narrator details the crime that happened a few days after the traffic stop, a violent, sickening crime.

“It all could have been prevented,” the narrator intones.

The commercial ends with the police officer handing the gentleman a ticket and saying, “Have a nice day.”

As the officer walks back to his car and the commercial fades to black, the voice over concludes, “Let’s return to common sense and Iowa values.”

The Des Moines Register has not covered it. Neither has the Ames Tribune, The Cedar Rapids Gazette, or any of the other major newspapers in Iowa. But it has already happened.  How do I know this? I have talked with several police officers who worry that this is developing into a crisis situation. Maybe one cop is living with the guilt of pulling over a man with a warrant out for his arrest –he had no way of knowing – and sending that gentleman on his way.  A few days later, another routine call, a routine neighborhood disturbance.  At least that is what he thought. If you protect the public you get used to a lot of things.  This, he was not prepared for. What happened should never have happened. That man should never have been there. He should have been in jail. Later that night, my friend vomited. He felt it was his fault. He feels like he should have known.  He is not to blame. It still keeps him up at night. Governor Terry Branstad, I am sure, is sleeping sound.

How much is one human being’s life worth?  Yours is worth less than two entry-level state employees.  Through retirements and people leaving to take other jobs, the department that processes criminal warrants in the Iowa Division Of Criminal Investigation is half the size it was a year ago.  Before the downsizing, this department was already behind in processing records and even with temporary overtime (which because the building’s air conditioning is turned off makes it unbearable to stay for very long in the summer), is falling further behind every day.

To put this in perspective, the governor’s security staff is larger than that department. In fact, the $130,000 salary, plus $50,000 state pension, that the governor is double-dipping on, dwarfs the cost of a department that keeps taxpayers safe and criminals off the street. (Governor Branstad is the only current state employee who is allowed to fully double-dip because of a provision he signed into law in 1992.) It seems that reducing the size of government stops at Terry Branstad’s paycheck. Color it any way you like. His financial safety is worth more to him than your physical safety. (Any politician, Republican or Democrat who talks about sacrifice and then does not include himself should be voted out of office.)

And things are only going to get worse. The state of Iowa gets $6 billion in federal spending every year.  Some of this money will vanish as the federal government trims it’s spending. If the recession continues,, and Branstad’s belief that voodoo economics and tax cuts will magically produce jobs does not pan out, more jobs will have to be cut.  (If I am going to listen to anyone about how to make a state prosper, it is not the governor who oversaw Iowa in the 1980s when the economy was booming and young people were staying around in droves.) This will mean more cuts in the areas of public safety and those who care for Iowa’s most vulnerable residents.

I guarantee you - what is true in Iowa is true across the rest of the nation.  Cutting public services or jobs is not a zero sum game.  Reducing government spending in certain areas does not occur in a vacuum. Take a cop off the street, overwhelm a department or program, shut off a street light and you pay for it somewhere down the line.  It is just a matter of evaluating whether the cost is worth the benefit. Everyone hates paying taxes and everyone hates big government unless it is that government program or that cop on the beat that helps you. There are responsible cuts; responsible taxes rates, things that can be done differently to save money and the wisdom to know the difference.  How much is your safety worth?

Not enough for our governor to keep from double dipping or to realize that he has overwhelmed those in charge of your safety.

My great grandfather once said in his homespun way, in regards to how a person should vote, “Even a mangy dog is smart enough to know that the person who truly loves him is the one with liver oil on their fingers.”  In other words, even a dog is smart enough to realize that the person who feeds and cares for them is the one they should love.  The same principle should apply to voters. If a governor, politician or political party is foolish with spending taxpayer’s funds and is willing to risk your wellbeing because of some ideology, they should be voted out of office or embarrassed publically.

Notice the person in line behind you at the store or pulled off to the side of the road. Would a police officer talking to them, know for sure if the individual is a criminal?  How much is your life worth? At least Governor Branstad does not have worry about that.