Iowa Should Follow Lead of More Progressed States

You cannot go more than three days without 'progressives' in the legislature trying to create new programs to benefit government bureaucrats. Often they claim that "these programs will pay for themselves" by eliminating a problem before it is more expensive to fix. They don't have many examples of this working, but it sounds good in theory.

Recognizing the claim behind these groups is that the government could use more to spend, truly progressive states have implemented "Tax Me More" accounts for citizens who have trouble finding meaningful uses for their income. New Hampshire and Arkansas have established these accounts, other state legislatures (Kansas, Washington) have considered such legisaltion. Some allow citizens to count these donations as taxes, making them deductible gifts from federal income tax, and some proposals let citiznes direct where the money goes.

Suprisingly, liberals who claim the governemnt would do good things with the money haven't taken to the accounts very kindly, opposing their implementation and not donating once they exist.

I think adopting such a fund would be a great move for the Iowa legislature. I don't think this has been done in other states, but I envision Republicans agreeing to any spending increases that democrats can imagine, simply stipulating that money for the project must come from the 'Tax Me More' fund. So you want to increase welfare payments? ...lower middle school class sizes? ...buy every child a puppy? ...provide sensitivity training to prison inmates? Great! Charge it to the optional funds account and let those civic-minded benefactors support their supposedly worthy causes. Republicans can tell constituents they held back state spenidng an ddemocrats can brag about all the dumb crap they they passed. It's a definite win-win.