Iowa gas tax debate: It’s time for the dime

Growing up on a livestock farm 60 years ago was more exciting than you might think.

My dad farmed with his two brothers and his father. They all raised livestock on their own farms but our farm was the home place, the hub of activity every day. I was the youngest of four children, the one who was lucky enough to be there and not in school. When I could slip away from mom, I would head outside and find one of those guys to hang with. They would all take pity on the youngest, because they knew I had two bossy older sisters. What uncle or grandpa would not feel sorry for a young boy who would rather be with them then with his mother on an egg route?

We raised cattle and hogs at the time. We were fortunate that Oscar Mayer was located in Davenport, just 15 miles away. That's where the hogs went. The cattle went to the Chicago Livestock yards to be sold. Cattle commission men would prowl the roads of Eastern Iowa promising you great things if you delivered your cattle to them at the stock yards in Chicago. I am sure this was repeated around the country at places for the Omaha and Kansas City stockyards. The agents would tell us when it would be a good time to deliver those cattle to Chicago so that we might get the best price possible. When the time was right, the local long haul livestock trucker was called. We would load the cattle at 3 or 4 p.m. and take off for Chicago. It would take up to seven hours on different two-lane highways to get that load to Chicago. They would unload the cattle, clean their trucks, drive back home at night and repeat the process over again the next day for another farmer.

We had the option of driving up at night or riding the Rock Island Railroad's mail train to arrive at the stock yards by 6 a.m. The first thing we would do when we arrived was put on a pair of boots and ask the receiving agent where our pen of cattle was located. We made sure that our cattle had water and feed. Then it was off to the exchange building for breakfast and to meet with those cattle agents to see what was happening in the market.

If we were lucky, the cattle would be sold early. We could then go to the ninth floor, collect the check and return home. Sometimes if the trains were running slow, we would head over to Midway airport, where we could climb into an Ozark DC3 and return to Moline in an hour. I was living the dream when that happened!

During that same time period, parallel ribbons of concrete were starting to cross Illinois and Iowa. This was the birth of our interstate system, a new and safer way to travel the country. This was also the beginning of the decline for rail passenger traffic and the Chicago Union Stockyards. Why did all those jobs leave Chicago? Well, that's an easy answer. They came to Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska. They followed the new roads to be closer to the livestock they needed. Look around Iowa today and see how that industry has thrived. It was no magic economic plan; it was just about having the right infrastructure in place. Lo and behold, commerce sprouted!

Let's fast forward to today. Let's go to the intersection of Highways 30 and 380 south of Cedar Rapids. Now let's draw a circle around that point that is five miles in diameter. Every day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, that circle consumes more than 1 million bushels of corn and soybeans a day. Some comes by rail but the majority of it arrives by truck. This intersection is to an Iowa farmer as Yankee Stadium is to a Yankee's fan; great things are produced in this circle. The companies that produce the ethanol, the soybean meal, and the dried distiller grains proceed to ship these products around the Midwest and our nation and the world.

Now follow Highway 30 east of Cedar Rapids. The first 15 miles is a great four-lane divided highway. Highway 30 then becomes a two-lane road for the next 60 miles until it reaches Dewitt; at that point we have a very nice four-lane divided highway to Clinton where another large corn processing plant is located. These type of large ethanol and feed plants are located in more than 60 towns in Iowa, producing livestock feed or corn products that are used in more than four thousand different products.

It's time for the dime to finish Highways 30 and 20 across our state. It's time to give our Iowa Department of Transportation the money needed to repair and replace our roads and bridges to take us into the next century. It's time to invest a dime and watch commerce blossom around our state. Watch thriving communities and schools grow as new businesses are attracted to Iowa. Please join me in telling our governor and our legislators that the time is right for the dime on fuel.

' Jerry Mohr, of Eldridge, is president of the Iowa Corn Growers Association. Comments: jerrymohr5@gmail.com