If this is us, then we are the villian

With the 2023 legislative session ended, it gives pause to reflect on the accomplishments of state government.

This includes:

• Reworking child labor laws to expand the scope and extend work hours for children while reducing business liability for injuries (Senate File 542).

• Cutting the SNAP nutrition program (Senate File 494).

• Cutting top corporate tax rates by14 percent.

Like a Charles Dickens novel we’ve shifted the social landscape of Iowa toward a harder, less compassionate place. And we’ve rested the weight of that change on our children.

But unlike Dickens there will be no anodyne from Marley or his ghosts. The specter we will see is entirely different. One that will haunt us for a generation, potentially rob them of their childhood and lay heavily on a now more difficult future. One that, through our own complacency, we have allowed to happen.

If within our sensibilities, Iowans prioritize the enrichment of the most successful at the expense of our children, then we are traveling a path where ideals and aspirations will wither and die. This will be the inevitable legacy we will serve to the next generation. Because we will have served them little else.

Irrespective of the historical consequences of this shift, we as a society, have to ask ourselves: Is this now who we are?

For in this present-day novel, if the answer to that question is yes, then we have met the villain. And it is us.

Rob McNally

Cascade

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