In her Condition of the State message, or as I like to call it, the State of the State (SoS), Gov. Kim Reynolds painted a glossy picture and just glossed over a lot of other issues.

State Sen. Sean Bagniewski from Iowa District 35 did a good job in looking at the real numbers and issues. I have received his permission to use them for this SoS portion and I will also touch on Sen. Mike Bousselot’s suggestion Iowa should buy the southern counties of Minnesota.

Reynolds’ claim that Iowa is No. 4 for education choice because of her voucher program came from the Heritage Foundation, a Republican-backed organization, whereas WalletHub says Iowa’s education system has fallen to No. 20. Iowa is rated No. 39 for preschool spending and Minnesota is rated 19. Iowa is also rated at No. 27 for public school spending and Minnesota is rated No. 15.

When Iowa was rated No. 2 in the nation for education, the school funding was increased 4% annually as opposed to 2% now. We haven’t even kept up with inflation and as inflation surpassed the increases, our ranking has fallen further and further.

Reynolds failed to mention that Iowa is ranked No. 7 for people leaving the state while Minnesota is rated No. 8. As far as the brain drain, Minnesota actually has a net gain of 7.8% while Iowa’s is minus 34%.

Gov. Reynolds touted Iowa as being rated No. 4 in health care, but Minnesota is rated No. 1. Iowa is also No. 4 in nitrogen pollution. With the second highest cancer rate in the nation, Iowa will need to address that aspect better. The governor has awarded a $1 million grant for research into the cause, but gave $1 billion for the PRIVATE school voucher program.

Research done years ago by the National Cancer Institute cited Iowa’s high nitrates in the water. The million would have been better spent getting the rural areas hooked up to the rural water systems while we address the cause of the nitrates, anhydrous ammonia. We could give farmers tax credits to shift to urea, which takes the anhydrous one step further and uses most of the CO2 produced in the making of anhydrous to make the urea. Only 10% percent of anhydrous locks into the soil, while 90% of urea locks into the soil. We eliminate 80% of the CO2 that would otherwise be returned to the atmosphere from the fertilizer plants. It also eliminates the need for a CO2 pipeline. The ethanol plants which need a liquefaction system anyway to capture their CO2 for the pipeline can now sell it locally to make up for the loss at the anhydrous plants and create more jobs in the process.

Reynolds also failed to mention that Iowa was rated No. 43 for active physicians by Becker’s Hospital Review and No. 49 for nursing home inspections by the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging. Annually-mandated inspections are happening on average every 43 months because we gutted the department that’s supposed to perform them.

One thing to remember: The kids that we are shorting on educational funding are the ones that are going to pick your nursing home.

By the way, we also have the honor of being dead last in OB-GYN per capita according to the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Reynolds also claimed Iowa is No. 1 in renewable energy, but failed to mention we’re No. 3 in energy costs, while Minnesota is No. 5.

She touted Iowa as No. 3 in “opportunity” by the U.S. News and World Report, but the same article cited us at No. 36 for state economies while Minnesota was No. 28. Per capita earnings made Iowa No. 33 and Minnesota No. 13.

You know the old saying, if you don’t toot your own horn, no one else will either? Gov. Reynolds announced that she had been rated No. 1 for being the most fiscally responsible governor by The Cato Institute, a Republican-funded group. She failed to mention that the Federal Highway Administration rated us at No. 48 for the condition of our bridges and No. 48 for the condition of our levees by the Army Corp of Engineers. The American Road & Transport Builders Association has classified 4,544 Iowa bridges as deficient, which is down 27 bridges from 2020.

Being fiscally responsible is different from being indifferent to the needs of the state and the needs of low and fixed income people. If you’re driving on four bald tires and your roof is leaking while you’re sitting on a large nest egg, that is not being fiscally responsible; it’s being dangerously irresponsible.

Iowa passed a budget that cannot be met after the last tax cuts, which means that Iowa will automatically make up some of the shortage out of the “rainy day fund.” But by law, it can only cover a certain percentage and then automatic budget cuts will take place. The Legislature knew, and admitted it knew, it was short-changing the current budget and knew the cuts would happen. It was its way of trying to sidestep the responsibility for what will happen at the county and city levels due to the caps on taxation increases by the state. The people who will suffer the most are our low and fixed income senior citizens.

The tax cuts to the rich are the bane of the tax system. A 3.8% tax for the poor is a heck of a lot different than for those earning over $400,000.

Iowa is on the road to Kansas in more ways than one; Arizona and California had to cancel road projects and other needs to cover their private school vouchers and Kansas had to do emergency taxes and borrowing and raise what taxes were left to keep from going bankrupt after Gov. (Sam) Brownback’s fiscal rainbow never occurred.

The money that is in the rainy day fund came from cutting the social programs more than it did from taxation of the rich. The low and fixed income have already been shorted; do we really need to continue to penalize them?

We didn’t participate in the summer free food program for low income kids with the blanket statement that they are obese. We choose to lump people from one example and apply it to a group. They’re just lazy. They don’t want to learn. If they had planned better.

My reply is: Some people are luckier than others. We were given opportunities that they were not due to race, location and their economic standing.

We are on a road that is literally and physically falling apart; it’s not too late to change it.

Lastly, about Iowa buying the lower counties in Minnesota: As Canada and Greenland have asked, why would they want to lower their standard of living? Money in the rainy day fund hasn’t done anything for us.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say the people of Minnesota don’t want to either.

Michael Dingman lives in Webster City.