Art Cullen.

That damn socialist mayor out in New York threatened to hike property taxes by 9.5% unless he can ram through a wealth tax.

Wait a New York minute: Property taxes on our humble metal shed along Railroad Street shot up more than 70% this year. Potholes pock the streets and we can barely afford gas for the school bus. That’s with the whole shebang run by Republicans.

Just who is the socialist?

They pay themselves like princes. A Buena Vista County supervisor pulls down more than $36,000 per year for talking weeds once a week and muffing up tax collections and distribution. Let the county lawyers fight it out in court with the city’s lawyers. Wake up the board when it’s over so they can sign off on the bills.

That is one reason our burden is great. Local yokels burn money like kindling. A Polk County supervisor pulls down $150,000 per year. They sue each other down there, too, hiring expensive lawyers with your money making much ado while doing very little.

Mamdani at least offers a free bus ride.

Local government is a creature of the state. Schools run on a blend of income, property and sales taxes. Income taxes have been almost eliminated methodically over the past decade. Teachers and buses, cops and cars cost money. Property taxes pick up the slack. Farmers are mad at the school board, which is mad at the legislature.

Legislators cut breaks for landlords. Homeowners and small-business owners get stuck with the balance. Beware when they scheme in Des Moines beyond your sight. They have been behind closed doors for several weeks without a record made. It sounds as if local government revenue, excluding schools, will be capped at 2% per year. This is what the legislature attempted with the allowable-growth formula for schools — which in part is driving property tax increases and rural closures.

A cap sounds plausible but it won’t work. Schools proved it.

You cannot cut income taxes year after year and cap property taxes if you want to hang onto teachers, police officers and nurses. Storm sewers don’t grow from trees.

The governor warned that there will be pain with property tax caps. That sounds ominous. Schools will have to get by on a 2% increase or less next year. Wait a couple years when our savings accounts are drained from structural deficits outlawed under the constitution. Billions of dollars in deficits pile up from systematic income-tax cuts dating back to the Branstad administration. Republican State Sen. Mary Lou Freeman of Alta, bless her soul, worried out loud about it at the time. Republicans were different then, kids. She figured we reduced income taxes by nearly $1 billion per year well before Gov. Reynolds set off on her binge.

We quit mowing the state parks and pulled back from restoring Storm Lake. We reduced hours at the public library. We got rid of community service officers to help police with non-commissioned support. Streets have no curbs. They are dangerous to drive. Nursing homes closed. We are told we need a new water plant we cannot afford. Teacher aides get a pittance for mentoring your children.

This is all roosting as midterm elections approach in November.

We don’t know what sort of property tax scheme they will arrive at. Local officials are drafting their budgets for next year now. It may be too late to have any effect before the election.

Reynolds accomplished nearly everything she set out to do. She wanted to eliminate the state income tax. She got it to a flat tax of 3%.

But our property taxes are the eighth-highest in America. That’s affordability, as they say.

We pay over $7,000 a year in property taxes, and local Boss Hoggs call us an “enemy of the people.” I call them self-serving socialists who think the people are their tax slaves.

They prop up huge conglomerates with tax cuts and water subsidies on the backs of working folks living in fear of the secret police and tax assessor. That is not the way of HR Gross, late Iowa congressman who voted against the Vietnam War because it was too expensive. What has happened to our values?

I’m that cultural relic of an old White guy complaining about his taxes. I wonder in that old man sort of way why we pay a disproportionate share because we choose to domicile a family-owned business in rural Iowa — which is tough enough when the government is not hostile.

They may be socialists up there in Minnesota but they make twice as much money as we do and their lakes are nicer. So are their roads. They are not actively trying to kill off colleges or close libraries. Seems like the relatives have nice vehicles. At least our property taxes are higher. We have that.

Art Cullen is editor of the Storm Lake Times Pilot newspaper, where this column first appeared. It is republished here through the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Please consider subscribing to the collaborative at iowawriters.substack.com and the authors’ blogs to support their work.