Culver Calls Iowa Resilient, but Fails to Prescribe Remedy to Make State Stronger

Iowa faces a tough, some would say unprecedented, budget situation. For years Iowa’s leaders have avoided making many of the tough decisions Iowa faces. State government is long overdue for a top-to-bottom restructuring and the current budget crunch exposes Iowa’s many weaknesses. Governor Chet Culver’s 2010 Condition of the State Address given today touched on this all too briefly.

Governor Culver proclaimed the condition of Iowa to be resilient. Like a hospital patient, it can be said the state is resilient, but saying this is hardly analogous to laying out the budgetary and policy triage needed to heal a state lying in critical condition. The Governor failed to demonstrate to members of the General Assembly and the people of Iowa that he had a battle plan to take Iowa from critical to stable to healthy and thriving.

Culver missed the opportunity to be a leader in a Capitol in serious need of one, opting instead to play the role of cheerleader. Typically, a Condition of the State Address is part self indulgent back slapping, part political posturing, part agenda setting and part inspirational. While it is likely the Governor’s figurative back is still warm from the first piece, he failed to deliver on all of the others.

The current budget shortfall provides Culver and legislators a choice. They can patch together a budget to see the State through this tough period, or they can seize this as an opportunity to restructure government and a build a new stronger foundation to face the future. Restructuring means drastically changing the way Iowa funds and manages services. To start such a process, Culver would have had to lay out a vision for this new government configuration and inspire legislators to join with him to build it. He decided instead to recite his accomplishments and to praise Iowa for its resilience – Culver left writing the prescription for healing Iowa for later, or worse, to somebody else.

This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register blog entry.