Iowans are being asked to decide Iowa Amendment 1, a constitutional change that would require a two-thirds supermajority of the legislature to approve any income tax increase. John Gilbert, who farms along South Fork with a brother, a son and their wives, says he is voting as if his life depends on it.
“I’m certain I’m not the only one voting like my life depends on it,” Gilbert said. “Quite literally, here in Iowa it does.” He says no item on the ballot has a more direct impact on water quality and cancer than the amendment, because it would make it much harder to raise money for public work that the state cannot keep postponing.
Gilbert’s family farm raises non-GMO row crops, small grains, forages, cattle and antibiotic free pigs sold to Niman Ranch. He is also a volunteer with the Southfork Watershed Alliance and active in Practical Farmers of Iowa and the Iowa Farmers Union, which gives him a front-row view of the state’s degraded water and record high cancer rates. The farm has been recognized for its work toward sustainability, but Gilbert argues the larger problem is that the state keeps treating the needed response as optional.
The amendment applies only to income taxes. Republicans already made significant cuts to the state income tax and made the rate the same for all income levels, and Gilbert says that detail is the tell: the proposal does not ask voters to lock in lower taxes, only to make higher taxes far harder to enact. He calls that “another example of the wealthy not wanting to share,” and says the result would be a system where a super-super majority is not needed to cut taxes, only to increase them.
That asymmetry matters because the money question does not go away if the vote does. Gilbert says the only certainty is that significant public investments will be required, whether the state likes it or not. “A ‘NO’ vote is a vote for better water quality, for keeping thousands of Iowans from suffering with cancer, and for having a future that doesn’t include a bottom-of-the-barrel economy,” he said. His warning is blunt: if Iowa approves Amendment 1, it will not solve the state’s problems — it will make them harder to pay for, and leave the bill for later.
