Editorials: Willis Hamilton

Willis Hamilton was a great lawyer. He was a fearless advocate who was smart and took command of the facts. He was practical but liked to swing for the fences and often  knocked it out with handsome judgments and settlements. He was candid with his clients for their benefit and knew when to tell them to fold.

Willis was our friend and lawyer, so of course we joined the Hamilton tribe in mourning his loss last week at age 75, especially brother Steve and sister Mary, who practiced with him in Storm Lake. We go way back. Bones was there for our mother, Willis was there for us.

Willis was named after grandfather attorney Willis Edson, benefactor of Buena Vista University and stalwart Republican politician who must be cursing from the heavens with his namesake over our current state of affairs. Willis Hamilton was Storm Lake through and through. Following a stint at Creighton, he came home to practice law with his father, Bones. Steve soon did the same. They were formidable trial lawyers, all of them. Later, certified public accountant Mary joined the practice, and now Molly is there to carry the shingle. They all got along. They would fight in court like dogs. His own kin called Willis sweet and foul in the same breath.

He told the truth and never minced words. He was not malicious. He did not use the law as a weapon. He used it as a shield for the vulnerable, whether it was for the family of a firefighter who died in an explosion or a meatpacker ground up by the system. He did not care if he had to offend an interest or tell you where to get off. That is what we admired most about Willis Hamilton. He was an honest man who was courageous enough to tell you to sit down and listen. Those who did were the better for it.

Warning: Tax heist ahead

As we suspected, Iowa legislators will attempt to increase the sales tax to finance their property tax reform this session. Rep. Bobby Kaufmann and Sen. Dan Dawson told Iowa Capital Dispatch that it might be time to increase the sales tax by at least 3/8th of a percentage point to fund natural resources.

We said last week that we believe that legislators will increase the sales tax to help cover some $400 million in property tax relief from education. Legislators also intend to toy with tax credits to supposedly bring down ballooning property tax bills. All this after year of cutting and “flattening” income taxes. Flattening really means making our tax system more regressive — the wealthy pay relatively less, and the working poor more.

Voters in 2010 approved a constitutional amendment calling for a fractional sales tax for natural resources. It was intended to be revenue beyond the current level of funding. That is what voters thought at the time. The legislature ignored the vote, until now, when people are infuriated about exploding property taxes. Instead of undoing some of its largesse with income tax cuts, legislators will play a shell game: move tax credits around, shift education funding from local property taxes to state funding, cover it all by increasing the sales tax. It is not what voters intended. It is unfair to cut income taxes and property taxes and shift it to sales taxes. The working poor bear a disproportionate burden under this shift.

Kaufmann and Dawson after lo these many years have come around to what the voters asked for over a decade ago, with Republicans controlling the agenda the entire time. Increasing the sales tax in order to fund schools will not clean up the Raccoon River or Storm Lake. It’s a great ruse, and it is complicated enough that it probably will work. That does not mean it necessarily will result in lower property taxes for homeowners or less in sales taxes.

Cut corporate welfare

Congratulations to the Iowa Legislature and the Reynolds Administration for finally coming around to the idea that economic development funding is often a waste. They are re-evaluating corporate welfare, from the sounds of it, and won’t be so eager to give money to projects that were going to be built anyway.

Further, they are talking about restricting economic development funding from the state’s four largest counties for three years. We wish that corporate welfare could be eliminated altogether, but politicians cannot resist the idea of bragging about being job creators. We have argued for decades that if you must give money to companies in bidding for jobs, you should concentrate on the areas that need it most. Des Moines and Ames, plus Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, have been doing fine. The only constant about Ames and Iowa City is construction. We are pumping enough government money into those places. Not so much Atlantic or Clarion, Ida Grove or Primghar.

The places off the four-lane highway can use a lift. The opposite is happening. The state has closed down or curtailed operations in Storm Lake. No DNR office, no unemployment or Social Security office, not much if anything for the marina, no bike trail along Hwy 71, not as much for the Iowa Tuition Grant, and so on. Really could use some help financing our water needs.

We suggested a long time ago that Iowa should have a special rural development initiative. That obviously is not on the agenda. Trimming economic development — that is, grants to corporations that would be there anyhow, like fertilizer companies or data centers — overall is worthwhile. It is especially appropriate in places already flush with government investment, as in Ames, Des Moines, Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. State government does very little to assist rural areas with growth. Small towns are literally falling in on themselves. They’re the ones who need help. Unfortunately, that help is not on the way. That being the case, we should eliminate all corporate welfare, rural or urban. None of it is working very well for us.