VIDEO: The 3 R’s to Fixing a Broken Iowa Government

“Health and human services, education and justice take up 90.4% of Iowa’s General Fund and 77% of all government spending. If we don’t fix DHS, we can’t fix state government.” - Jonathan Narcisse, the independent Iowa Party candidate for Governor, webcast an address live on Oct 21, 2010 from the studios of Des Moines Amplified, outlining how an independent Governor willing to do the right thing can fix a broken Iowa. Utilizing the whiteboard technology at the DSM Amp’d, Narcisse illustrates the structures and resources at a Governor’s disposal to re-organize, reduce and re-prioritize Iowa’s state government. In this address, he demonstrates how the term “Voters” at the top of the state governance structure should really be “Taxpayers and Citizens” but sadly in reality are “Lobbyists and Donors.”

With this in mind, Narcisse continues to show the relationships between spending and divisions and how the makeup of the boards and commissions that govern this spending and government growth are not reflective of Taxpayers and Citizens.
He illustrates where in the state constitution the judiciary’s powers are derived and how only the legislature can establish law. Further, he details the disfunctionality of redundant agencies’ structures and provides examples of how agencies’ missions and implementation are not aligned.

Operational integrity and operational efficiency is next. And Jonathan provides examples of failures of each with the status quo governance leadership. Example: Lynn Walding writing a million dollar check from the Alcohol Bureau to his wife’s best friend’s husband, 48 hours after giving him a no bid contract. Operational in-efficiency would be an ambulance driving in circles throughout the state, or not being able to pay for something at the DOT with a debit or credit card.

Suffice it to say that this one hour and twenty minute presentation is both macro big picture and micro historical and specific examples.
I have never seen a wanna be leader put so much data and perspective into such a short period of time.

This video should be required viewing for every single publisher, news director and executive producer of so called news in Iowa. And then it should be required viewing by each college and high school civics, political science, business management and history class.

“We go to zero based budgeting that says, ‘We buy milk, we buy eggs, we buy butter, we buy meat. And everything else goes back, the poptarts and the sodapop… if you want those kids - get a job cutting grass, shoveling snow. We’re not gonna pay for ‘em,” says Narcisse.

Watch these videos and spread the word, please. - Todd McGreevy
Click here to view the entire playlist for this 1 hour 20 minute address. There are a total of 9 Youtube clips for The 3 R’s to Fixing State Government.