Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Quote of the day: Matt McCoy

State Senator Matt McCoy observes:
Look at the costs associated with maintaining more than 1,000 townships and cities in Iowa. With more than 70 percent of our population living within 10 counties, 1,000 townships and 99 counties are an antiquated way of doing government business. In the past year, Adams County had 54 live births. They file as many real estate transactions in a year as Polk County files in a day. Yet we maintain a county structure that supports both a county recorder and a county treasurer in Adams County. Why would we continue to deliver services this way?
It's easy for a guy in Des Moines to tell rural counties they have to merge with other counties, but on the substance he's right. It's ridiculous to maintain 99 fiefdoms in Iowa.

He has some other ideas like combining the State Patrol with Vehicle Enforcement and reducing the number of superintendents in the state. McCoy believes Iowa's legislature could set a good example by cutting the number of representatives from 100 to 50 and the number of senators from 50 to 25.

Seeing any of this happen is about as likely as electing a black man president. Err, wait a minute...

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