Krusin' the Capitol
By Nebraska State Senator Lowen Kruse
Vol. 2 #14
April 21, 2002
Yo!
They freed us. We have been let loose on society at large.
Freed to pick up litter on the highway, help run new sidewalk for a disabled
person, scrape and paint our home, and teach the squirrels not to raid the
birdseed.
Ruth and I celebrated by going to the World Premiere of the Lewis and Clark
movie at the IMAX. Wow. That is the grand screen for recreating a great
adventure. I read much of this as background for my Omaha history book, and
often wondered how they did it and marveled that they survived. It was a
strange experience to see my imagination played out on screen. They came so
close to failure several times. If it were not for two women close to the
story they could not possibly have survived.
Stephen Ambrose was there, to speak, plus several actors and the producer,
plus Walter and Suzanne Scott, who provided the $$$, plus 1,000 of their
closest friends. It is a story of our nation and of how some bold people
helped us to be who we are. Selah.
The "can do" attitude was a welcome change to the "can't do" attitude of some
Omaha people who gathered this week to try to repeal the new tax program. In
effect, they said a family with $100,000 income cannot afford $150 to keep
some of our institutions open. If they succeed they will soon be dismayed.
The whole bill will be transferred onto property tax.
For five long months we have protected payments to local aid and property
taxes, as you will remember from all my budget details. Finally, we went to
property and income tax in order to continue the protection. If we have to
go for $100 million in cuts, in addition to all the governor's vetoes, which
is the amount this is, we will have to cut spending with the only program big
enough to absorb that: the $950 million in local aid. Which automatically
increases property taxes. That is the real world they are not thinking
about. To add insult to the injury, this is an urban crowd devising a plan
to hurt rural areas, which take a harder property tax hit. Will see how it
all plays out.
Senator Chambers punished us one day, with lengthy harangues on Catholics and
Israel, because, he said, we would not pass his bill to ban employment
discrimination on gay persons. Small problem. He would not let us vote on
it the night before, when we were running out of time. We had the votes to
pass his bill. But he refuses to limit debate and he is the only one who
could ask for cloture on it. Strange logic.
He had an amendment to remove some obsolete language, left over from the
six-day war in the 40s, which authorized Nebraska banks to buy stocks in the
"new" Israel government. I voted for the deletion, as it was obviously no
longer necessary, but most did not vote for it because he was using it to do
a tirade about anyone who supports Israel. Which includes "YOUR President"
in case you wondered. Well, it did not pass so we were punished some more.
I'd like to get senators to agree to his reasonable stuff, but if he cannot
persuade them how would I?
If anything gets interesting in the interim studies I will send out a note to
you-all. Mostly, it is long, tedious, hard work.
For now, will hang it up for this session. Thanks for listening, and for
your feedback.
Take care,
Lowen
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