Overcoming a negative is never easy, especially if it means taking more money out of taxpayers’ pockets. But that’s only one reason a proposed state constitutional amendment requiring a referendum on major tax increases is a bad idea. Here are more reasons it shouldn’t survive the required second go-round in the 2005 legislative session:

It’s quixotic to think everyone takes the time to understand how increasing state taxes might improve education or leaving them static might compromise it, to think like state budget officials and do deep analyses of fiscal issues. If citizens depend on the news media to sort it all out for them, they will be bitterly disappointed. There is a growing disconnect between the information citizens need — how far the Department of Human Services is falling short of meeting its needs, or the Department of Public Safety or any number of state agencies whose payroll and budget demands increase proportionately with societal problems — and what the media are feeding them. News organizations are aggressive when it comes to shining their flashlights on controversies, but in general, they sacrifice in-depth stories explaining the mechanics of government funding as they respond to the public’s preference for stories that entertain as well as inform.

Those factors combined make the prospect of a truly informed vote by citizens unrealistic, a fact Republican legislators who backed the proposed amendment and pushed it through the Iowa Senate are fully aware of. They confirm it every time they go back to their districts and explain that the media’s version of a legislative action didn’t accurately or fully portray what happened.

The call for a referendum on tax increases serves politics more than it benefits Iowa citizens. It holds state agencies hostage and potentially paralyzes the state’s growth opportunities. For example, if the DHS were dependent upon a tax increase to hire more frontline social workers to prevent another Shelby Duis from falling through the cracks, the public would have to emotionally buy into the need.

As a matter of practicality, the idea is further flawed. As a state agency, the DHS can’t advocate for an election outcome. Workers can provide information — the same kind of information people skip over in newspapers or change stations on their televisions and radios to avoid — but to remain in compliance with campaign finance regulations, they can’t rally the voters in the way a legislative candidate can.

Finally, a referendum on major tax increases is a bad idea because it allows legislators to shirk the duties the people elected them to perform. They were elected to make the tough choices, not pass the buck on to the people who put them in office in the first place.