It was a bright winter day when I saw my friend K.C. deep in thought at the John and Mary Pappajohn Sculpture Park. He was looking at Dutch artist Willem de Kooning’s “Reclining Figure” sculpture.

“Looks like a charred asteroid from outer space,” I said.

“Don’t you see the resemblance to a woman lying on her side with one leg up in the air?” K.C. responded.

“Not really,” I replied. “I read somewhere that the artist died of Alzheimer’s disease, and there’s debate over the role the disease played in his later works.”

“Sounds reasonable,” K.C. said. “Did you know he was buddies with Jackson Pollock, and some of his paintings have commanded Pollock-like prices in the hundreds of millions of dollars from hedge-fund collectors?”

“Why am I not surprised?” I said.

“What is it about this piece that captured your interest?” I continued.

“It reminds me of the movie ‘The Greatest Show on Earth,’” K.C. said.

“You mean the 1952 Cecil B. DeMille classic about the Barnum and Bailey Circus?” I said. “My family saw that at a drive-in theater when I was 5 years old.”

“What do you remember about it?” K.C. asked.

“I remember it was quite traumatic. One of the trapeze artists was performing without a net to prove how brave he was when he fell and was crippled. I had nightmares for weeks. Maybe that’s why I’ve always had a fear of heights.”

“As phobias go,” K.C. said, “that’s not a bad one to have.”

“Anyway, that’s what this crumpled, twisted mass of steel reminds me of,” K.C. said. “Someone who made a mistake while performing without a safety net.”

“Sadly,” he added, “you’re going to see a lot of real-life examples of this crumpled figure in the coming years.”

“How so?” I said.

“Gov. Kim Reynolds and Republicans in the Iowa Legislature have decided that when it comes to tax cuts, they no longer need a safety net, or at least not a net big enough to catch anything.”

“You’re starting to lose me now,” I said.

“Well,” he said, “you remember when they started cutting taxes a few years ago, they said they would go slow and make sure there was always enough money in reserve to cover any setbacks or downturns in the economy?”

“I remember,” I said. “And I’m also old enough to remember the kinds of problems that occur when government doesn’t have enough money to do all the things people expect from it. That’s what happened during the Farm Crisis of the 1980s, and it took us years to dig out of that hole.”

“Exactly,” he said, “that’s why state government created a reserve fund, to keep things running smoothly.

“But now Reynolds and other Republicans want to ignore that. They’re kicking the supports out from under the safety net and boring full speed ahead with plans to eliminate Iowa’s income tax.

“They’re ignoring the fact that the only reason there is a healthy surplus in the reserve fund now is because of all the federal money from COVID relief and infrastructure spending that Iowa received in recent years.

“Rather than wait a few years to see how the tax cuts affect spending for schools, health care, infrastructure and all the other stuff that the state government pays for, they want to charge ahead with additional cuts and even eliminate the income tax,” he said.

“They want to fly without a safety net, just like the trapeze guy in the movie.”

He pointed to the sculpture and said, “If they do, it’s a good bet that Iowa’s economy will wind up on the ground in a crumpled-up mess like this.”