LIVING IN IOWA: In cutting budgets, be careful you’re not sawing off the board you’re sitting on
March 25, 2009 · Dan Brawner

One person's trash, as they say, is another's treasure. And one person's earmark is another person's ear - or heart or some other vital organ. When times are good, you don't hear so much about earmarks or pet government projects. Money flows like water and the rising tide raises all boats. But now suddenly everybody is counting their pennies and looking to cut their budgets wherever they can.

Last month, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, desperately searching for that $1,000 toilet-seat-issue around which all fiscal conservatives could rally, mocked a request for additional funding for "something called 'volcano monitoring.' " Volcano monitoring? Har! Har! Har! What silliness! What a waste of money! What do they think we are, stupid?

Monday night, Alaska's Mount Redoubt exploded, sending tons of rock and ash nine miles into the sky. What a surprise! Who could have seen that coming? Anyway, who cares if some mountain blows up in the middle of Alaska's frozen wasteland? According to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, some 20,000 airline passengers per day pass through the airspace affected by Mount Redoubt. Volcanic ash scratches corneas and chokes air filters. The ash is so hard, it is used as an industrial abrasive. A nice, soft seagull sucked into a jet engine can shut if off like a switch. Imagine what a couple hundred pounds of volcanic grit could do.

Meanwhile, in Iowa, the Linn County Supervisors are frantically trying to whittle down their budget. They appear astonished that tax revenue has plummeted. Maybe they should have tried to help last year's flood victims keep their homes instead of regulating them out of existence. Now, to save money, the supervisors plan to cut $473,105 from the Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities services. This includes the elimination of $280,000 for depression medication.

What's wrong with this picture? The country is in a downward economic spiral with no end in sight, health care costs are skyrocketing and so is unemployment. Iowans are still trying to recover from a flood of near-Biblical proportions. And now Linn County wants to take away our happy pills.

I'm no expert on volcanoes, but I bet it takes a while for them to build up pressure before they blow. Once the eruption starts, however, it's too late for strategic planning and feasibility studies. By that time, all you can do is run for your life. Maybe the Linn County Supervisors could hold back just a little of that mental health money for a kind of volcano monitoring of our own. They might find that pressure has been building for some time and sticking a cork in it really isn't the answer.