“Do you know how you can tell when a politician is lying?”

“How?”

“Their lips are moving!”

So the old joke goes, but it’s not funny. The many politicians and government officials I have known personally are patriotic, honest, and dedicated to the public interest as they see it.

But along comes election time. One’s commercial says their opponent voted wrong, and the opponent’s commercial says the first commercial is lying.

Then there was the debate between the gubernatorial candidates, and I heard Republican Doug Gross make a statement that clearly said that his opponent – Governor Vilsack – was to blame for the massive increases in the tuitions at our state universities.

Over the past three years while a member of the ISU Faculty Senate, I’ve seen tuitions go up about 50 percent! That’s because the legislature – with Republican majorities in control – sent the governor budget after budget that underfunded our state universities. By hundreds of millions of dollars.

The governor fought this. The Democratic minority party members of the legislature fought it. The budgets passed on party-line votes over these Democratic objections and attempts at compromise.

For Gross to blame the governor was totally unjustified and demeans him and all politicians. So, the joke is on him – and us all.

Jim Hutter

Associate Professor

Political Science