“My primary goal is to make us one of the most competitive states in the country.”

With that bold statement, former U.S. Representative Jim Lightfoot made his pitch for Iowa’s Republican gubernatorial nomination to about 30 Iowa State students and Ames residents Thursday night at the Memorial Union.

In his southwest Iowa drawl, Lightfoot emphasized job creation, education and tax reform as ways to make Iowa more attractive to new businesses.

The Shenandoah native praised current Gov. Terry Branstad for making Iowa one of the “best managed states in the country,” but he also stressed the need for “more jobs, better jobs that will keep you here after you graduate.”

Lightfoot, who served Iowa’s 3rd District for 12 years in the U.S. House, said he supports student loans, but not the direct loans now popular at many universities.

Instead, he advocated “guaranteed” loans that would involve “the local banker down the street,” and that would cost the taxpayer less.

“I’m very encouraged by this,” Lightfoot said after he initiated an open forum in which he asked ISU students about their courses of study.

He complimented the students for choosing majors that would lead them to “productive jobs,” describing well-trained college graduates as the solution to Iowa’s shortage of workers.

Lightfoot responded with a wry “Well, which one do you like?” when asked for his opinions on capital gains and flat taxes.

But he turned serious when discussing the pressing problem of high taxes burdening the sale of farmland by retiring farmers.

“Over 50 percent of the farmland in Iowa is owned by people over 60 years old,” Lightfoot said. “If someone’s spent a lifetime building an estate, they then have to pay a tax on everything in that state.”

He said the steep inheritance taxes are discouraging young Iowans from getting into the business of farming.

On the controversial subject of the flat tax, Lightfoot said, there is “a lot of interest” in replacing the “difficult and convoluted” current tax code.

But, he added, “Unless you come up with a flat tax that eliminates all the exemptions, you really haven’t changed the system at all.”

Lightfoot also criticized Iowa’s income, property and corporate taxes as “very unhealthy.”

He said taxes in Iowa are at least three percent higher than in any neighboring state.

“Let’s give Iowa businesses a chance to grow. Give them a break, and … other businesses will come here,” he said. “We have to give this whole tax structure a scrubbing from top to bottom.”

Lightfoot responded to a question about U.S. President Bill Clinton’s ethical troubles with some of his harshest words of the night.

“We have changed from an era when we used to be ethically correct, and now, we’re only concerned with politically correct and to heck with the ethics,” he said.

“When I was a kid, our idea of something racy was peeking at the underwear section in the Sears catalog. Now, the underwear section is on network TV.

“We’ve become more interested in what we can get away with than in what’s right and wrong,” Lightfoot said.

He spoke of the blurring line between right and wrong, and said he prefers a “line in the sand. You step over it, you get punished.”

Lightfoot is running for the GOP nomination against Lt. Gov. Joy Corning, Secretary of State Paul Pate and Des Moines Cable Television Executive David Oman.

The Republican primary will be held June 2.