Senate Journal: Page 2: Monday, January 11, 1999

  indeed worth working - and working well together. . . . to create sound
  public
  policy.

  We have been through a paradoxical election cycle.  What did the voters tell
  us?  Here is what I think the message is - taken in part from a recent
  Business
  Week editorial.  The voters chose - Pragmatism over extremism; compassion
  over
  anger; bread and butter issues over divisive ideological crusades.  Policies
  and
  ideas that voters believe promote economic growth and security were
  rewarded,
  and partisan attacks against individuals were not.  This is as is should be!
  Using
  the tools we have at our disposal - our tax codes, our systems of education,
  our
  government agencies-to foster growth and generate jobs.  This if the
  legitimate
  work of public policy makers.

  Voters have chosen divided governments to offset extremism and to maintain
  balance.  Paradoxical as it may seem, voters have told us in both parties -
  they
  want us to work together.  That is our stage and the curtain goes up today.

  We have all spoken to the issues we care about - and there is remarkable
  consensus in the big picture.  Education improvement and investment, dealing
  aggressively and urgently with methamphetamine and malignancies it is
  causing
  in our society, recruitment and development of a larger and more productive
  workforce; and maintaining our environment in ways that reflect our value of
  prizing our land and air and water. . . . Aldo Leoplod said "we who labor in
  conservation are prone to forget that there was a time, within the memory of
  many
  still living, when it presented no field for endeavor.  Generations of
  conservationists have had to fight for the recognition of these values
  before our
  present task of preserving them could begin."  This preservation is a part
  of our
  task.

  So - we are presented a unique and marvelous opportunity - one that is
  given to few people.

  Jane Jacobs, writing in the Death and Life of Great American Cites has said
  -
  "there is a wistful myth that if only we had enough money to spend - we
  could
  wipe out all our problems - but the lessons of history suggest that is not
  so."

  Self discipline is essential for self government!

  Self government will not work with out self discipline.  It has been nearly
  a
  decade since communism collapsed in eastern Europe. . . . But freedom
  demands
  responsibility and many eastern Europeans are finding freedom too difficult
  -
  many have already reverted to caretaker, paternalistic forms of government.
  Self
  government and self discipline are very hard work.

  We are in a time of great prosperity - even though some questions its
  foundation and its future.  There will be ups and downs in our economy - but
  the general trend is toward greater prosperity achieved over a long period
  of time. .
  . . Slow and steady growth. . . . . All the more need for self discipline.

  And so we begin - often divided philosophically, but with large areas of
  consensus, all motivated to serve our constituencies and our state the best
  we
  know how. . . .

© 1999 Cornell College and League of Women Voters of Iowa

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