Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds delivers her Condition of the State address before a joint session of the Iowa Legislature, Jan. 12, 2021, at the Statehouse in Des Moines, Iowa. (Charlie Neibergall/The Associated Press)

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Apparently, the Minnesota Republican Party is attempting to out-crazy their “conservative” counterparts in other states. I refer, of course, to the bill introduced this week that would classify “Trump derangement syndrome” as an official mental illness. How deranged.

I am confident that many Minnesotans will rightfully offer their own accurate assessments, so I don’t need to express how this kind of legislation is both absolute lunacy and a complete waste of taxpayer dollars.

As a northeast Iowan who regularly listens to Minnesota Public Radio, I will offer a stark warning to my good neighbors to the north. Be aware and take heed. This kind of childish culture war legislative nonsense is what the modern Republican Party will continue to do to your state if you let them take control.

Iowa used to always rank at or near the top of all 50 states for our public education system. But Gov. Kim Reynolds never met a private, for-profit “education” company she didn’t favor. We now take $7,600 of the public education budget, per pupil, and give it to parents who want to remove their kids from the public system and enroll them in private schools.

Current estimates are that this system has cost the state’s public school system more than $360 million in just two years. Last year, 16 public schools closed, while dozens of private schools opened. Private, for-profit schools that have no restrictions on how they spend the money, nor the curriculum they offer.

My hometown of Decorah, population about 7,500, saw the school’s enrollment lose 60-plus students this year to private schools. At $7,600, that’s a loss that teeters on half a million.

Last I looked, Iowa ranked No. 22.

As Republican strategies go: “Make a system fail, then we can claim the system is failing, making it easier to convince the voter the entire program should be turned over to private interests.” See how this works?

You know that Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund that Minnesota voters approved year ago that funds a variety of conservation efforts? Iowa voters also approved in 2010 by 63% an amendment to the state constitution creating the Iowa Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund. It allocated 3/8 of a cent to the trust the next time the Iowa Legislature approved a one-cent sales tax increase.

How much is in the Iowa Trust Fund today? Zero. That’s because the Republican-controlled Legislature has refused to consider the sales tax increase that would fund it, in spite of overwhelming bipartisan support.

Worse, a bill was introduced this year that would erase it from the constitution.

The offered replacement? A measure to raise the sales tax increase, sending a portion back to property owners for property tax relief. Citizen uproar stopped it.

Of the ag states that make up the Mississippi River watershed, Iowa leads all in terms of topsoil loss and agricultural pollution runoff that feeds the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. We are still losing on average more than five tons of topsoil per acre/year, all of it going down the Mighty Miss, taking with it nearly a billion pounds of nitrogen fertilizer. Every year. The Trust Fund would have provided funding to reverse this trend. But that would have meant acknowledging we have a problem.

We are the largest pork producer in the nation, with more than 25 million hogs, more than eight for every person, because the Legislature has stopped local control.

That’s a lot of manure spread across our landscape. And the titans only want more. Old McDonald died decades ago.

The other statistic we are not proud of? We have the second-highest cancer rate in the nation, and we are the only state where the rate of cancer per population is rising.

Yet we can’t even talk about this stuff at the Legislature. They’re too busy taking away trans rights, women’s rights, restricting public speech rights, and banning books at public schools and libraries.

Take heed, Minnesota.

Declaring “Trump derangement syndrome” as a mental illness? That’s right out of Iowa’s playbook. Trust me, Minnesota voters. You don’t want to be like Iowa.

Tim Wagner, of Decorah, Iowa, is a retired conservation and media professional.