Letter to the Editor: Legislative ads being run by Republicans are inaccurate & unfair

By Decorah's Harland Nelson:

"The Iowa state Republican organization has been very busy working up misleading ads against Iowa Senate candidates John Beard (district 28) and Mary Jo Wilhelm (district 8). (Probably other Democratic Iowa Senate candidates, too; these are just the ones I've seen.)

Both Beard and Wilhelm are accused of loading each of our children and grandchildren with $1,000 debt by voting for the I-Jobs bond issue. But they'd have to visit a lot of casinos and buy a lot of lottery tickets for I-Jobs to cost them that because the I-Jobs bonds are to be paid for from gaming receipts. Not from general tax revenues: from the state's share of gambling profits.

Another set of ads praise Beard's and Wilhelm's Republican opponents for promising to eliminate welfare cheating: for example, the Blue Glass Bottle Fraud. The claim is that all over the state welfare cheaters use food stamps to buy water, dump the water, and claim the cash refund for the empty Blue Glass Bottle.

Apparently the Republicans, if they get into the Iowa Senate, will make sure those people drink the water before claiming the refund.

What other food stamp fraud is going on, the ads don't say. So this must be the worst one.