That's the message by this article in the Mpls StarTribune reprinting a NYT article. Corporate farming killed Iowa's fabric of life and that "no income taxes for anyone under 30" will not work.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5234344.html"Last update: February 10, 2005 at 7:29 PM
Verlyn Klinkenborg: Iowa hurt by its embrace of industrial agriculture
Verlyn Klinkenborg, New York Times
February 11, 2005 KLINKEN0211
Lately the Iowa Legislature has been trying to find a way to solve a basic problem: how to keep young people from leaving the state. Right now, Iowa's "brain drain" is second only to North Dakota's. The Legislature is toying with a simple idea, getting rid of state income tax for everyone under 30. This proposal was front-page news in California, where most of Iowa moved in the 1960s.
Let me translate the economics of this plan. The State Legislature proposes to offer every young tax-paying Iowan a large delivery pizza -- or its cash equivalent, about $12 -- every week of the year. But smart young Iowans know this is only an average figure. The more you earn, the more state income tax you save.
If ever there were an incentive to earn your first hundred million by the time you're 30, this would be it. Never mind that South Dakota, right next door, charges no income tax no matter how old you are.
Of course, there are serious questions about financing this tax break, which could cost as much as $200 million a year. The best bet would be to require young people to spend their dole on the Iowa Lottery.
Iowans are resolutely practical about such proposals. One state legislator, quoted in Minnesota's Star Tribune, said: "Let's face it. Des Moines will never be Minneapolis." He might have added that Council Bluffs would never be Kansas City. Another Iowan, when asked what the state needed to keep its young people, said, "An ocean would help." This is the kind of big thinking Iowa has always been famous for."