Permanent daylight saving time is a bad idea
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bipartisan bill to make daylight saving time permanent. I agree that it’s a pain to switch back and forth.
So let’s instead make standard time permanent. In 1972 the state of Iowa switched back to daylight saving time in early winter. It soon became apparent that schoolchildren were walking to bus stops in the dark; this was very dangerous for young children, plus the psychological impact. With the country in a mess, Congress needs to focus on important things, not spend valuable time foolishly tinkering with the clocks.
Jack Pearson, Newton
Congress should pick a permanent time. Iowa communities will handle the rest.
Congress is finally taking up the question of permanent national time. Good. Iowans are tired of changing clocks twice a year. But the debate in Washington keeps circling the same arguments — biology, sleep science, and “kids in the dark.” Those concerns matter, but they miss the bigger truth.
Once Congress chooses a permanent time — standard or daylight — the real adjustments won’t happen in D.C. They’ll happen right here in Iowa.
School boards already change start times. They’ve done it for decades. They adjust for bus routes, safety, teen sleep cycles, staffing and community needs. If permanent time creates new daylight realities, boards will respond. They always have.
And schools don’t operate alone. Every district in Iowa belongs to athletic and extracurricular conferences. These networks coordinate game times, travel windows, and event schedules. If most schools in a conference shift their day to fit the new reality, the outliers will feel immediate pressure to align. That’s how regional equilibrium forms: Local norms become conference norms, then statewide norms.
Businesses will adapt as well. Remote work, online shopping, and data driven retail already push store hours toward what customers actually do. Market pressure will take care of misalignment.
Yes, some employers will be slow to change. Yes, families will juggle schedules. Yes, rural bus routes will still be long. None of that is new. Communities have always adapted to changing conditions.
The point is simple: Congress should stop moving the clocks. Iowa will take care of the rest.
School boards will adjust. Conferences will synchronize. Businesses will tune their hours. Communities will find their equilibrium, just as they always have.
Time stability at the federal level. Time livability at the local level. That’s the path forward for Iowa—and for the country.
Craig Hertel, Jefferson
Money spent doesn’t tell us civil rights office is succeeding
To make clear what should already be obvious, concluding government is more effective because it spends more money is lazy and counterintuitive.
A July 9 guest essay in the Register concluded that Des Moines is better at protecting civil rights because it spends eight to 16 times the amount of money per complaint as much as the state civil rights office.
Why not discuss how the city office has achieved better actual results?
Compare consent decrees and actual lawsuits won, for example.
It genuinely surprises me that the primary metric Americans use for government success is the amount of money spent, instead of doing the actual work to identify and calculate coherent metrics.
At the very least we should be correlating facts to try to determine how and why certain results are achieved.
We can see even with President Donald Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency that most people who pretend to care about government efficiency are too lazy to do the actual work to figure out how to better spend what should be considered scarce resources.
Erich Riesenberg, Des Moines
Air Force One debacle ought to be Exhibit A for government waste
$1 billion of our taxpayers’ money spent to re-do the Qatar plane, and President Donald Trump had to switch back to an older Air Force One for security.
What happened to the party dedicated to stamping out fraud, waste and abuse?
Ronald Davidson, Clive
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Time changes? Iowa would do just fine without them. | Letters
Reporting by The Register’s readers, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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By The Register's readers, Des Moines Register | USA TODAY Network
