It’s just one tax dodge scheme after another. Last year, the Legislature toyed with the idea of letting young adults off the tax hook; this year, lawmakers came up with a plan to give tax breaks to senior citizens.

We seem to spend an awful lot of time and effort looking for ways to bribe people to live here.

Taxes are the screwdriver in the junk drawer, handy for all kinds of tasks but well-suited to only a few. Instead of yanking that drawer open and grabbing that same screwdriver every time there’s a problem, we need to step over to the computer and do a Google search for better, newer ways to fix things.

And someday we need to get over the idea that only a fool would want to move here or stay here. It just isn’t so. Haven’t you met people who came to Central Iowa from elsewhere and found that they like it here? We have. In recent weeks, we met a young woman who moved here from Florida, rented a downtown apartment and seems quite pleased with her situation, and another young woman who went through the classic rite of passage — she grew up on an Iowa farm, spent three years in New York City, and now she’s back.

It really does happen, you know. Iowa has some fine qualities, and we need to capitalize on them. We need to get the place cleaned up, educate the citizenry and encourage entrepreneurs – big concepts, all.

So why do our leaders have their noses buried in the tax code, looking for ways to make tiny adjustments? We don’t need to nudge this tax up and that one down; we need to find people who can generate a whole new source of tax funds.

Raise cigarette taxes? Fine, get it done and end this silly fight about how many cents per pack the increase should be.

Boost the registration fees on pickup trucks? Of course. That should take about an hour.

Then it’s time to go hunting for bigger game.