Republicans at the statehouse have temporarily backed off plans to cut 40-million dollars in this year’s state budget. Senators were set to debate the package yesterday, but tabled it. Senate Republican Leader Stewart Iverson of Dows says Republicans want to meet with democrat Governor Tom Vilsack to, perhaps, come up with a compromise.Iverson, though, says it’s “more likely than not” that Republicans will send their budget cutting plan to Vilsack. He says he doesn’t have cold feet at all.Democrats staged a daylong public hearing Monday to criticize the proposed cuts. Senate Democrat Leader Mike Gronstal of Council Bluffs says democrats are glad the bill’s on hold. He says they were concerned on its focus of “cutting education first.”Vilsack’s top managers said many of the proposed cuts would end up costing the state more money. A proposed million-dollar cut to the state highway patrol would lay-off about a hundred troopers — and the state would lose about a million dollars worth of revenue from the tickets those troopers would write in April, May, June and July.
