Democrat leader blasts Republican plans to cut education dollars

Senate Democrat Leader Michael Gronstal says the Republican plan to cut 29-million dollars from the state universities in Ames, Cedar Falls and Iowa City is “tragic” and “outrageous.”Governor Tom Vilsack proposed changes in Iowa tax law to close what he terms loopholes that help out-of-state corporations avoid paying over 50-million dollars in taxes to the state.Gronstal says rather than focusing on growing the state’s economy, the Republicans are walking away from 52-million dollars in corporate taxes, and he predicts the legislative debate will degenerate into a fight over how to divvy up the state’s shrinking budget. Gronstal predicts additional cuts to campus budgets will force another round of tuition increases at Iowa, Iowa State and U-N-I. Republicans like House Speaker Christopher Rants of Sioux City say they’re not interested in raising taxes on businesses. Rants says Democrats “want to go out and raise taxes so they have more money to spend,” and he says that’s a “clear difference in philosophies” between the two political parties. And Senate Republican Leader Stewart Iverson of Dows disputes the idea the budgets at Iowa, Iowa State and U-N-I have been cut drastically, because he contends the board that governs the universities made up the difference by raising tuition. Iverson says there were cuts all through state government in the past few years, but the Regents made up for most of their cuts by raising tuition. He says it’s not out of the question to ask the schools to make more cuts. Iverson says the G-O-P will never be able to satisfy the democrats’ demand for more spending. Iverson says there’s never been a time in the 13 years he’s been in the Legislature that “we’ve ever had enough money for everybody.”