Governor Tom Vilsack’s praising the work of the 2005 Iowa Legislature. “Any governor in my shoes would be pleased with the work of this legislature when you take a look at the wide variety of things that have been addressed,” Vilsack says. The governor cites the bill that makes it more difficult to buy the ingredients to make the illegal drug meth as well as the bill that cracks down on sex offenders. Vilsack also says legislators took action to improve the quality of life in Iowa. “Iowa’s going to become an even greater place to work,” Vilsack says. He cites the 10-year, half a billion dollar Iowa Values Fund that will hand out state grants to expanding businesses as well as the “destination park” planned along Lake Rathbun that got state money as well as the race track proposed near Newton which got a tax rebate worth 12 million dollars. “All important to the future of the state and with the state’s unemployment (rate) going down to 4.5 percent, I think it’s an indication that we have momentum and I think with the work of this legislature, we’ll continue this momentum,” Vilsack says. The governor was involved in closed-door meetings with legislative leaders this past week to try to resolve differences over state spending, negotiations that helped end the stalemate over the budget. “This is a very, very productive legislative session and I hope that the people of the state appreciate that while there may have been differences on the budget, they should not overshadow the enormous work that was done in a bipartisan way — the toughest meth bill in the country and one of if not the toughest sex offender bills in the country,” Vilsack says. “So we’re going to be safer, we’re going to be smarter, we’re going to be healthier and we’re going to be better employed and we’re going to have more fun.”
