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Four Iowa Congressmen support Bonus Tax Bill

March 19, 2009 By

Four of Iowa’s five congressmen voted in favor of a measure in the U.S. House Thursday that would heavily tax employee bonuses at companies that receive more than $5 billion in government bailouts. Democrat Bruce Braley says the bill would only apply to executives paid an annual salary of more than $250,000. Those executives would face a 90% tax rate on their bonuses. Braley says the tax would not apply to executives who voluntarily return their bonuses to the company.

The legislative action follows news that insurance giant AIG paid executives about $165 million in retention bonuses after receiving nearly $180 billion in government bailouts. Representative Steve King, a Republican from Kiron, was the only Iowan to vote against the measure which passed the House on a vote of 328-93.

Braley, who’s from Waterloo, says some are questioning if the legislation approved would survive court challenges. "We will probably be taking up another bill next week, out of the Judiciary Committee, to address (that)," Braley said.

AIG Chief Executive Edward Liddy defended the bonuses this week by saying the payouts were necessary to retain top employees with specialized knowledge. Liddy told Congress that some of the executives have returned their full bonuses.

Filed Under: Politics & Government Tagged With: ,

Fines for child labor violations may double

March 19, 2009 By

The Iowa Senate has given final legislative approval to a bill which would double the state fines on businesses caught illegally employing children. Senator Dick Dearden, a Democrat from Des Moines, says the bill is a response to what happened at the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant in Postville.

"Failing to enforce wage laws and follow minimum standards cheats legal workers, drives down wages and is unfair to Iowa businesses that play by the rules," Dearden says.

Agriprocessors was cited for 57 child labor violations as well as other labor law violations, like charging workers for the use of equipment. "Postville is just one example of why we need to make these changes," Dearden says.

Last May over 300 workers at the Agriprocessors plant were rounded up in a federal raid and charged with immigration violations and identity theft, but a separate investigation found children were illegally employed in the plant, too. If the bill that passed the senate last night had been law, the fine for those child labor violations would have been $50 million.

The bill cleared the Iowa House last week on a 97 to zero vote. The Senate passed it tonight on a 48-to-zero vote and the bill now goes to Governor Culver, who is expected to sign it into law.

Filed Under: Agriculture, Business, Crime & Courts, Politics & Government Tagged With: , ,

Culver: "much to do about nothing" over health care forum sponsorships

March 19, 2009 By

Governor Culver rejects the idea there was anything wrong with having his staff solicit $5000 sponsorships from health care companies to bankroll a health care forum.  Iowa is hosting a regional forum for the Obama administration on Monday and White House officials overruled Culver’s plan to have corporate sponsorships defray the $40,000 cost of the event.

"It is very common when a state or local government has a conference of any kind to seek sponsors — especially during a tough economic time when there’s not much money," Culver says. 

The White House has agreed to pay half the costs of staging the event and Culver says he and his staff will try to scrape up some state funds from somewhere to pay the rest. 

Likely 2010 Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats suggests Culver was enforcing a "pay to sit" plan for health care groups that want to send representatives to Monday’s event. Vander Plaats said that was right out of the "playbook" of indicted former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.

"It’s really much to do about nothing," Culver says. 

The governor says there’s nothing unusual about seeking corporate sponsorships and striking public-private partnerships to try to save taxpayer dollars.

Filed Under: Health & Medicine, Politics & Government Tagged With: , , ,

Ombudsman suggests central call center to receive abuse complaints

March 19, 2009 By

The state ombudsman says the State of Iowa should maintain a single call center for reports of abuse in order to prevent embarrassments like the situation in Atalissa where mentally disabled men were living without heat in an old schoolhouse.  A report earlier this week revealed the men were malnourished, too. 

After the death of a Spirit Lake toddler nine years ago, State Ombudsman William Angrick recommended that the Department of Human Services set up a centralized call-in system for child abuse reports, but it’s never been established. "We saw that as a major issue with regard to the failings of the system back in 2000 with Shelby Duis," Angrick says, "and I think that there is some analogous lesson to be learned in what has happened recently." 

Angrick says a centralized call center could handle all abuse reports, those involving children as well as dependent adults like the men who lived at that bunkhouse in Atalissa.  "I remain firm in my belief that a single point of contact for all child welfare and now dependent adult abuse complaints would be of paramount importance toward reducing the risk of reoccurring tragedies in our state," Angrick says. 

Nine years ago, the Department of Human Services had 99 different call centers where Iowans could report child abuse.  That was reduced to eight and D.H.S. spokesman Roger Munns says state response to child abuse complaints is far more consistent and professional as a result.

 

Filed Under: Crime & Courts, Politics & Government Tagged With: , ,

UNI comeback falls short in NCAA tourney

March 19, 2009 By

UNI fell short in its comeback effort in the first round of the NCAA tournament. The Panthers started slow and fell behind 32 to 20 at the half to Big Ten champion Purdue in the West Regional in Portland, Oregon.

The 12th seeded Panthers chipped away at the lead in the second half and had it down to two in the final seconds — but the fifth seeded Boilermakers hit their free throws to hold off the upset bid 61-56. UNI hit seven of 22 shots from three-point range, and struggled from the field throughout the game finishing 20-of-53 for 37.7 %.

Jordan Eglseder led UNI with 13 points, Kwadzo Ahelegbe had 11 and Ali Farokhmanesh had 10. UNI finishes the season at 23-11, after starting out 8-6 and then going on an 11-game win streak that saw them win their first ever regular season Missouri Valley Conference championship and the MVC postseason tournament championship.

The Panthers expect to be a contender in the conference again next season as Travis Brown is the only senior starter who is graduating.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: ,

Iowan tries to debunk myths about Abe Lincoln

March 19, 2009 By

An eastern Iowan who’s considered an expert on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln is presenting a lecture tonight in West Branch on the myths and mysteries that still surround the slaying of the 16th president. Doctor Blaine Houmes is a Cedar Rapids physician and calls himself an armchair historian.

His talk will cover the conspiracy, medical aspects, the aftermath and comparisons with our current War on Terror. Houmes says one persistent falsehood surrounds Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth. Houmes says, "There is the popular myth that he broke his leg after jumping from the theatre box in Ford’s Theatre when in reality, he probably broke it during his getaway when his horse fell on him."

While Booth was cornered in a tobacco shed in Virginia and fatally shot 12 days after Lincoln’s murder, rumors abounded for years that Booth actually got away and lived for many years under an assumed name. One rumor told that Booth died in 1903 and his supposed body was paraded around as something of a trophy. Houmes says that wasn’t Booth.

"There was an autopsy done on his body," Houmes says. "By then, it had been made into a mummy because it was traveling around on the side show carnival circuit for years and at the autopsy, they took several X-rays of his ankle which had, in theory, been broken and the X-rays show there was clearly no broken ankle."

While some historians believe Booth acted alone, Houmes says it’s more likely he had support from backers in the Confederacy who helped formulate the plot. If you think there are a lot of J.F.K. conspiracy theorists, he says there are also a sizeable number of people who continue to speculate the fine details of Lincoln’s assassination.

"A lot of it is part of our culture, that the person is the victim, that the president has become a myth, a martyr figure," Houmes says. "Part is because we tend to want to believe that there isn’t an assassination culture in the United States, that it’s always some one lone nut, and that isn’t always the case." The lecture runs from 7 to 9 PM at the Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch.

For more information about the events in Iowa commemorating Lincoln’s life and legacy, visit the Iowa Lincoln Celebration website .  Or visit the Hoover Presidential Library and Museum website .

Filed Under: Human Interest

Union member at capitol to lobby legislators arrested, accused of theft

March 19, 2009 By

Marshall Clemons with Vice President Joe Biden. A Cedar Rapids man was led out of the statehouse today in handcuffs, accused of pilfering through women’s purses in the capitol. 

Thirty-eight-year-old Marshall Clemons, a school custodian who’s a local leader in the Service Employees International Union, has been charged with two counts of fifth degree theft and booked into the Polk County Jail.

Lieutenant Mark Logsdon, head of the statehouse security detail, says a lobbyist confronted Clemons after seeing Clemons take money out of a woman’s wallet. "He found the money on this person and the billfold had been discarded into a recycling bin and the suspect reached into the recycling bin and retrieved it," Logsdon says.

 "At that time, the lobbyist told him he needed to leave, basically, and not do that again."  But authorities say Clemons still had another woman’s billfold and he went into a restroom at the statehouse to discard it. That’s where he was detained by statehouse security officers. 

"This individual was later discovered to have discarded another lady’s billfold in one of the toilets of the men’s restroom," Logsdon says.

Clemons was part of a "contingent" of union members who were at the statehouse lobbying legislators according to Lieutenant Logsdon. The lieutenant says the two women have been reunited with their billfolds. "Crime did not pay today," Logsdon says.

Clemons is on the executive committee of his local Service Employees International Union. In 2007, Joe Biden worked alongside Clemons at his school in Cedar Rapids as part of an SEIU effort to lobby the presidential candidates. In 2008, Clemons was invited to sit with Biden and his family in their box at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

A spokesperson for SEIU Local 199 in Cedar Rapids was not immediately available for comment this afternoon. 

Read more about the case on The Blog.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts, Politics & Government Tagged With: , ,
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