January 27, 2012

Braley: time to bring troops home from Afghanistan (audio)

Congressman Braley with troops in Afghanistan - March 5, 2011

An Iowa congressman is calling for the withdrawal of American troops in Afghanistan “as quickly as possible.”

Democrat Bruce Braley of Waterloo spoke with reporters today after voting for an amendment to bring the troops home. “After giving a lot of thought and careful consideration to our ongoing commitment in Afghanistan, I have reached the conclusion that it’s time for us to start bringing our troops home,” Braley said. [Read more...]

No cut in corporate income taxes this year

Legislators do not intend to enact Governor Branstad’s plan to reduce the state’s corporate income tax this year. Branstad had asked legislators to cut the state’s top corporate income tax rate in half.  House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, a Republican from Hiawatha, doesn’t expect the proposal to clear the Republican-led House. 

 ”I suppose anything’s possible, but that’s not my expectation right now,” Paulsen says.

Branstad had proposed raising taxes on the state’s casinos by about $200 million and then cutting the top corporate income tax rate in half, which would be a $200 million savings for corporations. Both of those proposals failed to even clear a committee in the House or Senate, and Paulsen doesn’t expect either to be revived in the closing days of the 2011 legislative session.

“Right now we’re trying to resolve a budget and resolving the property tax bill and the mental health bill,” Paulsen says. “And that’s what our time’s being focused on right now.” 

Legislators from both parties have been working to come up with a plan to cut commercial property taxes. The Iowa Senate is poised to debate the other bill Paulsen mentioned.  It would start the process of redesigning mental health services in Iowa and have the state take over a greater share of the costs now borne by counties. When someone in Iowa cannot afford to pay for counseling or more intense mental health services today, counties now pay those bills.

Branstad defends budget-cutting plan from US House GOP

Republican Governor Terry Branstad is offering a strong defense of a Republican plan for the federal budget that includes a shift to Medicare vouchers for Americans who’re under the age of 55. 

Those who aren’t yet in the Medicare system or who are within a decade of becoming eligible for Medicare would instead acquire insurance on the open market when they reach retirement age.  Branstad says if Democrats have a better idea for dealing with the federal government’s financial plight, they should unveil it.

“I guess that’s what aggravates me about the people that come out against everybody that’s got an idea to try and reduce the federal…deficit. It takes a lot of courage to recommend that,” Branstad says. “I guess that’s why I was very complimentary of Paul Ryan because he at least has come out with a comprehensive plan. And there are a lot of people that want to criticize it, but what’s their alternative?”

Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, has drawn up a plan that includes the changes for Medicare.  The Republican-led U.S. House has endorsed the plan, but Democrats and some Republicans in the U.S. Senate this week joined to reject it. Branstad defends Ryan’s plan.

“Let me just say this about Paul Ryan: I have been very impressed with this young man. I think he has great courage,” Branstad says. “Nobody of either party has had the guts to stand up and say, ‘We need to take on entitlements,’ because everybody knows that this country cannot survive going the direction that we’re going.”

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich called the Ryan plan “right-wing social engineering” but then has apologized personally to Ryan, and this week Gingrich publicly defended Ryan’s proposals. Branstad says Gingrich made a mistake, but has since “somewhat” recovered from it.

A Democrat won a congressional seat in New York state this week, beating a Republican candidate who had embraced the Ryan plan.

Harkin applauds Senate’s rejection of Ryan budget

Iowa Senator Tom Harkin is applauding the defeat in the Senate of the so-called “Ryan budget” for the upcoming fiscal year. The measure passed in the House last month.

Harkin, a Democrat, says Congressional Republicans are trying to justify their “extreme budget” by telling the American people that we are poor and broke. “The problem isn’t that we’re broke, it’s that our system is broken,” Harkin says. “Over the last three decades, the economy has doubled in size, but middle class incomes have been flat. Those at the top are cutting themselves bigger and bigger slices of the pie and telling the middle class to get by with less, less Medicare, less education, less money and pensions.”

Harkin says Tuesday’s special election in New York state shows that GOP policies and candidates are being soundly rejected. “People are in open rebellion against the Republican plan to dismantle Medicare, an absolutely critical pillar of the middle class,” Harkin says. “More broadly, Americans are rejecting the Republicans’ slash-and-burn approach to deficit reduction as unbalanced and unfair.”

Harkin says the Republican solution to the budget issue is always the same — to cut taxes for millionaires while cutting health care for the middle class and cutting education for kids. “The Republican budget dismantles Medicare and Medicaid and takes a meat axe to other programs,” Harkin says, “everything from education to infrastructure to research. This so-called deficit reduction plan gives yet another tax cut bonanza to the wealthy.”

The plan would make the so-called Bush tax cuts permanent while slashing the top tax rate from 35-percent down to 25-percent. Harkin says deficits need to be brought under control through “a balanced approach that includes spending cuts and necessary revenue increases, while continuing to make crucial investments in education, infrastructure and research, the keys to job creation and a stronger middle class.”

Iowa’s other U-S Senator, Republican Chuck Grassley, voted for the Ryan budget.

Actor O’Hurley stars on Iowa stage in musical “Chicago”

The actor most people know as J. Peterman from the T-V show “Seinfeld” will be in central Iowa next week as the star of a Broadway musical.

John O’Hurley has played all kinds of roles on everything from soap operas to “Baywatch” to “Spongebob Squarepants,” but he says slipping into the character of lawyer Billy Flynn in “Chicago” is far and above his favorite.

“That’s certainly the best entrance and exit ever written for a leading man on Broadway,” O’Hurley says. “The rest of the evening is just an absolute joy. It’s one of the great roles ever written and I consider it one of the five great musicals ever done on Broadway.”

The storyline is set in, well, Chicago in the 1920s and focuses on corruption in the criminal justice system and the concept of a celebrity criminal. [Read more...]

GOP wants to reduce per-pupil payments for preschool

Key Republicans say it’s too late to significantly alter the state-paid preschool program for four-year-olds who will enter preschool this fall. But Republicans are pressing to reduce the overall level of state support for preschool.

Governor Branstad had suggested a new voucher system for low-income parents, requiring all other parents to pay preschool tuition out of their own pockets. With legislators still struggling to hammer out an overall state spending plan, Branstad says his voucher program for preschool is “unlikely” to be approved.

“This year we’re probably not going to get that done,” Branstad says.

House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, a Republican from Hiawatha, agrees.

“It’s too late to implement it,” Paulsen says.

However, Republicans in the legislature may seek to reduce the per-pupil allotment school districts receive for every four-year-old enrolled in the state-financed program. That figure today is about $3600 for each four-year-old.

“But clearly the program can be run for much less than that now,” Paulsen says.

According to Paulsen, Republicans favor a figure that’s less closer to $2500 worth of state spending a year for each four-year-old enrolled in preschool.

“I think it is a gain for Iowans if we are able to address that funding,” Paulsen says. 

Paulsen says he’s heard from superintendents who tell him they don’t need as much state support as they’re getting to run a preschool program since the school day is shorter for a four-year-old compared to students in other grades. Branstad agrees.

“It’s not as expensive, obviously, to provide preschool as some other things,” Branstad says. “And there’s a lot of, frankly, private providers who are doing it for a lot less cost.”

The governor says he hopes to focus on preschool at this summer’s summit on education. He’d like to see some way of measuring how well preschool programs are preparing students for kindergarten.

Iowa DOT launches recycling project at rest areas

Motorists who make a pit stop at some of Iowa’s rest areas will soon be able to recycle beverage containers. The Iowa Department of Transportation is launching a year-long pilot project by placing recycling bins at eight rest areas near Ankeny, Mitchellville, Story City and Waukee.

Iowa DOT rest area administrator Steve McMenamin says it’s service travelers have been requesting. “It’s something we’ve talked about off and on for several years,” McMenamin said. “We tried it a number of years ago and, to be quite frank, it didn’t work very well. Recycling has come a long way from when we first tried this and co-mingling of trash into the recyclables is not such a big deal as it was a few years ago. So, we thought maybe it’s time we try this again.”

Waste Management of Iowa will document the amount of recyclables that are diverted from landfills. McMenamin hopes the program can be expanded next year to most of Iowa’s 40 rest areas. More than 15 million people visit Iowa’s rest areas every year.

The pilot project is being partially funded by a nearly $20,000 grant from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.