Republicans give details of proposed budget cuts

Republicans today unveiled details of 40-million dollars worth of cuts they want to make in this year’s state budget. Community colleges and the state-supported universities in Ames, Cedar Falls and Iowa City would see their budgets hacked by 10-million. The Iowa State Highway Patrol’s budget gets a nearly 1.2 million dollar whack. And the state agency that hands out welfare and investigates child abuse would get an eight-and-a-half million dollar cut if Republicans like House Leader Christopher Rants of Sioux City. On Monday, Vilsack said cuts were unnecessary, and warned the G-O-P plan would lead to layoffs and chaos in government programs. House Speaker Brent Siegrist, a republican from Council Bluffs, says to do nothing ignores the reality that state tax collections are on the decline. Republicans propose no cuts in K-through-12 public schools or the Medicaid program which provides health care for the poor. The budgets of the Veteran’s home in Marshalltown and the state’s prison system didn’t get the budget ax, either.