Republican legislators say democrat Governor Tom Vilsack needs to stop his “Scare Iowa” tour. Vilsack and Lieutenant Governor Sally Pederson traveled to four Iowa cities this week to accuse republicans of short-changing a program that provides health care to poor kids. House Speaker Brent Siegrist, a republican from Council Bluffs, says the charge is baseless. He asked, “Do I look like an extraordinarily stupid politician in an election year, I’m gonna lop three thousand poor kids off insurance. I’m not gonna do that.”Siegrist says he’s getting weary of the “Scare Iowa” tour in which the governor tries to scare Iowans about every aspect of the budget.A spokesman for the Governor maintains the G-O-P budget numbers don’t add up, and three-thousand kids who currently get health insurance through the state’s HAWK-I program will be tossed off. Siegrist says that’s not correct. Siegrist says he doesn’t know what kind of math the Governor’s using, but republicans intend to increase the budget for the program by two-point-two million dollars, which will ensure all 13-thousand kids with HAWK-I insurance now get to keep it.
