Governor says he’d take heat for tax increases

Governor Tom Vilsack says he’s got big shoulders and is willing to take the heat for raising taxes. Vilsack acknowledges politicians don’t like to “take the heat” for raising taxes, but Vilsack says he’s “willing to bear that burden” because he says it’s important to the state’s future to spend more on schools and health care for seniors. Vilsack, a democrat, today offered his analysis of the republican state budget plan released yesterday — a plan that does not include tax increases. Vilsack says he’s willing to round up half the democrat votes necessary to pass his tax increases, if republicans will supply the rest.The governor says it’s not fair to ask either party to “bear the burden” of passing tax increases. He says by making it a bipartisan vote, neither party could make it an issue in the fall election. Vilsack says there’s no more room to cut the state budget, and he opposes the republicans’ idea of cleaning out the state’s cash reserve as means of finding more money to spend. Vilsack says to him “it’s common sense” that after four years of dipping into cash reserves and laying off as much as 10 percent of the state workforce, it’s time to raise taxes. Vilsack says “we have now pretty much defined the level of service” Iowans expect from their government, and “it isn’t supported by the revenues that are coming in.”