Iowans could get veto power over tax hikes

Republicans on a House committee have approved a resolution that may end up giving Iowans a veto of any future state tax increases. If the constitutional “People’s Right to Vote” amendment passes at the polls in 2006, any future state sales or income tax increases would be put before voters to accept or reject. Representative Jamie Van Fossen, a republican from Davenport, is chairman of the House Ways and Means tax-writing Committee that passed the resolution on Wednesday. “It’s a good idea to give people more say in what their government does,” Van Fossen says. Van Fossen says it’ll let voters be “more involved in their government.” The proposal passed the committee on a party-line vote. Representative Don Shoultz of Waterloo and the other democrats on the panel refused to support it. Shoultz says the people who are elected to the Legislature are in the best position to make taxing and spending decisions. Governor Tom Vilsack, a democrat, has said he’d support the proposed constitutional amendment. “I’ve never agreed with the governor on that. I’ve never quite understood why he thinks that that’s a good idea,” Shoultz says. “Maybe he thinks that it’s benign but I don’t think it’s benign. I think it’s harmful.”