Iowa Defense Alliance

Iowa’s Budget Woes

Last week our lovely Governor, Chet Culver, has announced that he wants the state government to cut $40 million in spending from next year’s budget. When I read that last week I remarked to myself that it was about time the guy started learning some fiscal restraint. Unfortunately I do not believe that it goes far enough. Now it would seem that I am not the only one to feel that way. In today’s Des Moines Register Ed Failor, president of Iowans for Tax Relief, unleashed a verbal broadside on Culver’s plan.

In today’s article Failor calls Culver’s plan to cut $40 million from the budget “putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound.” Not mincing his words is he. While Culver and the Democrats believe that cutting $40 million dollars from the budget will cover any shortfalls that the state may run into, Failor and many others like him believe that the budget shortfall is going to be much, much larger than that. Part of the reasoning behind Failor’s complaints is the fact that our State spending has increased by $840 million in just two years. Add this to the rapidly deteriorating economy and you have a recipe for disaster. Of course Culver and his buddies in the statehouse are either gleefully ignorant of the impending disaster or they are being deliberately negligent.

Kevin McCarthy, House Majority Leader and the states most prolific political prostitute, states that he and the other Democrats in Des Moines are determined to pay for the items that Iowan’s want. Uh oh, this doesn’t sound good does it? I would surmise that McCarthy and the Democrats have their eyes on raising a few taxes to pay for the social engineering programs that they want. They haven’t come out and said that they were going to raise taxes, but this line from McCarthy leads me to believe that while it may be unspoken, the idea is bouncing around that head of his.

“It is always better to have more revenue coming in and the economy growing than to have a slower economy and less revenue, but I do know that we have the determination to roll up our sleeves and pay for priorities that Iowans want.”

I don’t know about you, but the priority that I want is a government that is fiscally responsible. You know a government that spends the tax payer’s money wisely. Unfortunately as long as we have this bunch of big spenders in Des Moines that is unlikely to happen.

Fortunately a few of our leaders in the Iowa Legislature understand that the amount of spending that Culver and his groupies have been spending is outrageous. According to Senate Minority Leader Paul McKinley the State of Iowa is spending at an unsustainable level and is calling for more fiscal common sense. Unfortunately I think that his plea is going to fall on deaf ears as the majority of our current government does not even understand the need for basic common sense let alone fiscal common sense.

Either way you look at it, the State of Iowa is in trouble. Our state spending has reached a level that many would have thought unlikely just a few short years ago, and yet Iowa’s Democratic leaders want to spend even more money to pay for their pet projects.

November 23, 2008 - Posted by Al Bregar | Abregar, Politics | Chet Culver, Des Moines Register, Ed Failor, Iowa Budget, Jr., Kevin McCarthy, Paul McKinley