GOP Gets tough on Special Interest Tax Credits

The US Senate voted Tuesday NOT to repeal a $6 billion tax credit for Ethanol. The bill’s chief sponsor Senator Coburn (R-OK) argued that despite their pledge to not raise taxes, the GOP must stop tolerating wasteful giveaways through the IRS Tax Code. Senator McCain (R-AZ) chimed in stating “Everybody’s entitled to their own opinion…It’s my opinion that it’s a disgraceful subsidy that is unwarranted and a waste of taxpayer dollars.”

For those of you who are keeping score 34 of the 47 Republicans in the Senate voted to repeal this tax credit, despite an ATR pledge by 40 of them to never increase taxes. (Lets be fair, ATR did advise them that so long as they cut another tax to make up for increasing taxes by repealing this credit, they would not be breaking the pledge.)  The credit in question was an earmark granting a $6 billion dollar available tax credit for gasoline producers who blend ethanol into their fuels. This blender’s credit amounts to 1 tenth of 1 percent of the requested Federal Budget for fiscal year 2012 and is in fact not a subsidy for ethanol producers, or corn farmers, but a fuel subsidy for the oil companies who blend and sell gasohol.

Am I the only person who thinks this kind of political pandering is disgusting? Senator Van Hollen (D-MD) is quoted as saying “A realistic conversation about deficit reduction must include both cuts and revenues, and Senator Coburn’s amendment to eliminate $6 billion in tax earmarks for ethanol is an important part of this discussion,” and feels Senator Coburn’s “willingness to cut special-interest tax breaks for the purpose of deficit reduction is encouraging.”

Now, I am all for cutting special-interest tax breaks, but let’s get real, one tenth of one percent is a small drop in the ocean of red ink that is 2012 deficit spending. How about cutting something real like the $121 billion mandatory spending in the USDA budget. (%3.2) Or what about cutting some of the $575 billion being spent by the DOD this year EXCLUDING War Funding for Afghanistan and Iraq. (%15.4) Maybe we could look at cutting the $53 billion dollars being requested for foreign aid this year. (%1.4)

But the Republicans are the only ones pandering. The Democrats continually call for the elimination of tax breaks for Big Oil but they voted to keep this bill on the table instead of bringing the actual tax cut up for a vote. I am sick of reading about “earmarks” and “tax credits,” “deficit spending” and “fiscal responsibility.” Let’s see some real action please!?!

The Art of Exaggeration

For the better part of the last month there has been a lot of comments misrepresenting and distorting the facts of House File 525. We have seen Democratic leadership as well as union leadership distort and misrepresent the bill for their own partisan political gain. I understand that this is the nature of the beast, but the opponents of the bill could have at least spoken about it accurately.

On March 3^rd Iowa House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy stated, and I quote, “It is our intent to have our voices heard and to make Iowans know the bill that’s moving forward ends our collective bargaining system in Iowa.” This is quite a statement from the leader of the Iowa House Democrats. On March 8^th South Central Iowa Federation of Labor President Mark Cooper also falsely asserts that HF 525 would end collective bargaining with this statement, “This is about the right for workers to be able to bargain in the workplace. That is what this is about. It’s not about economics.” Obviously both McCarthy and Cooper have never read the bill. If they had they would realize that this bill is not stripping away the rights of public employees to collectively bargain. All it really does is reform the law in a manner that eliminates some of the concerns that many Iowan’s have had with it. Of course there is the possibility that these two have read it, but are intentionally distorting and misrepresenting the facts of the bill for their own partisan political gain.

In an editorial in the The Daily Nonpareil Mike Hansen, President of AFSCME Retiree Chapter 61 wrote that House File 525 would “destroy mandatory arbitration, collective bargaining, unions, and the middle class.” Contrary to what Mr. Hansen would have you believe, this bill does not end mandatory arbitration. Instead what it does is enable the arbitrator to make an attempt to reach a compromise when the two parties in the negotiations reach an impasse. Furthermore it would prevent an administration from tying the hands of an incoming administration in the way that former Iowa Governor Chet Culver did after his November election loss. And contrary to Mr. Hansen’s assertions, I can assure you that House File 525 will not end collective bargaining in Iowa. The only thing that House File 525 would accomplish is to reform Iowa’s collective bargaining laws, some of which even organized labor and the Democrats have complained about. Rest assured that should the Iowa Senate pass this bill, and should Governor Terry Branstad sign the bill into law, organized labor will continue to exist in the State of Iowa. And another false assertion made by Mr. Hansen is that passage of this bill will destroy the middle class in Iowa. Again his assertion is that the middle class are union members. He doesn’t seem to consider the fact that the middle class has and will continue to exist with or without the help of organized labor. I can point to many members of Iowa’s middle class that are not represented by a labor union.

After the Iowa House passed HF 525 the Iowa House Minority Leader once again aired his ignorance once again by proclaiming that “Like Wisconsin, Republicans in Iowa will stop at nothing to take away rights from police officers, fire fighters , state troopers, teachers, correctional officers and other hard-working Iowan’s. This bill to end collective bargaining is worse than the bill approved in Wisconsin earlier today.” As I explained in my comments above, contrary to Representative McCarthy’s over exaggeration this bill does NOT end collective bargaining. Iowan’s collective bargaining will not end with the implementation of this bill.

You can see the impact all of this over exaggeration has had on the average Iowan when they themselves end up propagating the exaggerations and misrepresentations the Democrats and the union leaders espouse. Chrisina Manual of Des Moines remarked that, “It’s like, come on, don’t take everything away from us, all our rights.” Of course this sentiment is based on the extreme misrepresentation of people like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

Ultimately I believe that the general population of Iowa can and will see through the distortions coming from opponents of HF 525. I believe that they will see opposition to 525 as nothing more than a desperate attempt to continue holding the state government hostage to public employee unions in Iowa. And I am confident that if Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal refuses to allow debate on the bill the electorate will hold him accountable in 2012.

 

Taxpayers Last…

The “Taxpayers First Act” (HF45) that passed the House of Representatives would’ve saved taxpayers $500 million dollars over the next three years. Unfortunately, when the liberal Democrat Senate leadership got done with it, it was gutted almost beyond recognition.

Instead of saving you and me the $500 million we so greatly need, it now only saves a whopping $10 million over the next three years.

And instead of setting aside $327 million for tax relief, the liberal Democrat Senate version sets aside a whopping $0.

All of that waiting, all of that Gron-stalling and delay, was for nothing. The clear message that taxpayers sent back on November 2 was that Iowans wanted real representation, lower taxes, lower spending and less government.

So you and I, the Iowa economy and Iowa workers continue to foot the bill.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for saving money. But the $10 million dollar token the liberal leader of the senate forced down our throats is more of an insult than substantive savings.

Senate conservatives offered amendment after amendment to the liberal chokehold on taxpayers but to no avail.  It was a party line vote every time at 26-24.

But have no fear! The liberal Democrats did let us debate a bill about raccoon hunting!

(For those of you needing a refresher, the reason I say that they “let us debate” is because liberal Majority Leader, Mike Gronstal from Council Bluffs controls the Senate Calendar, the passage of legislation through committees, and decides if we should be allowed to vote on any particular legislation and ultimately determines the outcome of any potential legislation IF he decides to let it come to the floor.)

So for those of you who cast your vote on November 2, 2010, because you were mad that you couldn’t take your minor child raccoon hunting with you without them having a license, I’d like you to know that I voted FOR repealing that requirement.

You can now take your minor child raccoon hunting with you and they don’t need a license.  But they are not allowed to carry a firearm if they’re not licensed.

I’m glad we got that passed. Truly. We should’ve let parents take their children hunting without a license anyway, but I still believe that we have more important legislation to work on.

Excessive taxes come to mind.

Combining our state corporate tax rate of 12% with the federal rate of 35% and the Tax Foundation says that the Hawkeye State may have the highest levy in the developed world.

And according to the Wall Street Journal, workers “bear the cost of excessive corporate taxes. A 2009 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City examined three decades of data on business taxes and worker paychecks. The study found that “corporate taxes reduce wages and that the magnitude of the negative relationship between the taxes and the wages has increased over the past 30 years.”

Businesses in high tax states invest less, the study found, and this leads to lower productivity (think fewer jobs) and eventually lower average pay for workers.

This isn’t just hypothetical theory. This is state government stifling businesses that could and would be creating jobs if the tax and business climate were less oppressive.

It’s plain and simple math folks. It’s not sustainable unless we change the path we’re on.

This is why I expect we’ll start to see half-truths and attempts to claim public credit for easing restrictions and burdens on Iowa taxpayers to start coming out of the liberal leadership in the next few weeks. They know, as well as you and I do, that they have to start gaining the appearance of being business and taxpayer friendly if they want to hold on to the majority in the Iowa Senate in 2012.

But you and I know such efforts will be seen for what it really is: political grandstanding. If they cared about taxpayers, and if they cared about Iowa workers and the middle class, they wouldn’t have been so deceptive with their legislation and rhetoric for the last several years.

And if they had truly realized the “error of their ways,” they would’ve immediately reached across the aisle and united with conservatives to ease restrictions, ease the burdens and get us back on track sooner rather than later.

Taxpayers remain last on their agenda.

Sincerely,

Senator Kent Sorenson

 

Vulnerable Workers Come Under Fire

Representative Ron Jorgensen

Despite reassurances from President Obama the United States continues to be mired in an economic slump the likes of which we have not seen in decades. No pronouncement from the anointed one or his media lapdogs can undo what meddlesome bureaucrats did to the American marketplace. We can see evidence of this economic malaise throughout the nation. Right here in Central Iowa we have our own communities that are suffering from the lack of economic recovery.

For an example let us look at Pella. The community of Pella is home to two of the state’s largest homegrown Iowa manufacturers; Pella Corporation and Vermeer Manufacturing. Both companies have been hit hard by the economic recession. Both companies have been forced to drastically reduce the number of hours their employees are working. And while to the best of my knowledge Vermeer has yet to lay off any workers many are working less than thirty hours per week. As for Pella Corporation the distressed economy has taken a significant bite out of the company’s bottom line. The company’s sales are down and they have been forced to dramatically reduce their workforce. Even after the workforce underwent both voluntary and involuntary layoffs the company found that they still had too many employees in the plants. So the management staff decided to institute rolling furloughs; that is each factory employee will work two weeks on then one week off in order to balance out staffing. This has effectively cut the employee’s wages by one third every three weeks. To add insult to injury, Pella Corporation’s sales have dipped to the point that they have asserted that they cannot guarantee their employee’s more than twenty-eight hours in any one week.

It is for this reason that I find the proposal introduced by Sioux City Republican Ron Jorgensen, House File 170, so disgusting. Under HF 170 employees would need to be unemployed for two weeks before they would be eligible to receive unemployment benefits, effectively ending unemployment benefits for individuals who find themselves unemployed for just one week.

I am not sure what Representative Jorgensen hopes to accomplish with this legislation, but I can predict what will happen if it were to pass. One of the most immediate effects Jorgensen’s bill would have is to encourage the unemployed to stay unemployed longer. You would see fewer and fewer individuals unemployed for just one week. Most individuals that file for unemployment for just one week truly need that benefit simply to make ends meet.

This bill would also be detrimental to local economies across the state. If we were to prohibit individuals that have been unemployed for just one week this could most likely impact their family’s ability to pay their bills. They would start falling further and further behind in their bill payments. Eventually the family would face foreclosure of their mortgage, default on an auto loan, disconnection of necessary utilizes, and a whole raft of other economic difficulties.

As I mentioned I am unaware of what Representative Jorgensen’s motivation was for introducing a bill such as this. However I do know what would most likely happen in the wake of passage of this bill. Rather than going after those that would abuse the system, we would be targeting those that need the program the most.

Please if you agree with me that we need to preserve unemployment for the state’s workers such as those that work at Pella Corp. call or write your State Representative or State Senator today. Encourage them to withhold support of House File 170. Together we can prevent this bill from ever coming to the House Floor.

 

Iowa Senate Democrats: The Sky is Falling

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

This refrain from the iconic fable of Chicken Little is one that many of us learned during our childhood. Many of us remember the story of Chicken Little where a paranoid chicken was consistently predicting disaster. Instead of leading the barnyard from disaster, Chicken Little inadvertently led his barnyard friends into the waiting clutches of a fox. This story taught most of us that we must be wary of listening to the hysterical predictions of disaster.

I realize that by this point some of you may be wondering what Chicken Little has to do with Iowa politics. Well it appears that Iowa Senate Democrats are doing the best imitation of Chicken Little that I have ever seen. They seem to hoping that you, a concerned Iowa citizen is too stupid to see through their rhetoric to see their true intentions.

Iowa Senate Democrats, led by Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, are decrying the effort of Iowa Republicans to set the allowable growth or the state’s education budget at zero percent. In a typical alarmist fashion they are predicting dire consequences for Iowa’s schools. They are claiming that if the education budget is not allowed to grow that Iowa school districts will be forced to lay off teachers. They are loudly proclaiming that if the education budget is not allowed to grow that classrooms will be forced to increase.

Perhaps rather than crying doom, the Democrats should begin looking at ways to cut wasted from the education budget to make it more efficient. With a budget that is approximately half of the state’s budget I believe that it would be extremely disingenuous to think that there is not a large amount of waste contained within the education budget. However instead of looking for ways to make the education system in Iowa more efficient and responsive, the Democrats simply want to take the intellectually lazy path by throwing more money away. This even though that time and time again we have witnessed that more money does not necessarily equal academic success.

At the end of the day it does not take much to discern the true intention of the Senate Democrats. Since the Democrats are no longer in control of all of Iowa government they are struggling to find any way to pay the education lobby back for their support during the recent election. It is obvious that their motivation is not helping ensure academic success. So let us not imitate the fate of Chicken Little’s friends by falling for the Democrats rhetoric.

 

Ayn Rand – Liberty vs Socialism

I don’t know much about Mike Wallace and I know even less about Ayn Rand, but she is absolutely brilliant in this video.  Please watch it.  It speaks for itself.  Incidentally, I believe this interview was recorded and originally aired in 1959, two years after publication of her book Atlas Shrugged.