October 9, 2009
Governor Orders 10% Cut
Throughout the 2009 legislative session, House Republicans repeatedly urged the Democrat leadership and the Governor to use good discretion on spending. We all knew the economic recession we were in, and House Republicans offered $337 million in suggestions of money savings opportunities for the state. Unfortunately, the majority party was not interested in our suggestions, and in the dark of night during the last 24 hours before the fall of the gavel, passed the largest budget ever for the state.
As spring turned into summer, the Governor and the Democrat leaders continued to “ whistle past the graveyard” as they repeatedly proclaimed the budget was in sound condition, that the state ”is on the road to recovery” (the Des Moines Register quotes the Governor on 9-17-09). More than once the Governor publicly disagreed with the non-partisan Legislative Service Agency (LSA) when they put out less –than- glowing figures for the state revenues picture. As recently as last week, the LSA announced that state net receipts for the first three months of FY 2010 had declined by 9.1% as compared to a year ago. He still argued that the numbers of the deficit were being exaggerated by the LSA. After spending too much, borrowing too much, and refusing to face the music in a more timely fashion, the Governor has shown complete incompetence.
Now he has resorted to drastic and unnecessarily large cuts to address the problem. While several voices, including Des Moines Register political reporter Kathy Obradovich are urging the Governor to call the legislature back for a special session to minimize the pain to some areas of the budget, the Governor opted to order a 10% across the board cut. This is a much larger cut than nearly anyone projected, and creates real pain for many areas that rely on state funding. The amount required by state law is closer to 7.1%. The argument the Governor is giving for why he is not calling the legislature back is that time is urgent-“we cannot wait, we cannot delay. We have to act”. He is quoted in the DM Register as saying. How interesting! All summer he has insisted that we had plenty of time and there was no need to address the problems as the evidence continued to mount. By waiting until we were a quarter into the FY 2010 budget year, he increases the pain on the areas of Government that are taking a big cut.
While the Governor is saying this large a cut is necessary to avoid increasing taxes on Iowans, he is choosing to not tell Iowans that in fact, it will result in a HUGE tax increase. Because education funding constitutes nearly 60% of the cut, and since the Democrat-led legislature allowed school districts to levy the amount they are losing through the cut on to property tax, Iowans can expect to see approximately a $250 million increase in school property taxes. This DOES, in a real sense, protect K-12 education from taking the deep cuts. Unfortunately, prison guards, state patrol, and those children being served by the Human Resources department will not see such assistance.
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