Category: Danville
News from the Hill…
The 85th General Assembly is under way with the first week about to be completed. This begins the 110 day session for 2013. Like all General Assemblies before, there are high hopes of much accomplishment again this year.
Governor Branstad begins the third year in this term; the Senate is still under the control of the democrats with a 26-24 vote edge and the House remains under the control of the republicans with a 53-46 vote edge. There is a special election in the northeast Iowa for a house seat that will change the house numbers by one.
I will serve on the Ways and Means Committee for the ninth year and will serve as the Chair for the third year. I was the ranking member the previous four years. I will also serve on the Public Safety Committee starting my 11th year and the Commerce Committee starting my ninth year. My committee assignments are rounded out by serving on the Legislative Council for the seventh year.
First Bills filed in the Iowa House…
House File 1 places the Iowa Taxpayer at the head of the table when it comes to our Iowa taxpayer’s trust fund. This bill takes the unused tax dollars and gives it back to the taxpayers. Letting Iowans keep more of their hard earned income helps stimulate Iowa’s economy in a faster and better way.
House File 2 begins the process on the House version of Property Tax relief. This bill increases the state’s share of the school funding formula. This provides dollar for dollar property tax relief. This method is the purest form of property tax relief there is. The bill provides property tax relief across all classes of property. It is predictable, sustainable and does not create a shift to other classes of property.
House File 3 provides an alternate code section under which to file your Iowa individual income tax returns. This gives Iowans a choice; they can choose to file under the present system that has nine different brackets with different credits and deductions. The other choice would be to file under the new code section established under HF 3 that eliminates all the credits and deductions and has one flat rate of 4.5%. This bill will start the discussion on ways to simplify and reduce the Iowa income tax burden. This could not come at a better time, the Governor of Nebraska is asking for the elimination of the Corporate and Individual Income taxes for their state. We presently have to compete with South Dakota, if Nebraska passes this legislation Iowa will lose more business’s and people to our western neighbors if we do nothing.
Live Action in Iowa House…
Last year the Iowa House started a Live House Video via the internet, so people could watch first hand on what was going on in the Iowa house without driving to Des Moines. This has been used in classrooms, living rooms and offices across this state. I have included the link below for your convenience if you would like to look and listen in some time.
https://www.legis.iowa.gov/index.aspx
Newsletter Distribution…
Once again I will be sending out a weekly newsletter while we are in session. Many of the local papers print my newsletter; however there are a few who do not. If you know of someone who you think would like to receive this newsletter by email or hard copy. Contact me by the way they would like to receive the newsletter. This letter tries to inform the readers of what is going on in the Iowa House, but also lets people know of the upcoming forums, times and locations.
“…that this nation, under God, shall have new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Gettysburg Address – Abraham Lincoln
For more information on these and other bills: www.legis.iowa.gov
-Tom Sands
This week’s legislative forum:
Saturday, January 19th
Burlington Public Library
Burlington, IA
9:15 AM – 11:15 AM
Categories
Obituaries
Iowa Democrat State Rep. Dan Muhlbauer says, “We cannot have big guns out here as far as the big guns that are out here, the semi-automatics and all of them, those are not hunting weapons. We should ban those in Iowa. Even if you have them, I think we need to start taking them, because if they’re out there, they’re just going to get circulated around to the wrong people. Those guns should not be in the public’s hands. There are just too many guns. If we find them on the street, there’s going to have to be some sort of penalty for them”
KCPS Radio personality ‘Good Ole Number 7’ (Santa Hat) shares a laugh with the winner of the special door price Wednesday night at the radio station on Gear Avenue in West Burlington
Click Here: 64% favor arming at least one school official
Falcon,
I see where Burlington & Des Moines County of people living below the poverty level is hanging around 14% meaning approximately 6000 people around our county are basically wards of the taxpayers, by the way that’s 2% above the state average.
I would assume the largest percentage of them are living in Burlington a city on the verge of bankruptcy if not total economic failure because of a one party political system incapable of making positive decisions. Our city management tends to think Burlington can earn subsistence through the taxes placed on tourism brought in by the Rec Plex which will never happen no matter how much they spend on that taxpayer owned operation. I wonder if the Hotel/Motel employees earn what the people at the city run RecPlex earn?
Des Moines County and Burlington need good industrial jobs something the county and city are incapable of producing unless the taxpayers subsidize the hell out of them. On top of no jobs we have hundreds of entitlement people from out of state moving in to the county as does most of Eastern Iowa with no marketable skills other than living off taxpayers. Of course the union influence doesn’t help either and more or less hinders getting good jobs into this area of Iowa. Throw in the left wing Hawk Eye and its left leaning editorial page and we are basically dead in the water at obtaining livable wage jobs.
A city having no jobs with an influx of the entitlement crowd can only mean further failure for a city like Burlington, a city with high crime, high entitlement population, questionable school system, rampart use of drugs, few livable wage jobs, high taxes and fees that go along with high state taxes and fees. There is nothing but outrageous stealing from the taxpayers to support a top heavy and incapable management of state, city and county governments. All government employees in Iowa are grossly overpaid and benefitted by the taxpayers while much of the private sector is forced to get entitlements in order to subsist after paying the high taxes and fees to support the government “Privileged Class”.
We have far too much crime in this city and county. Burlington ranks third highest in the state for crime out of some 900 plus cities and towns in Iowa. Keokuk ranks first in crime with Davenport second making the eastern part of Iowa the crime capital of Iowa. Of course Easter Iowa is the democratic stronghold of Iowa which accounts for most of the mess this part of Iowa is saddled with. Also, with the number of shootings experienced this year in Burlington our city will probably move up in the rankings for crime rather than down.
If it weren’t for Randy Winegard this town would probably eventually dry up and disappear in the hot summer breezes. I often wonder what Burlington would do if it weren’t for the Winegard Corporation. Of course there are several other firms supporting Burlington like Case, GE and the IAAP along with several others that pay livable wages over $10.50 per hour but there are far too many Burlington jobs that pay less than a livable wage forcing their employees seek entitlements to make ends meet.
Another extremely bad situation is after the first of the year we’ll be back in another bad recession because of Obamacare and Obama policies all lined up like dominoes to further destroy our industrial base along with the medical system. We’ll have thousands of new regulations written by the Obama administration that will further saddle small business with regulations costing something like ten to twelve thousand dollars per employee which in turn will increase more job losses.
With this president the future looks dismal at best if one can call it that good. Then we have a city management and a newspaper that on their own are destroying future growth for livable wage jobs here in Burlington through their editorial page and support for government and even private unions both of which tend to force good wage jobs elsewhere rather than Burlington.
DS