Category: News

This video illustrates how much money Lithuanians lose due to taxes.  As you watch, keep in mind Americans pay nearly as much.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oL7dmKYad6Q

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News from the Hill…  

Funnel Mania…  

This week was what is referred to as the first funnel.  February 21 was the final date for Senate bills to be reported out of Senate Committees and House bills out of House Committees.   The bills needed to be passed through the committee process to stay eligible for debate.  It will take a couple of days to figure out what bills stayed alive and what bills died in committee.  This first funnel can be very disappointing and/or a relief, it all depends upon your perspective and the bill.  We have just three weeks until the second funnel.  March 14 is the final date for Senate bills to be reported out of House Committees and House bills need to be reported out of Senate Committees.  So the House has three weeks to debate and pass House bills and the Senate has to pass those House bills out of a Senate Committee to stay eligible to become law.  The Senate will be doing the same thing with their Senate bills and the House will have to pass those bills out of a House Committee to stay eligible.  This applies to all bills and all committees with the exception of the Appropriation, Ways & Means and Oversight Committees.  The bills in those committees can be considered all session.  That’s one reason the Ways and Means Committee is one of the hardest working committees, of course I am a little prejudice.

Connect Every Iowan…  

One of the Governor’s initiatives this year is to make high-speed internet, defined as broadband available in every home.  This is a lofty goal and would help to bring more businesses to rural Iowa.  While it may not be feasible to make this available to every home owner, we are looking at ways to help local providers get more Iowans connected to broadband.  The last thing we need is more government overreach; Washington DC seems to be doing too much of that.  However, we are looking at ways to see if the state of Iowa can help private businesses so they can offer their customers broadband services.  I have reached out to several local providers, as well as other providers around the state to see what is being offered presently.  Also, it is important to know what the actual and anticipated demand is and for what speeds.  You can offer broadband that has lots of speed, but if it is not in demand or is unaffordable, it doesn’t make much sense to invest in the infrastructure of broadband.    There are many questions and little time, my information folder seems to be getting bigger and bigger.  I am actually starting to understand the difference in kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes and Terabytes.  This bill passed out of the Commerce Committee and is waiting to be assigned in the Ways and Means Committee.  I will continue to serve on the subcommittee in the Ways and Means Committee.

Protecting Your Childs Identity…  

Wednesday in the Pubic Safety Committee one of the bills we passed was HF 2116.  I served on the subcommittee for this bill and would not pass the bill out of subcommittee without an amendment.  The amendment replaced the entire bill with one basic action; Parents/Legal Guardians can freeze their child’s social security number, to protect them from someone else stealing it and destroying the credit associated to that number.  Parents will get a social security number for their children when they are born, but typically there would never be any credit check until they would be legal adults.  So their identity could be stolen and go unchecked for eighteen years or more.  While this bill does not stop all stolen identities, it goes a long way in protecting our minor children and their identity.  I voted for the bill once this amendment replaced the original draft of the bill.  This bill passed out of the Public Safety Committee and heads to the House Chamber for debate.

“Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.” – Abraham Lincoln

For more information on these and other bills:  www.legis.iowa.gov

 Until next time,

Tom Sands

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