Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
Iowa Republicans appear to be hitching their hopes to derail Gov. Chet Culver’s $750 million bonding plan on one of the 4,000 submissions for the funding – a proposed 12-story building in the center of Vedic City called the “Tower of Invincibility.”
Cities, counties, schools and universities from around the state responded to a request from Culver to submit projects that would be ready to begin once the bonding money is approved. None of the projects are guaranteed funding, and Culver spokesman Phil Roeder told The Des Moines Register each would go through “a rigorous process to determine if they meet criteria for public infrastructure and job creation.”
But the $8 to $10 million Vedic City project, which has been defended by city leaders as an economic attraction that could employ hundreds of people in the town founded by practitioners of Transcendental Meditation, has become a rallying cry for Republicans who oppose the bonding measure.
In a press release entitled “If you liked the ‘Bridge to Nowhere,’ you’ll love Culver’s ‘Tower of Invincibility,’” Republican Party of Iowa (RPI) Chairman Matt Strawn said the project proposals from local governments show how the bonding plan will “squander taxpayer money.”
“Somebody needs to take the shovel out of Gov. Culver’s hands because he keeps digging Iowans a deeper financial hole,” Strawn said. “This boondoggle is ‘Exhibit A’ that the spend first, think later culture of Des Moines is out of control.”
At his blog, The Iowa Republican, former RPI Political Director Craig Robinson put the Vedic City project at the top of his list of proposals he said reveals the bonding plan as simply a “massive pork project that is about to be passed under the guise of flood relief, jobs and economic stimulus.”
House Minority Leader Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, called the list of projects “squirrelly.”
The strategy mirrors that used by national Republican during debate on the omnibus spending bill passed earlier this month and signed by President Barack Obama. Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House and Senate called the bill too costly and said it was loaded down with thousands of needless pet projects.
That tactic proved unsuccessful, though, as ultimately the bill passed with limited Republican support. And several GOP lawmakers, including Iowans Steve King and Tom Latham, were criticized for voting against the bill and later taking credit for earmarks contained within it.
Des Moines Public Works Director Bill Stowe defended the Vedic City project, telling the Register that excluding a few proposals because they initially sound like they are not worthwhile, like “public artwork or a tower in a community that has different religious views as compared with the majority of Iowans,” is ludicrous.
In announcing the bonding plan, called I-JOBS, Culver layed out the criteria each project would have to meet to receive funding, which includes the number and quality of jobs created; contribution to sustainability and energy effiiciency; and benefit to areas distressed by high unemployment.
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