Rants turns sights on Branstad

While attacking the methods used by Gov. Chet Culver to balance the budget, GOP gubernatorial nominee Chris Rants took the opportunity to turn his attention to one of his potential Republican primary opponents, former Gov. Terry Branstad.

During an interview with conservative blog TheIowaRepublican.com, Rants accused Culver of balancing the state’s budget by pushing payments of corporate tax refunds into the 2010 budget year, a practice he said would simply result in a bigger budget gap next year.

But before Rants can take on Culver he has to survive a GOP primary, and with that in mind the Sioux City Republican turned the criticism on Branstad, who has not formally entered the race.

Rants said, “Culver’s repeating the mistakes Branstad made in the 80s. He moved money on paper and delayed payments from one fiscal year to another until it finally caught up to him and he raised the sales tax to square the books. He could only hide his deficits for so long. It’s these kinds of accounting gimmicks that caused the fallout between Auditor [Richard] Johnson and Branstad.”

“We Republicans need to be better than that if we expect to earn the trust of Iowans,” added Rants.

In 1992, then Auditor Richard Johnson, a Republican, publicly called for the state’s attorney general to investigate Branstad’s budget practices because “a rational basis has not been used” to keep track of the state budget deficit. The move eventually led to the legislature passing budgetary reform legislation, including the creation of the state’s Rainy Day Fund.

The disagreement also led to Johnson’s endorsement of  U.S. Rep. Fred Grandy in the contentious 1994 GOP gubernatorial primary, a race that saw Branstad squeak out a victory on his way to a fourth term in office.

Johnson now serves as an adviser to Republican gubernatorial nominee Bob Vander Plaats.

Rants has already garnered headlines for his repeated criticisms of Vander Plaats, attacking his fellow Republicans’ statements on health care, the state budget and his business background.

As for Rants’ initial argument, that Culver is using budget tricks to cover up a deficit, officials with the Iowa Department of Revenue said the reason for the delay in paying refunds is actually because the department’s staff has been reduced, and since the corporate refunds are largely filed by paper instead of electronically, it takes longer to finalize them and process payment.