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.
When the Senate returns from Thanksgiving break to debate health care reform legislation, the Republicans will push numerous small amendments instead of a singular, comprehensive proposal of their own , U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said Wednesday.
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (Photo: Lauren Victoria Burke/WDCPIX.com)
“Well, I think the topics of debate will probably be centered on Republican alternatives,” Grassley said on a conference call with reporters. “And we probably won’t have one comprehensive alternative. We’ll probably have a lot of different subsection amendments.”
Those amendments will likely range from adding some sort of medical malpractice reform to improving small business’ ability to pool their resources to get better insurance rates. But the GOP effort will also focus on killing provisions they feel are inappropriate, such as individual mandates, Grassley said.
“Then we will want to do away with the — the first time in the history of our country we’ve ever said — the federal government said you had to buy something,” he said. “So today you got to buy health insurance under this bill. If you don’t buy health insurance, you’re going to pay more money to the federal government — the IRS, $1,500 per family. And we think that that’s philosophically wrong, and we think that there’s a better way of doing it through a re-insurance program.”
Debate on the $848 billion health care plan is expected to begin next week, after Democrats united on a procedural vote allowing the bill to go to the full Senate over Republican opposition.
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