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.
A majority of states, including Iowa, are facing budget gaps totaling $66 billion in the 2009 fiscal year, according to a study by The New York Times.
According to data compiled by the paper, the Rockefeller Institute and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 37 states are dealing with budget shortfalls, with Iowa’s totaling $350 million. That number pales in comparison to California, which is facing a $26 billion budget gap, but is still cause for concern as the General Assembly goes back into session in January.
“Frankly, I thought 2001 was really awful,” said Scott D. Pattison, the executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers, referring to the last big economic downturn. “It is even worse now.”
He added, “This fiscal year will be really bad, and what is unfortunate is that I can’t see how 2010 won’t be bad too.”
The Iowa Legislative Service Bureau has estimated the state has roughly $600 million worth of spending already on the books going into the legislative session. With a drop in state revenues and more tough financial times on the horizon, many worry lawmakers will either have to make cuts in vital services or raise taxes.
Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, said during a recent taping of Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press” that the state’s economy is still in good shape and that he is confident a balanced budge will be passed without going back on the promises his party has made in previous sessions.
“We will fix up, we will continue to fix up the state’s budget. We have more money in savings than the Republicans ever had in savings when they controlled the place. They spent our reserve counts down to about 2.5 percent. We’re at 10 percent. We’ve got $620 million in the bank. Republicans never had a number that high.”
However, Gronstal indicated that if the state were to tap into its reserves, he would rather it be for disaster recovery efforts related to this summer’s flooding.
Overall, Iowa is not facing the problems many other states are, mostly because Iowa was not as harshly affected by the mortgage crisis.
The current-year budget gap in Rhode Island represents over 11 percent of the state’s entire general fund, in large part because of the high number of subprime loans. The story is similar in Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada.
Iris Lav, deputy director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal-leaning economic research group in Washington that tracks state budgets, said most state budgets are “moving from the damaged to the devastated.”
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