Legislators pitch current agendas
Crackerbarrel brings local lawmakers to a forum once each month in Dubuque
2/8/2008
By MARY RAE BRAGG, Dubuque Telegraph Herald staff writer
A standing ovation to welcome back a citizen/soldier lawmaker and lowered expectations caused by gloomy revenue estimates marked the opening Saturday of Dubuque's 2008 legislative crackerbarrel series.
Six state lawmakers and more than 100 of their constituents made it through yet-another slippery snowfall to get to a Diamond Jo Casino harbor-side meeting room to discuss issues facing the Iowa Legislature.
The standing ovation was for Rep. Ray Zirkelbach, D-Monticello, who was absent during the 2006 and 2007 legislative sessions while he served with the Iowa National Guard in Iraq.
It fell to Sen. Roger Stewart, D-Preston, to remind the audience that last year's 6 percent increase in revenue made it possible for the Legislature to spend additional dollars on education and assorted projects. But that was then and this year the revenue estimates for the 2008-09 fiscal year anticipate increases will be in the neighborhood of just 2.6 percent.
Sen. Mike Connolly, D-Dubuque, noted the Legislature committed last year to raising teacher salaries over two years to where the pay will be 25th highest in the nation, and lawmakers went home last year with $600 million in reserve funds.
"We don't want to go there, but if need be, we'll draw down (on reserves) a little to keep our commitments," Connolly said.
House Speaker Pat Murphy, D-Dubuque, ended any school district hopes of obtaining 6 percent growth in state funding for 2008-09 by saying the House will look at 4 percent allowable growth during the coming week. Murphy said he expects the bill to pass both the House and Senate quickly and be on Gov. Chet Culver's desk by the middle of the month.
Changes to the state's bottle bill and closing a loophole in corporate tax laws, two of the proposed "balloons" Culver launched in January, are "not flying high" in the Senate, Connolly said.
Like his predecessor, Gov. Tom
Vilsack, Culver is proposing Iowa adopt combined reporting to address corporations that currently avoid paying tax in states other than where their headquarters are located. Under combined reporting, for taxing purposes, corporate income is apportioned among all the states where their subsidiaries are located.
Rep. Pam Jochum, D-Dubuque, described the change as a "tax equity fairness issue." She said it would level the playing field by making sure large corporations that can shift headquarters out-of-state pay Iowa tax like smaller, local businesses do.
Culver's proposal to expand the bottle bill to include more types of containers and return to consumers only eight cents of a 10-cent container deposit will be a hard sell, Murphy said, particularly since a previous proposal that raised the deposit by only one cent failed to get legislative support.
Sen. Tom Hancock, D-Epworth, who sits on the Transportation Committee, said the group is looking at all possible ways to increase the Transportation Department's revenue, including raising the gas tax.
He finds little support for a gas tax hike,
Crackerbarrel sessions are regularly held at 9:30 a.m., at the Diamond Jo on the first Saturday of the months when the Legislature is in session.
Copyright (c) Woodward Communications, Inc. 2008, All Rights Reserved. All rights reserved.
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