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.
Instead of resorting to layoffs to meet Gov. Chet Culver’s 10 percent across-the-board budget cuts, state government should implement an employee pay reduction, Iowa Tax Relief President Ed Failor Jr. said Monday.
“Sure, state employee budgets will feel the pinch of a pay cut; but a salary reduction over the course of nine months is certainly less harmful than outright unemployment,” he said.
After Culver announced his plan to cut the budget earlier this month, Danny Homan, president of AFSCME Council 61, said the resulting layoffs would be devastating. The union, which represents 40,000 state and local government employees, already agreed to implement a pay freeze this year. Homan said the governor’s pledge to not raise taxes means painful, and possibly unnecessary, job losses.
Failor said a 5 percent pay reduction would save taxpayers approximately $140 million, “and should save 1,000 Iowa jobs.”
“State labor unions should agree with this suggestion; this plan would help keep Iowans working,” Failor said. “Instead of driving up wages, unions should focus on protecting those members who are at risk of losing their job this year.”
In a press release shortly after the budget cuts were announced, AFSCME contended that the state could also avoid deep cuts if it were to examine ways to close corporate tax loopholes and re-examine other practices that have not shown evidence that they are growing the Iowa economy.
Research conducted by the nonpartisan group Iowa Fiscal Partnership found tax credits to business have grown from $180 million to $421 million in just three years. The group also found more than $80 million in uncollected tax revenue from multi-state corporations due to tax loopholes.
Iowa should take the opportunity to turn the fiscal crisis it is currently facing into an opportunity to make lasting change, Failor said.
“An economic crisis such as this is the time to make major changes in the way state government operates,” he said. “Our state leaders should take this opportunity to make responsible changes, not increase the number of out of work Iowans.”
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