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Tuesday, January 4
John Drury: The Bio-Village Project Meets The Iowa Values Fund
by
John Drury
on Tue 04 Jan 2005 05:37 PM CST
 The Bio-Village Project Meets The Iowa Values Fund
by John Drury
We hear a lot about the Iowa Values Fund and the handouts to large
corporations in order to get them to stay in Iowa or perhaps move their
business to Iowa. There are those who say we should continue these,
that it’s the only way to compete with other states, and there are
those who say that it’s nothing more than precious tax dollars out the
window.
In north Iowa, when you bring up the Values Fund, a common criticism is
that most of the awards are going to the metropolitan areas and that
the rural areas of the state are being left to fend for themselves.
There have been some Values Fund dollars to make it this far north, but
one could certainly argue that it has not created the kind of jobs that
are needed.
When asked about the criteria for a Values Fund award, state economic
development officials will tell you that one of the things they look at
is the return on investment that the state will receive. If the state
is going to invest in a company to bring jobs to the area, it’s going
to be good paying jobs and a lot of them, they say.
While that criteria certainly makes some sense, I think it’s also
important to keep in mind that the entire state should be put on a
level playing field for economic development dollars. For example, if I
have a project in Des Moines that promises to create 20 jobs, it would
hardly be noticed; but if I have a project that would create 20 jobs in
Swaledale, it would be huge.
The Swaledale Bio-Village project is something I have been working on
now for over a year. The project involves a bio-fuel station offering
85% ethanol and other alternative fuels, an Iowa products store and
restaurant, and an RV Park; all located right off Interstate 35 in
northern Iowa. The entire project incorporates a state of the art
design that would rely on renewable forms of energy to power the
facility, taking full advantage of wind and solar power, as well as
utilizing renewable materials in its construction.
But perhaps the most interesting component is the state certified
food-processing kitchen. I want to focus on the kitchen in this column
as I
think it best illustrates rural Iowa’s ability to come up with creative
solutions to economic development. The food-processing
kitchen would provide a facility for local farmers and growers to
process their crops and add value to them. It would also serve as a
business incubator sparking entrepreneurism in the entire region. For
example, let’s say you make the world’s best salsa, and everyone tells
you they wish they could buy it in the store because it’s so good. But
since you make the salsa in your home kitchen, you are unable to sell
it at retail outlets. You are limited to farmer’s markets and bake
sales. If you use this facility to make your salsa, it can then be sold
in retail outlets and even sold to restaurants. All of a sudden, you
have a business.
This approach to economic development illustrates that with a lot of
work, rural Iowa doesn’t have to succumb to the corporate farms and can
become a celebration of itself. I believe that rural communities can
take innovative approaches to economic development and be successful. I
also believe that the state legislature should find a stable funding
source for the Iowa Values Fund and put north Iowa on a level playing
field with the rest of the state.
To
date, we have
received a $12,500 matching USDA planning grant as well as a local
grant for development of the RV Park. We fully intend on seeking Values
Fund dollars for this project.
Have questions or want more information on the Bio-Village project? Feel free to email me at jdrury@frontiernet.net
The Social Security Fear Factor
by
Chad Thompson
on Tue 04 Jan 2005 12:26 PM CST
 The Social Security Fear Factor
I've
posted a number of articles on the proclaimed "War On Social Security",
but the first two days of 2005 have seen even more writing about the
GOP plan to abolish Social Security.
Here's a rundown (with links) of some of the writing of the past two days:
New York Times Editorial: "The Social Security Fear Factor"
As
it often does with dissenting professional opinion, the administration
is ignoring the actuaries. But that doesn't alter the facts or common
sense. If the $10 trillion figure is essentially bogus, so is the claim
that Social Security is in crisis. The assertion that doing nothing
would be costlier than enacting a privatization plan also turns out to
be wrong, by the estimates of Congress's own budget agency.
...
Contrary
to Mr. Bush's frequent assertion that Social Security is constantly
imperiled by political meddling, it has in fact been preserved and
improved by political intervention throughout its 70-year history, most
significantly in 1983. The system could - and should - be strengthened
again by a modest package of benefit cuts and tax increases phased in
over decades.
...
In
effect, the administration's plan would get rid of the financial burden
of Social Security by getting rid of Social Security. The plan shifts
the financial risk of growing old onto each individual and off of the
government - where it is dispersed among a very large population, as
with any sensible insurance policy. In a privatized system, you may do
fine, but your fellow retirees may not, or vice versa.
Josh Marshall on "The Debt Problem":
But
about $3 trillion of those dollars we needed to fund the 1980s and
1990s deficits we managed to borrow closer to home. We borrowed it from
the Social Security (and a few other government) trust fund(s).
Almost
the entirety of President Bush's Social Security phase-out plan comes
down to a simple proposition: finding out how not to pay it back.
Paul Krugman, "Stopping The Bum's Rush":
There
are two serious threats to the federal government's solvency over the
next couple of decades. One is the fact that the general fund has
already plunged deeply into deficit, largely because of President
Bush's unprecedented insistence on cutting taxes in the face of a war.
The other is the rising cost of Medicare and Medicaid.
As
a budget concern, Social Security isn't remotely in the same league.
The long-term cost of the Bush tax cuts is five times the budget
office's estimate of Social Security's deficit over the next 75 years.
The botched prescription drug bill passed in 2003 does more, all by
itself, to increase the long-run budget deficit than the projected rise
in Social Security expenses.
And finally today - the Washington Post details some of the policy proposals being floated around the White House:
The
Bush administration has signaled that it will propose changing the
formula that sets initial Social Security benefit levels, cutting
promised benefits by nearly a third in the coming decades, according to
several Republicans close to the White House.
Under
the proposal, the first-year benefits for retirees would be calculated
using inflation rates rather than the rise in wages over a worker's
lifetime. Because wages tend to rise considerably faster than
inflation, the new formula would stunt the growth of benefits, slowly
at first but more quickly by the middle of the century. The White House
hopes that some, if not all, of those benefit cuts would be made up by
gains in newly created personal investment accounts that would harness
returns on stocks and bonds.
With all
of this going on, I have a request (and challenge) to Blog For Iowa
readers - drop a note or make a phone call to your congressman.
Let's find out where our delegations stand on the Social Security
Abolition Plan of 2005.
I will post anything attached to the comments section, or e-mailed to cothompson@gmail.com
(I
won't post your name - just whatever information you can get from your
representatives. We need to make sure that we hold our
congressional delegation accountable in 2006 for what they say and do
in 2005.)
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