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Wednesday, April 15
Stop Them From Putting Manure in Iowa's Waters: Kill SF 432
by
Trish Nelson
on Wed 15 Apr 2009 08:57 PM CDT
Stop Them From Putting Manure in Iowa's Waters: Kill SF 432
 Kill SF 432 - Stand up for the common good - iowacci.org
We need you to take action one more time to
stop Senate File 432 - the "No Manure in Our Water" bill - from moving
through the legislature. Even if you have already taken action, we need
you to take action NOW to make sure that our legislators put people
first.
Because of your efforts, we have slowed the progress of this bill,
struck bad language and made it have fewer loopholes. But this is still
a bad bill, and we need to keep the pressure on the House to not
undercut the DNR's rulemaking authority.
We need you to contact your representatives today and urge them to
drop SF 432 and stand up to put people before polluters and protect the
interests of everyday Iowans, not corporate ag groups. We don't want
any legislation that isn't stronger than the DNR rule. Our legislators caved to corporate big-moneyed pressure with the passage of SF 432 through the senate with a vote of 43-6. This bad, last-minute regulation of manure application on frozen ground undercuts the DNR's authority and is a slap in the face to thousands of everyday Iowans who are fighting for clean water.
We need you to contact House leadership Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Speaker Pat Murphy as well as Rep. Mike Reasoner and Rep. Ray Zirkelbach - two people who are strongly supporting this bill. We need you to tell them SF 432 is nothing but an insult and a cave-in to the factory farm industry - kill SF 432 today!
iowacci.org
The Facts About Tax Reform In Iowa
by
Trish Nelson
on Wed 15 Apr 2009 05:00 AM CDT
The Facts About Tax Reform In Iowa
 by Mike Owen
Iowa needs to take its fiscal policy off autopilot. This will make taxes more fair to all Iowans, and give them and their elected officials better control of it.
Three changes are essential:
• Plugging tax loopholes through which multistate corporations drain millions from the Iowa treasury every year. Twenty-one states, Illinois among them, do this with something called “combined reporting.” It works.
• Cutting spending on corporate tax breaks with a responsible cap on tax credits. This would enable the state to focus only on sensible incentives for Iowa jobs and return more dollars to the treasury than they cost.
• Finally, making our state tax system competitive, fair and transparent. One smart reform would allow lower tax rates by eliminating Iowa’s “federal deductibility.” Those most affected, but hardly affected: our wealthiest taxpayers, who have benefited from break after break through the last decade.
In each case, decisions made by people not elected to make state policy — corporations or federal officials — are affecting our budget options without the consent of the people we do elect to make those decisions.
We will focus here primarily on the third item, part of the tax reform legislation being prepared for debate this week in the Iowa House.
First, we must get past the heated, misinformed and intolerant rhetoric that marred a public hearing at the Statehouse last week, driven by well-funded and well-organized opponents of tax reform. Beware the spin. Be informed.
To understand “federal deductibility” and this reform plan, know these points:
• Eliminating federal deductibility enables a cut in tax rates for every Iowan. At the top, it’s a cut of two full percentage points.
• Under the reforms, some people will pay more and some less. On average, people making under $125,000 a year would see either no change in taxes — or a tax cut. Overall, a vast majority would pay the same or less tax as before.
• In the United States, 70 percent of small-business people make less than $125,000. Ignore tactics designed to scare small-business owners; on balance, it doesn’t hurt people making that income.
• Finally, while many focus on numbers of people paying more or less, the individual changes by household are not great in either direction, at any income level. Not surprisingly, there’s not a big impact on state revenues next year — either none, or a cut.
The long and the short is this: Contrary to vacant political talk, our state has a serious structural revenue problem, caused by many years of (1) tax-cutting and (2) neglect of tax loopholes that smart lawyers and accountants have found for their big corporate clients.
Those choices are costing us money, but they’re not buying us more or better jobs. They have made our tax system unfair to too many: working families, single moms and seniors, small-business people on Main Street.
Stick to the facts. Tax reform will give us lower rates, a simpler system, and a more competitive image for our state. Everybody wins.
Mike Owen of West Branch is former editor of the West Branch Times.
The Progressive Cedar Valley Voices Project - in the West Branch Times, is a citizen response to state Rep. Jeff Kaufmann’s column during the legislative session.
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