In defending his massive borrowing program known as I-Jobs, the Governor has shifted the purpose of the program from creating jobs to flood recovery and prevention.

The Governor has responded to Republican criticism of I-Jobs by asking how we would propose paying for flood recovery and prevention, suggesting that the only way to fund it was to borrow $810 million.

Here is a breakdown of the bonding contained in three bills that established I-Jobs:

• Senate File 376 (I-Jobs) – Borrowed $545 million, cost of repayment is $1.202 billion
• Senate File 474 (Regents) – Borrowed $115 million, cost of repayment is $252 million
• Senate File 477 (State Infrastructure) – Borrowed $105 million (later increased to $150 million) – cost of repayment is $213 million (the repayment number remained the same)

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On August 10, 2010, the United States House of Representatives approved legislation to increase taxes on U.S. multinational companies by $9.7 billion, in order to help finance a $26 billion spending package that will soon pour dollars into state coffers to be used for Medicaid programs and teacher salaries. Cash strapped states, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers lobbied heavily for the funding. Shortly after Senate passage last week, the House voted to approve H.R. 1586 by a vote of 247-161, the bill was subsequently signed into law that day by President Obama.

Read on for a breakdown of the bill…

Yesterday, Gov. Culver admitted that throughout his term as governor he has made mistakes.

“I appreciate Gov. Culver’s willingness to admit mistakes, we’ve all made some,” said House Republican Leader Kraig Paulsen (R-Hiawatha). “But he’s yet to acknowledge one of his biggest mistakes, increasing Iowans property taxes.”

Paulsen notes that the governor knowingly spent too much money in fiscal year 2010 which lead him to recklessly make a 10 percent across the board cut. Due to that mistake, property taxpayers were forced to pick up the tab to the tune of a $526.9 million increase.

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On Tuesday, August 10, a new analysis was released by the USA TODAY. The analysis found that at a time when private sector workers’ pay and benefits have stagnated, the average compensation of federal government employees has grown to double what private sector workers earn.

According to the analysis, federal workers have been awarded bigger average pay and benefit increases than private employees for nine years in a row which has resulted in a doubling of the compensation gap.

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A post-session report released by Legislature Services Agency shows that despite Democrats claiming they reduced the size of state government, they substantially increased the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) positions over the past two years.

According to the LSA report, the Legislature increased the number of authorized FTE positions from an actual 52,273 in FY 2009 to an estimated 52,907 in FY 2010. That is an increase of 633.84 positions. This occurred despite the Governor’s 10 percent across the board budget reduction.

That the number of FTE positions increased by over 600 after the 10 percent ATB cut shows one just how much Democrats increased the size of the budget prior to the cut.

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On Friday, April 16, State Auditor David Vaudt released his review of the FY 2011 budget approved by the Legislature and signed by the Governor.

The Auditor states that the Democrats simply “kicked the can down the road” by using one-time funds and because of that, next year’s Legislature will again face a $1 billion spending gap.

Auditor Vaudt’s criticisms are divided into four areas:

Read more for the criticisms…

From Republican Leader Kraig Paulsen:

State Auditor David Vaudt recently completed an audit of next year’s budget passed by the Democrat majority and now being signed by Governor Culver. This budget will take effect on July 1, 2010. After studying the budget and spending, the auditor is coming to some of the same conclusions that House Republicans made during the session: the budget spent too much, saved too little and raised property taxes.

In his report the auditor has five major concerns with the budget.

Click to read the concerns…

Despite all of the rhetoric about being fiscally responsible and cutting budgets, Democrats approved (and the Governor will soon sign) the four largest budgets in the state’s history.

According to the Legislative Services Agency (LSA), here is the general fund spending (including one-time federal stimulus funds, cash reserve funds and other one-time funds) over the past five years:

• FY 2007 — $5.392 billion ($50 million in supplementals shifted into FY 08)
• FY 2008 — $5.938 billion (Includes $50 million in shifted supplementals)
• FY 2009 — $6.169 billion (Includes $210 million one-time funds)
• FY 2010 — $5.974 billion (Includes $672 million in one-time funds)
• FY 2011 — $6.014 billion (Includes $735 million in one-time funds)

Continue reading for more charts…

From Republican Leader Kraig Paulsen:

Now that the 2010 legislative session has adjourned, we’re able to go back and fully address the final budgets that were passed by the Legislature. Remember that coming into the session the Legislature faced a 1.1 billion dollar problem. As the session wore on it was evident that while Democrats worked with us to find some modest government efficiencies, they were going to be relying a great deal on one-time money and raiding the cash reserve fund to cure their appetite for spending.

What does that really mean? To the average Iowa family, this might be what the state budget looks like – on a family budget scale (courtesy of House Appropriations Ranking Member Rep. Scott Raecker).

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As the House adjourned the 2nd session of the 83rd General Assembly, the House Republican Research Staff put together an end of session wrap-up of notable bills in all committees.

2010 End of Session Wrap-up