Iowans are facing economic uncertainty at home and on the job. This uncertainty is exacerbated by the fact that Democrats increased state spending by nearly 20% or $928 million dollars. State Auditor David Vaudt described the current budget as one that “represents a significant step backward in terms of transparency and fiscal responsibility.” With that in mind, House Republicans believe the 2009 Legislature should face the tough budget situation with openness and honesty. Iowans cannot operate their family budget being overdrawn, neither should their state government.

With that in mind, the House Republicans have developed their plan for the 2009 session. Republicans are going to focus on three areas over the 2009 legislative session:

1. Cutting wasteful government spending
   Over the past two years, 2600 new government positions have been approved. We need to evaluate these positions and, particularly if they are not filled, cut back on larger government.
2. Protecting taxpayers
   During this time of economic uncertainty, it is NOT the time to be raising taxes on Iowans. Republicans will dive into budgets, looking for cost-saving measures and cutting pork projects.
3. Accountability and transparency
   Republicans believe that Iowans deserve to know what is going on with their tax dollars at all times. Bringing truth and transparency to the budgeting process will be important to moving our state forward in this tumultuous time.

Iowa’s economic recovery is job #1. With each bill that comes before the legislature, Republicans will test the proposals to see if they:

• grow the economy
• create more jobs
• encourage employers to invest in Iowa

Republicans will also focus on:

• Protecting your Identity and Privacy: House Republicans know that a key part of financial security is protection from identity theft. That is why we will require the state of Iowa to notify Iowans when it is learned someone else is using their social security number and penalize government officials who sell private information for personal gain.
• Ban Pork Barrel spending: House Republicans will end the stealthy and unaccountable process of earmarked pork barrel projects. We will cancel the pork projects approved by the Democrats and use those dollars on flood relief efforts.
• Strengthening Right to Work Law: House Republicans will fight to end the relentless campaign against Iowa’s Right to Work Law.

During the 2007 and 2008 legislative sessions, Democrats increased state spending by $928 million or 20 percent. State Auditor David Vaudt described the FY 09 budget as one that “represents a significant step backward in terms of transparency and fiscal responsibility.”

Radioiowa.com published a profile of the House Republican’s new leader yesterday. Titled “New House GOP Leader has three college degrees”, it reads as follows:

A 44-year-old eastern Iowan who is a former officer in the Air Force and has earned not only an M.B.A. but a law degree is the new voice for Republicans in the Iowa House.

Republicans who’ll serve in the House when the legislature convenes Monday met eight weeks ago and elected Kraig Paulsen of Hiawatha their new leader.

Paulsen was born in Monticello and in 1965, his family moved to Cedar Rapids where his father set up a veterinary practice.

After graduating from Cedar Rapids Kennedy High School, Paulsen got a degree in business administration from Iowa State University. “Then I joined the Air Force. My last assignment in the Air Force was at Vandenberg Air Force base out in California where I was the operations officer of a training squadron where we taught maintenance on everything from air-launched cruise missiles to the Space Shuttle,” Paulsen says. “While I was in the service, I also got an M.B.A. from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.”

Paulsen returned to Iowa in 1998 and worked at a manufacturing company before returning to the classroom. “I went back to school on more time and I got my law degree from the University of Iowa in 2003,” Paulsen says. “Practiced for about two years in private practice and now I am in-house counsel for CRST International.” C-R-S-T is a trucking and transportation company.

Just before he graduated from law school Paulsen ran for the legislature and a little more than six years after winning that first race he’s won the role of Republican leader in the Iowa House. Paulsen admits to an “Air Force methodology” when it comes to his leadership style. “Very goal oriented. I set objectives and work towards those objectives,” Paulsen says. “I try very hard to include everybody in moving towards those, identify individual objectives for whether it’s a member or staff or whoever it is and then get out of their way and let them do it.”

Paulsen and his wife, Cathy, have four children who have been schooled at home. Paulsen and his family were living on an Air Force base in Minot, North Dakota, when his oldest daughter reached kindergarten age. “There was an elementary school on base there and we just weren’t real happy with a couple of the things we heard and we…said to ourselves, ‘You know, you can’t really screw up kindergarten, can you? So, let’s experiment,’” Paulsen says. “…I guess we’re in our 15th year (of home schooling). My daughter graduated from high school two years ago. She’s now a junior at Mount Mercy with far better grades than I ever dreamed of having and it’s just proven very successful for our family.”

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From the Des Moines Register today: The governor should release the list of budget cuts suggested by the leaders of state agencies, Republican legislative leaders said Monday.

“Absolutely,” Senate Minority Leader Paul McKinley said in a meeting with Register reporters and editors.

Gov. Chet Culver has so far has declined to publicly share the full list of department heads’ recommendations for cutting about $40 million from the state’s $6.1 billion budget before June 30.

“The governor has a right to get some counsel that would be private, but when decisions are being made about taxpayer dollars, and decisions are being made about the policies that those departments are putting in place, I believe Iowans have a right to that information,” said House Minority Leader Kraig Paulsen.

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This morning House Republican Leader Kraig Paulsen and House Minority Whip Linda Upmeyer, along with Senate Minority Leader Paul McKinley, met with the Register’s editorial board to discuss their priorities for the 2009 session legislative. The Editorial-board meeting was shown live on DesMoinesRegister.com.

House Republican Leader Kraig Paulsen issued the following statement Tuesday, December 30th, in response to Gov. Culver’s plan to create a Misclassification Unit to enforce the hiring of independent contractors:

“Two weeks ago the governor was forced to implement across the board budget cuts. Then last week his own department heads asked to increase their budgets by 5.7 percent. Now the governor wants to spend almost $1 million on a task force. During this time of economic uncertainty, the governor should be looking for ways to save taxpayer dollars, not spend more of them.

“I am amazed that the governor doesn’t think the 2,600 new state employees he authorized in the last 2 years are enough. Further, these additions the governor proposes are being made to address an issue that I have yet to receive a single constituent contact on.”

Last Wednesday the Fiscal Services Department put out a review of the Department budget requests requests for FY 2010. The budget requests are the jumping off point for the Governor’s budget, which will be released in January.

The current balance sheet, on page 13, does not include the spending reductions due to the 1.5 percent across the board cut, which the Governor announced Friday, December 19th. Even when the across-the-board cut is factored in, the spending gap in FY 2010 remains above $650 million. Medicaid accounts for the biggest chunk of the built-in spending, which is why the Governor is asking Congress to include a Medicaid bailout in the stimulus package expected to be approved in January.

The Governor has asked the state agencies to submit status quo budget requests. However, from Page 16 of the review:

Departments are requesting a total of $6.505 billion from the General Fund for FY 2010. This represents an increase of $353.6 million (5.7%) compared to estimated FY 2009. The Governor gave departments a directive to submit status quo budgets for FY 2010; however, state agencies were allowed to ask the Department of Management for exemptions. The directive did not apply to standing appropriations, elected officials, or the Legislative and Judicial Branches of government. In addition, some agencies chose to ignore the directive and included increases in the FY 2010 budgets. The departments also may not have included funding for the built‐in and anticipated increases in their requests.

While the Democrats continue to say that it’s a revenue problem that caused the budget mess, the Executive branch has not gotten the message that spending needs to be trimmed.

The detailed description of the requests begins on page 19 of the reprot. Click on the link below to view the entire report.

SUMMARY OF FY 2010 BUDGET AND DEPARTMENT REQUESTS – Fiscal Services Bureau (PDF – 2.8 MB)

House Republican Leader Kraig Paulsen (R-Hiawatha) today issued a statement on the passing of former Rep. Barb Finch:

“Former Rep. Barb Finch was a remarkable public servant, leader and friend. Her passion for making this state a better place to live will be missed. She will forever be a part of our legislative family. We are very saddened to hear of her passing, and our thoughts and prayers go out to her family.”

Both Governor Culver and former Governor Vilsack have proposed in the past that the state change the way it calculates corporate income tax to a manner that they project would increase state revenues. This change is known as combined corporate reporting. To the average Iowan, this sounds like something that doesn’t impact them. But implementation of this tax structure could have a dramatic impact on Iowa’s economy and its future

What is combined reporting?
Combined or unitary corporate income tax reporting requires a corporation with any reporting requirement in Iowa to combine all its subsidiaries that are deemed unitary and file an Iowa return based upon an apportioned allocation of tax liability to Iowa.

Or more simply put, combined reporting requires an Iowa-based company to combine all its activities inside and outside of Iowa and pay income tax based on that amount. For a company based outside Iowa but operating in the state, all its profits would be combined before determining its Iowa tax liability.

How is this different from Iowa’s current law?
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Thursday of last week Governor Culver and Lt. Governor Patty Judge hosted a tree lighting ceremony at the Capitol. The Governor said of the event:

In a time of economic uncertainty and conflicts abroad, it’s important to remember holiday traditions.

We’re left to wonder, holiday traditions? Like Nativity Scenes on a town square? Last session House democrats voted down an amendment that would have protected taxpayers from footing the bill for lawsuits filed by the ACLU regarding depictions of religion on government property, such as a nativity scene on the town square.

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Representative Christopher Rants, Republican leader, and Representative Kevin McCarthy, the Democratic leader, squared off to answer questions on IPTV last week. Representative Rants pushed a strong agenda for Republicans for 2009 with answer like this:

Yepsen: Mr. Rants, why should the democrats be replaced and why should Iowans vote for republicans for the Iowa house?

Rants: That’s kind of a long answer, there’s a lot to talk about. In 2006 in Iowa and nationwide people from the nation’s capitol to the courthouse tossed republicans out and put democrats in charge. Over the last two years things have gotten worse, they haven’t gotten better. We’re in a budget deficit situation, actual budget deficit situation in Iowa right now. Democrats have raised taxes on family farmers, they have raised taxes on small business people, they ran not on bread and butter issues during the session, they ran on things like gutting Iowa’s right to work act, forcing people to join unions, ending our collective bargaining laws in the state. That is heading this state in the wrong direction. Republicans, however, are offering an agenda that is about a property tax freeze, protecting Iowa’s right to work law and strengthening our education standards in the state and those are the things we’re going to do in the first four weeks of the general assembly.

To read a transcript of the debate and for a link to a video of the debate, follow the jump.

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