Iowa Senate News Release
State Senator Joe Bolkcom: (319) 330-9541
For Immediate Release: April 26, 2018
Statement on action today in Senate Appropriations Committee
by Senator Joe Bolkcom, Senate Budget Committee’s Ranking Member
“The budget package being approved today by Senate Republicans is more bad news for Iowa families, seniors, students and communities.
“The ongoing budget crisis in Iowa is the result of the failure of Governor Reynolds and the Republican-controlled Legislature to keep two campaign promises:
- Raising family incomes by 25 percent
- Creating 200,000 new Iowa jobs within four years
“As a result of their broken promises, Statehouse Republicans have implemented policies that have pushed down incomes, destroyed jobs, cut critical services and piled up state debt.
“Republicans are downgrading our K12 schools and making higher education and job training less accessible and less affordable for working Iowa.
“They have turned Iowa’s respected, state-run Medicaid safety net into a national disaster, and they continue to shower big corporations with tax cuts and tax credits.
“In the 16 months that Republicans have controlled ALL of state government, they have borrowed more than $140 million and slashed $120 million in spending just to balance their budgets. If Iowa families managed their family budgets like this, they’d be forced to declare bankruptcy.
“Senate Democrats are ready to work with Republicans to restore fiscal stability and pass a budget that reflect Iowa values. That means investing more in job-creation efforts and reining in the fastest growing part of the state budget: tax breaks for big corporations.”
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