IOWA TURNS CORNER ON SKYROCKETING BRANSTAD-ERA STATE BUDGETS
January 27, 2010
“Today is a very important day,” Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Michael Kiernan said Wednesday. “Iowans can finally be certain we have left behind the skyrocketing spending increases of the Terry Branstad years.”The balanced state budget Gov. Chet Culver proposed Wednesday is, in today’s dollars, smaller than Branstad’s last budget. Culver’s budget also improves on Branstad’s practices by protecting Iowa’s priorities and the state’s AAA bond rating, and leaving a surplus.
“Branstad increased state spending by 125 percent while Governor, and now he wants Iowa voters to believe him when he says he’ll reduce the size of state government,”[i] Kiernan said. “Branstad broke spending promises in the past, and Iowans can expect him to do it again.”
Kiernan noted that with Branstad’s first budget, Iowa government topped the $2 billion spending mark for the first time. By the time Branstad was done expanding government and inflating the state budget, spending totaled $4.54 billion in 1998.[ii] Branstad set and broke his own spending record repeatedly.
In today’s dollars, Branstad’s last budget would be $5.98 billion, Kiernan said.[iii] By contrast, Culver’s $5.32 billion budget is not only balanced, but smaller than the budget he inherited when he took office.[iv]
“When it comes to fiscal responsibility, being tight with a buck and holding the line on taxes, there’s no contest,” Kiernan said. “Chet Culver is far and away more friendly to Iowa taxpayers than Terry Branstad.”
[i] State Budget increased more than 125 percent under Branstad, Ken Sullivan, Gazette senior editor – Cedar Rapids Gazette, January 14, 1998.
[ii] Ibid, Cedar Rapids Gazette, 1/14/98
[iii] Inflation Calculator, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, accessed January 27, 2010: http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl
[iv] FY07 actual: $5.384 billion; FY11 proposed: $5.299 billion.