Edwards Not Afraid to Say What’s Unpopular

Noneed4thneed liveblogged John Edwards’s Marshalltown campaign stop today, and he relays a particularly interesting tidbit (emphasis added):

The first question asks if he would require oil companies to invest their large profits in building refineries.

Edwards says one long term solution is to cap carbon emissions (receives applause). He would auction off these caps, which would raise billions of dollars and then invest in renewables and build the infrastructure. He says Americans will need to conserve and uses the line Americans need to be patriotic about something other than war. He says we need to use coal sequestration technology and not build anymore coal plants until this technology is available. This was surprising to hear since there is a $1 billion coal-fired powered plant proposed to be built in Marshalltown.

It sounds like Edwards knew of the proposed plant before he said what he said. So why did he say it?

I don’t know, but one possibility is that he is trying to draw more attention to Barack Obama’s apparent quasi-flip-flop on coal power. Watch Common Iowan for more.

4 comments June 15th, 2007

Bridges to Nowhere: The Other Other White Meat

I don’t know how many of you are on Jim Nussle’s email list, but yesterday’s edition nearly put me into a coma—its noxious photos, mind numbing stories of lemonade stands and lunches, and exceptional ability to kill the interesting somehow combine the worst aspects of a PowerPoint presentation with granny’s grand canyon slide show. In short—it is an unholy alliance between boredom and idiocy.

Of course, it does provide a few opportunities for fun.

“Jim’s Journal,” as it’s called, tells us that Jim is doing what every other self-respecting candidate in the state does this time of year—he’s spending significant time at the internationally-acclaimed Iowa State fair. Of course, Jim has something else in common with too many politicians—wherever he is, he seems to be at the same tricks.

Indeed, true to form, Jim did what he does best. He served up pork.

Heck, Jim’s been doing it for years.

As House Budget Chairman he presided over the evaporation (er, trickledown?) of hundreds of billions of dollars. Where’d it all go? Sure, tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans played a huge part, as did Halliburton contracts. But another often overlooked culprit was the astronomical growth in pork barrel spending that picked up speed in the early 90’s and only accelerated under Nussle’s tenure as HBC.

Now, one can’t blame all pork on Nussle—Congress is stuffed with chronic earmarkers like a pig with an apple down its throat—but when Jim first got to the hill in 1991, spending on pet project earmarks totaled 3.1 billion dollars. In 2006, that number was 29.3 billion dollars. In his five years as House Budget Chairman, pork barrel spending went up in every one. In 2001, when he took control of the Committee, earmarks hovered around 7,000. By 2005, that number had nearly doubled.

And earmarks under the reign of king Nussle have been especially egregious. According to the conservative Citizens Against Government Waste, this year’s budget includes:

$13,500,000 for the International Fund for Ireland, which helped finance the World Toilet Summit; $6,435,000 for wood utilization research; $1,000,000 for the Waterfree Urinal Conservation Initiative; and $500,000 for the Sparta Teapot Museum in Sparta, N.C.

Thankfully, Nussle’s reign in the House is over. Here’s to making sure we don’t let him do for Iowa what he did in Congress. Iowans—let’s not be what we eat.

P.S. Do us a favor Jim—keep the “journal” to yourself. Diaries are self-indulgent.

8 comments August 12th, 2006

Gambling in Iowa

AP reports that Iowa’s casino industry is booming, and the figures they offer are pretty astounding.  Over $740 million is being invested in casinos in Iowa right now:

Iowa’s casino industry is in the midst of a multi-million dollar expansion boom. Four new riverboat casinos will open in the next 14 months, while ten existing casinos are adding more space. The total is about $742 million.

About 18 million people visit Iowa’s existing riverboat and racetrack casinos each year, leaving behind more than one billion dollars. The new casinos are expected to generate an additional $200 million a year in gambling revenue.

And then there’s TouchPlay, that political football that has gotten more attention than really anything else in the Iowa media (check today’s Des Moines Register for a decent summary of the issue up to now).  Political Forecast quotes the Cedar Rapids Gazette:

Blouin said that although he wished the games hadn’t been installed in about 2,900 Iowa businesses, “”it’s kind of hard to pull the plug.”

Culver urged the Legislature to move quickly to enact the safeguards recommended by Vilsack’s TouchPlay task force. He’s concerned that banning the games would negatively affect small businesses that have invested in the machines.

Nussle, who participated through a previously videotaped interview, has said he prefers the machines be banned.

Fallon said he would vote to ban the machines when the Iowa House debates the issue Tuesday.

2 comments March 13th, 2006