Nussle Flexes Financial Muscle, $500,000 Pops Out

Nussle is often mentioned in the context of large sums of money, but this time we’re not talking about the unprecedented national deficit.  The Cedar Rapids Gazette reported today that Nussle has made the first TV ad buy of the 2006 gubernatorial election:

The 30-second ads tout his agenda and his role as chairman of the House Budget Committee. The commercials, scheduled to begin airing this weekend, will try to show Nussle as “a leader in the fight to control spending and clean up the House Ethics scandal.”

Campaign aides said the commercials will run on both cable and broadcast stations statewide. The cost of the ads is $500,000.

Well, that’s an interesting angle for these ads to play.  Maybe Nussle’s staff is making these claims about Nussle’s supposed success in controlling spending (something he has actually failed miserably at) on TV at a time when they know that (1) Democrats are too focused on each other to put many resources towards fighting this and (2) the Democratic candidates just can’t afford this widespread a TV buy this early in the year.  We need to make sure this story doesn’t go away, so here are the facts:

Before Nussle (according to the CBO in 2000): $236 Billion Surplus

After Nussle (according to the CBO in 2004): $412 Billion Deficit

It’s that simple.  Nussle sucked at managing the budget.

1 comment April 21st, 2006

DeLay Resigns

Okay, while it is not specifically related to Iowa, it is specifically related to Progress, so it is going on the Blog.

Just a few minutes ago the AP reported that former House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-TX) announced today that he is resigning from the House of Representatives. The stated reason is that his reelection campaign was more difficult and more costly than he was prepared for (although he was sure to note that he thought he could’ve won, and of course, it was those pesky Liberals’ faults for being so darn negative).

And now for the spin: Republicans say that they were expecting DeLay to resign later this spring, and that he served our country well, blah, blah, blah. DeLay denied that his resignation has anything to do with lobbyist Jack Abramoff or his recent conviction.

“I know that the left has used it to try to brand me with guilt by association, but I have always served honorably and ethically,” DeLay said. “I’ve never broken the law or the spirit of the law or even a House rule.”

Democrats are of course calling this a huge victory, stressing that this goes beyond DeLay and has greater implications for the Republican Party.

“Tom DeLay’s decision to leave Congress is just the latest piece of evidence that the Republican Party is a party in disarray, a party out of ideas and out of energy,” said Bill Burton, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

DeLay has been plagued by scandal lately, not only in connection to Abramoff. DeLay’s aide, Tony Rudy, has confessed to conspiring with Abramoff and committing illegal actions while working for DeLay. In September DeLay stepped down as House Majority Leader after being indicted in Texas for illegally steering funds from corporate donors to Texas legislative candidates.

No word yet on whether there will be a special election held in Texas or if the seat will remain vacant until the elections in November.

So long, Mr. Hammer.

1 comment April 4th, 2006

News Roundup

Well, we didn’t announce this two weeks ago as perhaps we should’ve, but Grinnell has been on Spring Break since then, and it has meant that our coverage is a little less than usual. (And, when I say “usual,” I’m basing it on our one week of good coverage.)

Still, here are some stories we’ll be watching as more of us get back to campus in the next day or two:

• The “tax on coolness” (Vilsack’s cigarette tax increase) is stalled. Everybody but me seemed to like the idea, but it turns out that house Republicans agree with me that regressive taxes are bad and that we can find other ways to finance a solid health care system that everyone has access to. Or maybe they have different reasons…
• Jim Nussle is under investigation by the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board. The allegations have something to do with not reporting funds from Nussle’s congressional campaign account that were spent on his gubernatorial bid. Whether or not these are really terrible charges, the current political climate could mean that any proof of wrongdoing — even on a really small scale — will devastate him. (The party also blogged about this.)
• Iowans protest the terrible right-wing immigration bill in Washington and, more notably, in Marshalltown. The Marshalltown protest included 80 middle and high school students, which seems really cool. Less cool: “[Marshalltown Police Chief] Walker said he didn’t know what the signs said because they were in Spanish and he has no Spanish-speaking officers.” And if they do it again, it sounds like he’s going to arrest them.
• And the Register likes to think that Iowa’s house races are the awesomest in the country. That sounds exciting!

Our coverage will get better again soon, we promise.

Add comment March 31st, 2006

Smoking the Future

Today the Register reports that (surprise surprise) Iowa House Republicans neglected to pass an education bill that would increase teacher salaries or funding for preschools. Republican House Speaker Rants:

“We have a revenue estimate that we have to abide by, by law,” he added. “I wish we had more to give, but that’s the amount of money we have available to spend.”

Can you blame them? Allocating tight funds sure is hard, ain’t it? Sure we all want teacher salary increases, but where will the money come from? Certainly not a cigarette tax.

Democrats failed to get a cigarette tax increase approved Wednesday in the Iowa House.

Rants, a Sioux City Republican, is against a tobacco tax increase and says the revenue it would raise would set the budget up for trouble in the future as cigarette sales declined.

Would revenue really fall significantly from a tax? New Yorkers pay 7.50 for a pack of cigarettes and yet the percentage of smokers is just under the national average. What gives?

Sure, there’s evidence that cigarette tax increases lower smoking, but the decline in use is most significant among children. And with ballooning state medical costs (the proposed tax was designed to pay for health care in the first place), reducing smoking can save money in the long term by cutting out a major source of health care woes- cigarettes.

Maybe Iowa Republicans should put that in their pipe and smoke it.

1 comment March 16th, 2006