Iowa Democratic, GOP lawmakers square off over state spending cuts

In a preview of debate scheduled they'll have at the capitol starting Wednesday, Linn County legislators sparred over a three-year, $503 million cut in state spending.

The debate at a Cedar Rapids-Marion League of Women Voters forum Jan. 15 predictably broke along party lines with Republicans calling their de-appropriations plan a necessary first step in getting the state's fiscal house in order.

“This bill starts to do that,” said Rep. Nick Wagner, R-Marion, who will floor manage House File 45 when it is debated Jan. 19. “It makes the cuts we need to make, to get rid of this $700 million shortfall from the use of one-time funds.”

Democrats called it Republicans' attempt to pay back their political allies.

“It is a political bill to fulfill some campaign promises … to free up education funds to fund business tax cuts,” Rep. Nate Willems, D-Lisbon, said. “It's not a great way to start the session.”

Eliminating preschool sends the wrong message to businesses thinking about locating or expanding in Iowa, to parents and “most of all, it's the wrong message to send our kids,” said Rep. Tyler Olson, D-Cedar Rapids.

The Republican proposal won't eliminate preschool, Wagner said.

“There will still be preschools,” he said. “We share the same passion. Preschool is important.”

However, he explained, the state wasn't able to meet its financial commitment to K-12 education last year, so Republicans don't think the stated can afford to make preschool available to all four-year-olds for free.

“That's not a sustainable path,” Wagner said.

HF 45 is expected to win passage in the House, but Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Bob Dvorsky, D-Coralville, doubts there is much interest in taking up the bill in the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats.

The Senate is unlikely to act until hearing Gov. Terry Branstad's budget message later this month. “And then it's going to be a long slog” to put together a budget, he said.

Lawmakers expressed bipartisan support for a measure in HF 45 to make a supplemental appropriation of $25 million for mental health services. Most of that would be used to eliminate the waiting list for services.

Fourteen years ago, the Legislature agreed to pick up 50 percent of the cost of mental health services that counties had been paying for. Dvorsky said that's been done, but there is a need to look at the whole system to see if there is a better way to fund and deliver services.

Mental health services have been better funded when Democrats control the Legislature, Sen. Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids, said. But Rep. Renee Schulte, R-Cedar Rapids, said mental health is not a Republican or Democratic issue.

“Nobody thinks the system is perfect,” she said. “It's not a Republican agenda. There will be bipartisan, bicameral work on this.”

The next LWV forum will be at 10:30 a.m. Feb. 19 at Mercy Medical Center in Cedar Rapids.