Governor hopefuls spar over state economy

The Gazette

DES MOINES -- A day after filing his nomination papers, Gov. Chet Culver said he's “very confident” he will win re-election in November.But the first-term Democrat insisted he's too busy governing to hit the campaign trail yet.

“We're getting the people's work done,” Culver said when asked about filing his papers with no fanfare Monday. “The campaign will get started in due time.”

Outside his office, the campaign was underway with three Republicans who want his job.

Former Gov. Terry Branstad, a Boone Republican, who filed his nomination papers Tuesday, Rep. Rod Robert, R-Carroll, who plans to file Thursday morning, and Sioux City businessman Bob Vander Plaats will vie for the GOP nomination in the June 8 primary.

They scoffed at Culver's claim his administration is creating a “pro-business environment” in Iowa.

“That's kind of laughable,” former Gov. Terry Branstad said. “There's been virtually no pro-business bill passed in this session and the governor is supporting a lot of job-killing labor bills that would really destroy jobs and drive business out of the state.”

Sioux City businessman Bob Vander Plaats sees no evidence of that pro-business environment.

 “He needs to join me on some of the ‘Bob on the Job' events because they don't see a pro-business climate. They see a hostile business climate,” Vander Plaats said. “They want a governor who will focus on a competitive tax structure, a friendly regulatory structure and a right to work status at the same time you limit the scope of government because you cannot continue to build a public sector at the expense of the private sector and expect all things to work out well.”

Culver cited news that Pioneer will add 400 jobs in Johnston and Forbes magazine ranking Iowa as the fourth best place in America to do business as evidence of his success.

“We are creating an environment that is attracting jobs during a tough time,” he said. “Just ask Aviva, IBM, Google, these wind energy companies that have come here in the last 40 months.”

“What's that got to do with what he's done?” Rep. Rod Roberts, R-Carroll wondered. “It's one thing to make a claim like that and another thing to identify what he's done to help create that pro-business climate. I don't think that exists. If what he says it true, how is it we could have 110,000 Iowans out of work?”

Culver acknowledged unemployment numbers are not good, but said the state is working extremely hard to help those displaced workers, including selling $100 million in bonds to fund another round of his I-JOBS program.

Long-term bonded indebtedness and gambling expansion seem to be the chief components of Culver's economic development efforts, Roberts said.

Branstad claimed he has more experience than any of his rivals when it comes to economic turnarounds.

“It was a challenging time, it was the beginning of the farm crisis in 1982,” Branstad said about the first of his four terms in the governor's office. “The unemployment rate was even worse than it is now. I faced some big challenges then. Now I have much more experience … and I feel confident I have the leadership ability to get Iowa back on the right track and lead a great economic comeback all across the state.”

By James Q. Lynch