The U.S. House on Friday evening approved Speaker John Boehner’s latest bill to sharply cut federal spending as a condition for raising the debt ceiling. The bill barely passed by a 218 to 210 vote (roll call). Every House Democrat present voted no, including Bruce Braley (IA-01), Dave Loebsack (IA-02), and Leonard Boswell (IA-03). The big surprise for me was that both Tom Latham (IA-04) and Steve King (IA-05) were among the 22 Republicans who voted against the bill. I expected King to oppose the measure, because many of his Tea Party Caucus colleagues believe Boehner isn’t cutting enough spending. But Latham is one of the speaker’s closest friends, and I thought he would be one of the votes putting the bill over the top. It was a tremendous struggle for Boehner to line up enough support for this bill; he had to delay Thursday’s scheduled vote in order to rewrite some provisions today.

Sometimes in situations like these, the House speaker gives some members in the majority caucus permission to vote no, if they are in tough districts. Latham will face Boswell in the new third Congressional district next year, and some of the spending cuts in this bill would affect popular programs. It’s possible Latham voted no with Boehner’s consent, once the speaker knew he had 218 yes votes lined up. That insulates Latham against some potential attack ads. However, Latham was on WHO radio this afternoon saying something must be done to ensure that the government pays its bills. If he acknowledges the need to raise the debt ceiling, when does he think a better deal will come around than Boehner’s bill?

Incidentally, House leaders don’t seem inclined to move on Latham’s bill to prioritize certain types of spending in case no debt ceiling deal is reached.

The U.S. Senate is expected to table the latest House bill on the debt ceiling later Friday evening. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has been working on a new “compromise” that is depressingly similar to what Boehner proposed, so Congress is probably headed toward a total Republican victory–big spending cuts, no revenue increases. Notably, if the U.S. ever does pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, all the savings would go toward deficit reduction, rather than investing in our own infrastructure or social programs. Never mind that the U.S. economy is sputtering and will probably go back into recession under fiscal austerity. That serves Republican political interests as well, because President Barack Obama will be blamed for the downward spiral. Obama’s approval rating on the economy is already low, and most Americans think job creation is more important than deficit reduction right now.

For some reason, Obama prefers this outcome to Senator Tom Harkin’s advice: raise the debt ceiling by invoking the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

UPDATE: On Friday night six Senate Republicans voted with all 53 members of the Democratic caucus to table the motion on concurring with Boehner’s bill (roll call). Grassley was among the 41 Republicans who opposed the motion to table.

Statements released by Latham, King, Loebsack and Braley are now after the jump.

SATURDAY UPDATE: The House rejected Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s bill on July 30; it was a symbolic vote because Reid is still revising the proposal, which so far doesn’t have enough support to overcome a Republican filibuster in the Senate.

Most House Democrats voted for the Reid bill, including Boswell. However, Braley and Loebsack were among the 11 Democrats who voted with all Republicans present against that bill (roll call). I am seeking comment from Braley and Loebsack offices on why they voted against the Reid proposal. It’s worth noting that like Boehner’s bill, Reid’s plan would cut more than $2 trillion in spending over the next decade, with no revenue increases. A total disgrace.

UPDATE: Loebsack released this statement about Saturday’s vote: “We must get Iowa’s economy moving forward.  Today’s vote was not about a solution, it was about political leverage in Washington.”

FURTHER UPDATE: Here’s Harkin speaking on July 30:

“I’m talking about that there’s precedents for presidents to do things where the Constitution doesn’t give the president explicit authority but it doesn’t prohibit the president from doing it, and I believe there’s a basis in the 14th amendment as decided in Perry v. United States,” Sen Tom Harkin (D-IA) said on the Senate floor. “I think the president – barring action from the Congress – not only has the authority to do so, he has the responsibility to not let this country default.”

SUNDAY UPDATE: Senate Majority Leader Reid called a cloture motion on his horrendous compromise proposal Sunday afternoon. It needed 60 votes to pass but only received 50, mostly from Democrats (roll call). I don’t understand Harkin voting for cloture here, when the bill has none of the balance he has advocated. Maybe he planned to vote against the bill itself later–who knows? Grassley voted against cloture, as did every Republican present besides Scott Brown. I’ve added Grassley’s statement below.

Texas Governor Rick Perry hasn’t entered the presidential race and won’t be on the Iowa GOP’s Ames straw poll ballot next month, but a supporter just launched a central Iowa radio ad campaign backing Perry as a straw poll write-in. I had never heard of GrowPAC, which is paying for the pro-Perry commercials. After the jump I’ve posted the ad script, which makes unsupported claims about the Texas governor’s record. Perry’s fiscal decisions are nothing to write home about, and it’s a stretch to give him credit for job creation in Texas.

Background on GrowPAC founder David Malpass is also below. He may have more to gain from this ad campaign than Perry does.

Yesterday’s heartbreaking attacks in Norway are the big global news story this weekend. This man, Anders Behring Breivik, is suspected of setting off a bomb in downtown Oslo on July 22. The explosion killed seven people and destroyed the prime minister’s office building. The suspect then reportedly dressed in a policeman’s uniform and shot to death at least 85 people at a youth camp run by Norway’s governing Labor Party. Breivik has “confessed to the factual circumstances,” according to his attorney, who said his client planned the crimes long in advance. Police are trying to determine the motive for the attacks. The suspect reportedly had right-wing and anti-Muslim views, but why would anyone attack teenagers at a summer camp?

The big U.S. news story is that House Speaker John Boehner was too stupid to take the deficit reduction deal President Barack Obama offered:

Obama said he had demanded $1.2 trillion in additional revenues over 10 years, in exchange for spending cuts, including cuts to Medicare and Social Security. He said the revenues had been structured in a way that marginal tax rates would not be increased, and no Republicans would be forced to cast a vote that would violate the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, which most Republicans in Congress have signed.

You read that right. While agreeing to cuts in programs that tens of millions of Americans rely on, Obama was ready to guarantee no increases in any tax rates, even at the highest income levels, for the next decade. Not only that, he bent over backwards to give Republicans political cover, so they could accept his offer without facing blowback from Grover Norquist. The same Grover Norquist who now wants Congress to stop playing chicken with the debt ceiling. And Obama was angry Boehner walked out on negotiations, saying he felt “left at the altar”! I don’t see how this so-called Democrat could be handling the budget negotiations any worse. For the first time, I am seriously thinking about writing in a candidate for president in November 2012.

The Iowa Policy Project analyzed the latest state jobs numbers here. Iowa has more than a billion dollars in various state reserves, but Governor Terry Branstad and Iowa House Republicans insisted on an extremely tight budget for fiscal year 2012. The predictable result was a “sharp drop in government jobs” in June, which “fully accounted for the first net drop in Iowa nonfarm jobs in the last six months.” Shrinking government does not help the private economy create more jobs. On the contrary, government job losses contribute to our unemployment problem. Iowa’s unemployment rate is 6 percent, still well below the national average, but that’s no excuse for unwarranted austerity policies.

Here’s one good thing that happened this week: Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Admiral Mike Mullen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff all certified “that the U.S. military is prepared to accept openly gay and lesbian service members, and that doing so will not harm military readiness.” As a result, the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy will officially end 60 days from July 22.

This is an open thread. What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers?

UPDATE: Iowa native Chuck Manatt passed away this week at age 75. He chaired the Democratic National Committee from 1981 to 1985 and co-chair Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign in 1992. The Los Angeles Times published a good obituary of Manatt. He will be buried this week in Audubon, near the farm where he grew up.

We already knew Christie Vilsack was running for Congress in the new fourth district, but today she made her candidacy official at events in Ames, Sioux City and Mason City. During her announcement speech and in a video released by her campaign, Vilsack didn’t mention four-term Republican incumbent Steve King by name. However, she drew clear contrasts with his political style, promising to bring the “Iowa values of civility, responsibility and respect” to Washington.

Bleeding Heartland discussed Vilsack’s strong early fundraising here. Follow me after the jump for her announcement video (with transcript) and highlights from her campaign rollout.  

If Barack Obama doesn’t want to be a one-term president, he has a funny way of showing it. I can’t imagine how the president could come out of the debt ceiling negotiations in a worse political position.  

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers?

Yesterday’s employment report was so awful (1 on a scale of 1 to 10) that a double-dip recession seems more likely than ever. At the Naked Capitalism blog, Edward Harrison reposted a piece from November 2009 on why Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and economic adviser Larry Summers would be President Barack Obama’s Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. It’s worth a read. At the Bonddad blog, New Deal Democrat went over lots of weekly indicators and found more evidence of an economic “stall” than a contraction (so far).

I’m still surprised by some of the bills that didn’t get through the Iowa legislature during this year’s extra-long session. I learned this week that Iowa wasn’t the only state where pro-nuclear legislation faltered. The nuclear industry failed to persuade lawmakers in five other state legislatures to advance favored bills. After the jump I’ve posted a press release from Nuclear Bailout, a project of Physicians for Social Responsibility. The Iowa chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility lobbied hard against the bill written exclusively for the benefit of MidAmerican Energy.

In case you missed it, Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal and Minority Leader Paul McKinley reflected on the 2011 session during the July 1 edition of Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press” program. Click the link to read the transcript or watch the video. Both of them expect some progress on property tax reform next year, though they may get a crack at that sooner if Governor Terry Branstad calls a special legislative session later this year.

I’ll post Bleeding Heartland’s final news roundup on what passed and didn’t pass during the 2011 session after Branstad signs or vetoes the bills that reached his desk during the last week of June.

This is an open thread.

UPDATE: Best slip of the tongue I’ve heard this year: while phone-banking for Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, State Senator Brad Zaun says he’s calling on behalf of “Congressman Boswell.” Democrat Leonard Boswell beat Zaun during the 2010 Congressional race in Iowa’s third district.

Conventional wisdom says President Barack Obama would love to run against an “extreme” Republican candidate, such as Representative Michele Bachmann. With unemployment up again and likely to rise further as Obama tries to outdo Republicans on government spending cuts, I’m not convinced that a big campaign war chest will be enough to get the president re-elected.

Watching Bachmann’s solid introductory television commercial and highlights from her recent Iowa tour, I challenge those who write her off as “unelectable,” especially in this economy. Ad video, transcipt, analysis and more Bachmann campaign news are after the jump.

President Barack Obama visited the Alcoa Davenport Works on Tuesday to tout his economic policies. One of the largest employers in the Quad Cities area, the Alcoa plant “returned to its pre-recession employment numbers and is hiring more workers this summer,” thanks to a new supply agreement with the European firm Airbus. Obama said the economic crisis that began before he took office “demanded that we make some tough decisions — decisions that we now know have pulled our economy back from the brink and put us on a better path.” In particular, he mentioned federal aid for worker training and a federal program designed to connect engineering universities with manufacturers. The president also praised Alcoa managers for adapting to market conditions, changing an outmoded sheet metal product to a product now in high demand.

It’s fantastic that Alcoa Davenport Works is back to pre-recession employment, and the jobless rate in the Quad Cities is about 6.6 percent, well below the national average. But in most of the United States, unemployment and underemployment are still at historically high levels. The Department of Labor’s jobs report for May was “very disappointing,” prompting the Calculated Risk blog to note, “This is a better pace of payroll job creation than last year, but the economy still has 6.95 million fewer payroll jobs than at the beginning of the 2007 recession. At this pace (157 thousand jobs per month), it will take almost 4 years just to get back to the pre-recession level, or sometime in late 2014 or early 2015!”

I don’t see how photo ops will convince American voters that Obama has helped put the economy on the right track. When bringing down the unemployment rate should be the administration’s top priority, Obama has bought into austerity politics instead. Probably sometime within the next month, he will agree to another major drag on the economy (big federal spending cuts) as a price for getting Congress to raise the debt ceiling. Conservative commentator David Frum argued persuasively here that “Obama is his own worst enemy”:

With unemployment at 10% and interest rates at 1%, the president got persuaded that it was debt and interest that trumped growth and jobs as Public Issue #1.

[…] Back in 2008, Obama made two big promises: a tax cut for everybody earning less than $250,000 and an Afghan surge. […] In the very different circumstances of 2009, both promises rapidly showed themselves to be counter-productive. The “tax cut” promise caused Obama to direct almost one-third of his big stimulus into an individual tax rebate that no economist would have regarded as effective, for reasons explained by Milton Friedman more than 40 years ago. […] He proceeded with both, leading to the two biggest problems of his presidency: a stimulus that added hugely to the national debt while under-delivering on jobs and an expanded Afghanistan war that must end in a reversion to the same disappointing status quo that prevailed before the Afghan surge. Obama probably anticipated both results. And yet he staggered forward anyway. As ready as Obama is to surrender to uncongenial political pressures, he is strangely inattentive to negative real-world results.

Share any thoughts about Obama’s Iowa visit or economic policy in this thread. After the jump I’ve posted statements released by Democratic Representatives Bruce Braley and Dave Loebsack. The Quad Cities area has been part of the first Congressional district (Braley’s territory), but under Iowa’s new map Scott County will be in the second district, where Loebsack is running for re-election in 2012.

President Barack Obama got a little bounce following Osama bin Laden’s killing, and the weak Republican field of challengers has helped give the president an advantage in recent swing-state polls. Public Policy Polling’s latest Iowa survey found Obama leading all the named Republican candidates by at least 9 points, for instance.

However, Obama’s position looks much more tenuous if the 2012 election is about “the economy, stupid.” According to the latest nationwide Washington Post/ABC News poll, disapproval for how Obama has managed the economy is at record-high levels, and the incumbent trails former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney among registered voters.

The “great recession” was not Obama’s fault, but no one can credibly claim his administration did the best it could to boost the job market and housing sector. By next November, the U.S. may be in a double-dip recession. Complicating matters for Obama, he has played into the eventual GOP nominee’s strongest arguments against his record on the economy. Follow me after the jump for details on the new national poll and the latest bad economic news.

Governor Terry Branstad’s plan to transform the Iowa Department of Economic Development into a public-private partnership won approval from the Iowa House this week. House File 590 would create an Iowa Partnership for Economic Progress, with three separate boards supervising various aspects of economic development work. Supporters say they have worked to make Branstad’s preferred model more transparent, but its convoluted structure invites the kind of abuses seen in other states where private entities have control over economic development incentives.

More details on House File 590 and its path through the Iowa House are after the jump.

Representative Bruce Braley (D, IA-01) has asked President Barack Obama to disclose all costs associated with the current U.S. military intervention in Libya. From Braley’s March 24 press release:

“Just as we’re struggling to cut federal spending and bring down our national deficit, we’re also faced with the challenge of managing two military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. If we’re going to be involved in Libya, we must know how much a third military conflict will cost us,” said Rep. Braley. “I know I’m not the only who’s asking these questions – Speaker Boehner, for one, has also expressed his concerns – and I think it’s important that the President give us and all American taxpayers an accurate answer on this issue. I will always stand with people fighting for freedom and democracy around the world, and I know both President Obama and Speaker Boehner would too. But America has to address many important challenges right here at home – with spending as the most critical one. And before we spend any money abroad, I want to know how much it’s going to cost us.”

The full text of Braley’s letter to President Obama is after the jump.

Braley is right to ask substantive questions about the U.S. operation in Libya. I have been surprised by the Iowa delegation’s muted reaction to our latest military intervention, given that Obama launched this operation without Congressional authorization. To my knowledge, Senators Chuck Grassley and Tom Harkin and Representatives Dave Loebsack, Leonard Boswell, Tom Latham and Steve King have not issued any official statement regarding “Operation Odyssey Dawn.”

Braley’s letter is consistent with his increased focus on fighting the deficit since last November’s election. As I’ve written before, I disagree with austerity movement types who make the deficit out to be our country’s biggest threat. Our national strength depends more on fixing other problems: reducing unemployment, reorienting our energy policy and fixing the still-broken health care system, to name a few. Getting the economy moving would do more to shrink the budget gap than the non-defense discretionary spending cuts deficit hawks demand.

I give Braley credit for acknowledging that the U.S. doesn’t have unlimited free money to blow on wars around the globe. The same can’t be said for many members of Congress who claim to care about excessive government spending.

UPDATE: Braley issued this statement on March 25:

Washington, DC – Today, Congressman Bruce Braley (IA-01) released the following statement after White House spokesperson Jay Carney was asked about Rep. Braley’s letter calling for an accounting of the Libyan conflict. According to USA Today, Carney replied to reporters, “there are contingency funds…for this kind of thing.” Today Rep. Braley said:

“Yesterday I asked for accountability on the question of how much this conflict is costing us, and I have yet to see a clear response from the White House. The fact that funds for contingency military operations exist doesn’t answer the question of how much we’re spending, and will continue to spend, in Libya. I’m not the only one asking these questions – the American people are demanding answers too. And the President must give Congress and all taxpayers an accurate answer.”

Yesterday, Rep. Braley sent a letter to President Obama asking for a full accounting of the Libyan conflict and the costs to taxpayers. Speaker Boehner sent a similar letter to the President. Rep. Braley has previously called for a full accounting of the human and financial costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Frantic efforts to control the situation at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant have not had much success during the past week. The areas of greatest concern appear to be the reactor in unit 3 and the spent fuel pool on the roof of unit 4.

President Barack Obama indicated yesterday that the U.S. and its allies may embark on a new military campaign in Libya, if Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi does not comply with demands for a cease-fire with rebels. On Thursday the United Nations Security Council authorized military action against Qaddafi. Like other commentators, I don’t feel reassured by Obama’s promise that the U.S. won’t deploy ground troops in Libya. The president’s reasoning for intervening there (but not elsewhere to avert atrocities) is not convincing.

The Des Moines Register has published front-page stories three days in a row on an Ankeny couple who exploited a loophole in mortgage law to get a nice house for free. Lee Rood’s reporting suggests the couple misrepresented their assets to obtain the mortgage and were in a position to know about the loophole before they closed on their house (without the wife signing the documents). I don’t condone obtaining a house by fraudulent means, if that’s what has occurred in this case. That said, foreclosure fraud by lenders appears to be far more prevalent than the scheme this Ankeny couple may have implemented. Most of the time the mainstream media ignores stories about innocent homeowners jerked around by banks. I hope the Register will follow up with a number of front-page stories about that side of the foreclosure story.

Iowa State University economist Neil Harl argued that Republican tax cut proposals won’t spark economic growth. Speaking on Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press” program,

“The question is what is in the best interest of this state in terms of long-term economic growth,” Harl said. “What attracts companies to come to Iowa? I don’t think it’s potholes in the streets. I don’t think it’s a third-rate school system. I don’t think it’s a situation of starved universities.” […]

Harl said he opposes the Republican plans because they would inevitably cut into state revenue needed to support the services he believes are the real attraction for businesses. One of Iowa’s main assets is a high quality of life, he said.

“I think it’s a state that’s viewed as forward looking and offers a great environment for a company to move into,” he. “This is being sold on the grounds that it will attract more companies here, but I really doubt that.”

As part of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, Borders will close its West Des Moines bookstore by the end of May. For now, Borders plans to keep its stores in Ames, Dubuque and Davenport open. Even though I support locally-owned businesses like Beaverdale Books, Borders is one chain I will be sorry to see go.

I’ll close this gloomy post on an upbeat note: less than one week remains before Planned Parenthood’s giant semi-annual book sale at the State Fairgrounds.

This is an open thread. What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers?

UPDATE: And on March 19, the U.S. launched air strikes in Libya. Happy Iraq War anniversary! This is not going to end well.  

Governor Terry Branstad’s latest executive order gives businesses and their advocates new opportunities to pre-empt government regulation of their activities. The governor’s spin on the new order presents it as a way to meet his administration’s job-creation goals:

“Executive Order Seventy-One will ensure that state government’s eyes are affixed on job creation, retention and development when issuing rules and regulations,” said Branstad. “This rule making process will assist in our administration’s goal of creating 200,000 new jobs and putting the roughly 106,000 unemployed Iowans back to work.”

The executive order will identify policies that hurt jobs before they impact job retention and development. […]

“As we travel the state we have heard Iowans voice their concerns over the burdens of bureaucracy that fails to understand the relationship between excessive regulation and job creation,” Branstad added. “Executive Order Seventy-One encourages a job-friendly environment as we build a strong foundation for the future.”

I’ve posted the full text of Executive Order 71 after the jump. It requires all government agencies to prepare a “jobs impact statement” before adopting any new rules and regulations, and to “minimize the adverse impact on jobs and the development of new employment opportunities before proposing a rule.” Furthermore,

Each Agency shall accept comments and information from stakeholders prior to the Jobs Impact Statement. Any concerned private sector employer or self-employed individual, potential employer, potential small business, or member of the public is entitled to submit information relating to Jobs Impact Statement upon a request for information or notice of intended action by a Department or Agency.

So, the governor is instructing agency employees to make “jobs impact” a greater consideration than other public-interest concerns (for example, reducing air pollution that causes life-threatening and costly illnesses, or restricting lending practices that trap consumers in cycles of debt). Furthermore, agency employees need to hear input from “stakeholders” (businesses and business owners) when drafting the jobs impact statements. Also, certain sectors receive privileged status:

The analysis in the Jobs Impact Statement should give particular weight to jobs in production sectors of the economy which includes the manufacturing, and agricultural sectors of the economy and include analysis, where applicable of the impact of the rule on expansion of existing businesses or facilities.

The likely outcome is that “doomsday scenario” analysis from advocacy groups like the Iowa Association of Business and Industry or the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation will now carry new credibility as part of the official “jobs impact statement” issued by state agencies. Any potential rule that manufacturers or agricultural operators view as too “burdensome” will be discarded, regardless of how many other Iowans might benefit.

For as long as I can remember, industry trade groups and lobbyists have exaggerated the potential jobs cost of regulations ranging from the Clean Air Act to the Americans with Disabilities Act. Meanwhile, no one is calculating the economic impact of, say, preventable respiratory illnesses in communities with high levels of particulate matter in the air, or making Des Moines Water Works customers pay to clean up pollution agricultural producers create in the Raccoon River Watershed.

Executive Order 71 dovetails with other recent Branstad efforts to increase business leverage against government regulations. All four of his appointees to the Environmental Protection Commission have close ties to agribusiness. The governor is also leaning toward moving Iowa’s water monitoring and water quality protection programs from the Department of Natural Resources to the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.

For years, Big Oil – Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, BP, Texaco, and ConocoPhillips  – has raked in record profits. But their dividend to consumers is usually the same: higher gas prices that make it more difficult to get to work, shop for groceries or drop the kids off at school.

Americans may be used to getting gouged at the pump – but we don’t deserve to get gouged in Congress too. Yet that’s exactly what happens when those big oil companies collect billions in tax breaks on our dime.

Over the next ten years, Big Oil will swindle American taxpayers to the tune of nearly $43 billion in unnecessary tax subsidies – claiming the breaks are needed to increase domestic oil production. Despite these outrageous tax loopholes, domestic oil production has decreased steadily since 1970. Meanwhile, our continued dependence on foreign oil puts the country at a national security risk.

I’m pleased to hear the recent drumbeat in Washington to eliminate oil subsidies, and I support these efforts. But closing these tax loopholes alone won’t end America’s need for affordable energy any time soon. That’s why I’ve put forward a commonsense plan to not only end the shameless handouts to Big Oil CEOs and Wall Street speculators, but also to address America’s ever-growing need for energy – all while creating good-paying jobs right here in Iowa.

The Clean Energy Jobs Act, which I introduced earlier this week, will end the unnecessary giveaways to Big Oil and provide incentives for renewable fuel producers to expand business and develop new technologies. Just as important, it will reduce our national deficit by billions.

The Des Moines Register continues to release results from its latest statewide poll. Selzer and Co surveyed 800 Iowa adults between February 13 and 16. Bleeding Heartland discussed the Register’s poll numbers on Governor Terry Branstad here.

Follow me after the jump to discuss President Barack Obama’s approval inching up in Iowa, slight growth in support for same-sex marriage rights, views on ways to close the state budget gap, and more.

The U.S. Air Force announced on Thursday that Boeing will receive a $35 billion contract to build aerial refueling tankers. The contract is expected to create roughly 800 jobs in Iowa, including 200 at Cedar Rapids-based Rockwell Collins. Iowa politicians from both parties hailed the decision, including Republican Governor Terry Branstad and Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett and Democratic Representatives Bruce Braley and Dave Loebsack. Branstad, Braley and Loebsack all noted in their official statements that they had urged the U.S. Department of Defense to award Boeing the contract.  Former Governor Chet Culver went to Washington to lobby for Boeing’s bid last year. Boeing’s rival for the contract was the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company, which makes Airbus planes. Airbus also uses subcontractors based in Iowa, but Boeing’s subcontractors employ more Iowans. The European company may protest the Air Force’s decision and has support from some members of Congress.

Des Moines business owner Mike Draper published a guest editorial in Saturday’s Des Moines Register undermining Republican claims about corporate tax cuts creating jobs:

I recently heard “cutting state taxes will add jobs” delivered with a perfect, deadpan tone, but I was the only one laughing. Wasn’t it meant to be a joke?

After all, since starting a small downtown clothing store, Raygun, in 2005, I have added about 25 jobs and never once considered the state tax rate when doing so. […]

Most job growth nationally and in Iowa will come from small businesses like mine, and many small businesses are set up as S-corporations, which don’t pay corporate tax; rather, any profits for the company are paid on the personal tax statements of the owners. So corporate tax cuts will only really affect the largest companies in Iowa, which add the least number of jobs over time.

But for argument sake, let’s say the governor wanted to cut state income-tax rates as well to help small businesses add jobs. Say he even reduced my state taxes by 20 percent and I was expected to hire new staff with that savings. On a salary of $40,000 per year, that 20 percent reduction moves my taxes by 1 percent, or 400 annual dollars.

So, indeed, I could hire a new employee with my savings; it would just take 100 years (and by 2111, would $40,000 per year even be enough for them to afford the newest hover-board that all the other guys at the store will have?).

However, if that tax savings were coupled with public pre-K being eliminated for my son, a $400 annual savings may be slightly offset by the additional $8,000 annually I’d have to spend on day care.

With the governor’s math, I’d be laying off someone every 5 years and hiring every 100.

State tax collection data doesn’t support the claim that corporate tax cuts would help Iowa’s small businesses expand:

About 885 businesses, with sales over $25 million in Iowa, paid 65 percent of the state’s corporate taxes in 2008. That’s $142 million of nearly $219 million paid, Iowa Department of Revenue data show.

In addition, the data show the biggest corporate taxpayers are large retailers with sales outside the state. Iowa taxes companies only for income earned within the state.

Branstad has said small businesses would benefit the most because most of their sales – and income – are within the state.

But data from a state report show the 22,000 companies that have sales exclusively in Iowa contributed just 19 percent of the revenue collected via the state’s corporate taxes. That was about $41.6 million in 2008.

The governor has promoted his plan to cut the state’s corporate tax rates – with the highest rate at 12 percent – to a flat 6 percent for all companies. Branstad has said the tax cut – along with reducing commercial property taxes and government spending and eliminating regulations that stifle job growth – will help create 200,000 jobs and boost income 25 percent for Iowa families over five years. […]

But Iowa State University economist Dave Swenson said “it’s very unclear to me how this tax cut would create significantly more jobs in Iowa.”

Swenson said the proposed tax would be “very beneficial to a lot of large retailers and service firms that serve Iowa demand.”

“But cutting the corporate tax rate isn’t going to create more of those firms,” he said. “And for those large firms we want to attract – the Googles, IBMs, the Microsofts, companies that produce for a worldwide market – it’s a meaningless tax cut because they already do not pay very much Iowa corporate tax,” given that their sales and services are mostly sold outside Iowa and avoid state tax.

Economist Peter Fisher fleshed out that argument in his recent report on Corporate Taxes and State Economic Growth (pdf file):

Business tax breaks are an expensive and inefficient way to attempt to stimulate a state economy. Because of the small effect of tax breaks on business costs, and the much larger importance of other production costs and location considerations, tax breaks will have little if any positive effect on private- sector employment. In fact, the revenue losses may well produce immediate public-sector job losses. Furthermore, the private-sector employment effects of such tax cuts could be reduced or even eliminated by a long-term deterioration in the quality of public services, which themselves have been shown to be important to businesses making location decisions, and which provide an important part of the foundation for the state economy.

The business owners I know hire new employees when they anticipate greater demand for their goods or services. Tax rates are not a factor in that decision.

This is an open thread. What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers?

Anyone go to the labor rally on Saturday at the capitol? Snow couldn’t keep 70,000 to 100,000 people from attending the labor rally in Madison, Wisconsin.

The Des Moines Register’s first statewide poll since Governor Terry Branstad returned to office shows that 45 percent of respondents approve of the job Branstad is doing, 35 percent disapprove and 20 percent are not sure. Selzer and Co surveyed 800 Iowa adults between February 13 and 16, and the poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent. Ann Selzer commented in the Des Moines Register over the weekend, “Iowans are giving Gov Branstad no honeymoon.”

Elected officials never like to see their approval ratings below 50 percent, but the Register poll numbers are better for Branstad than Public Policy Polling’s latest Iowa survey. Just 40 percent of Iowa voters polled by PPP in January had a favorable opinion of Branstad, while 44 percent had an unfavorable opinion. Those low numbers probably don’t reflect a big drop in support for Branstad since November, but they underscore how strongly the 2010 voter pool skewed Republican in Iowa.

The Register’s new poll indicates that most Iowans don’t expect Branstad to fulfill key campaign promises. Asked about various goals Branstad mentioned while running for governor, respondents who were “mostly skeptical” the governor could accomplish the goal outnumbered those who were “mostly confident” he would succeed on every question.

Cut state spending by 15 percent over 5 years: 47 percent mostly confident, 49 percent mostly skeptical

Cut regulations that hamper business growth: 44 percent mostly confident, 49 percent mostly skeptical

Cut corporate income tax rates: 39 percent mostly confident, 52 percent mostly skeptical

Cut commercial property tax rates: 36 percent mostly confident, 57 percent mostly skeptical

Add 200,000 jobs within five years: 21 percent mostly confident, 76 percent mostly skeptical

Raise family incomes 25 percent over five years: 13 percent mostly confident, 84 percent mostly skeptical

The Register’s Tom Beaumont noted in his write-up of the poll,

Some Iowa economists said during the campaign that Branstad’s goals were unrealistic. The number of jobs in Iowa has grown by 233,000 since 1981, according to the Iowa Department of Workforce Development.

Family incomes in Iowa grew by 21.7 percent from 1999 to 2009, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Although Iowa has experienced months of economic and job growth, respondents for the Register’s new poll still see signs of economic distress. About 47 percent of respondents said Iowa is on the wrong track, compared to just 40 percent who see the state headed in the right direction. Some 47 percent of respondents said they are “personally still feeling the effects of a recession” and 41 percent said they are not personally feeling a recession but are “seeing it affect others” around them. Those numbers were almost identical to findings from the Register’s Iowa poll from January 2009, when the economy was by various measures in worse shape.

The Iowa Fiscal Partnership released a must-read report yesterday by economist Peter Fisher. Facts don’t support political rhetoric about a supposedly unfriendly tax environment for Iowa business, Fisher demonstrates:

Whether one focuses only on the corporate income tax, or the whole range of taxes falling on business, Iowa’s state and local taxes are well below average, and have been for some time.

Iowa’s corporate income tax in recent years has been considerably lower than the national average level of taxation and lower than all but 11 states. How can this be when the top tax rate – 12 percent – is the highest in the nation? The answer is simple: That 12 percent tax rate is applied to only a small portion of a company’s profits in Iowa. Iowa is one of only four states that allows a portion of federal corporate income taxes to be deducted from income. On top of this, Iowa determines how much of a multi-state firm’s profits are taxable in Iowa solely on the basis of sales in Iowa. The majority of states take into account a firm’s payroll and property in the state as well as sales. As a result, many large corporations selling nationally and worldwide earn substantial profits on Iowa operations but pay taxes on only a small fraction of those profits. Finally, Iowa offers a range of generous tax credits that further reduce corporate tax liability.

I recommend reading the full report, Corporate Taxes and State Economic Growth (pdf file) or at least the two-page backgrounder. While you’re on the Iowa Fiscal Partnership’s site, check out the many other valuable reports they have published in recent years. For instance, last month’s report showed why “additional cuts to essential public services are not needed to balance the 2011-12 [Iowa] budget.” The Iowa Policy Project, which is part of the Iowa Fiscal Partnership, is on Twitter here.

After the jump I’ve posted a few excerpts highlighting key conclusions from Fisher’s latest research. Keep these facts in mind next time you hear Iowa Republicans claim that we “can’t afford” a modest raise for state employees, continued investment in preschool or any growth in K-12 education budgets.

UPDATE: Agree 100 percent with what Fisher told Iowa Independent:

“Revenues are improving, in spite of the drain already in place by business breaks. A responsible budget does not include new breaks, especially when we know that the services provided by state and local government are important to a thriving business climate,” Fisher said. “We should be looking for ways to avoid cuts in services that will actually hurt Iowa jobs and the Iowa economy.”

An estimated 29,183 long-term unemployed Iowans could qualify for some $116.3 million in additional benefits, but only if state legislators act quickly, according to a new report by the National Employment Law Project. Federal dollars could cover an extra 13 weeks of benefits for those Iowans. Follow me after the jump for details and background on the federal stimulus money we may leave on the table.

The Iowa House approved a major “deappropriations” bill, House File 45, on January 19 by a party-line vote of 60 to 40. Republican leaders fast-tracked what they call the Taxpayers First Act, which passed the House Appropriations Committee on the third day of the 2011 session. The bill would cut dozens of programs while increasing spending in a few areas. In addition, $327.4 million from this year’s surplus revenue would go into a new “Tax Relief Fund,” instead of being used to help close the projected budget gap for fiscal year 2012. This bill summary (pdf) lists the budget cuts and supplemental appropriations in House File 45. Click here for the full bill text.

Although the majority of speakers at a January 18 public hearing opposed the bill, and organizations lobbying against the bill outnumber those that have signed on in support, the House Republicans passed the bill with few significant changes. Democrats offered many amendments as floor debate went late into the evening on January 19, trying to save funds for the statewide voluntary preschool program, passenger rail, smoking cessation programs, and sustainable communities, among other things. Representatives rejected almost all those amendments on party-line votes. This page shows what amendments were filed, and the House Journal for January 19 contains the roll call votes.

House File 45 now moves to the Iowa Senate, which has a 26-24 Democratic majority. Democratic senators are likely to back increased expenditures for mental health services and indigent defense while opposing many of the spending cuts. After the jump I take a closer look at some of the most controversial provisions in House File 45.

Last year Bleeding Heartland discussed some promising changes in Dubuque, thanks to the vision of community leaders who launched the SustainableDubuque initiative in 2006. Now called the “Dubuque 2.0” sustainability initiative, the program has helped bring the city a long list of recognitions and awards.

Government and public entities: The U.S. Conference of Mayors named Dubuque the country’s “Most Livable Small City” for 2008. The Economic Development Administration (an agency within the federal Commerce Department) gave the an award for “excellence in historic preservation-led strategies” in 2009. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Transportation and Department of Housing and Urban Development selected Dubuque for sustainability pilot programs, also in 2009. The Iowa League of Cities named Dubuque an All-Star Community this year.

Business groups and business-oriented media: Dubuque landed on Sperling’s Best Places top ten “Most Affordable Places to Live and Work” in 2009; was third best in the country for job growth, according to Careerbuilder.com in 2010; and was the seventh best city under 200,000 population in “Economic Growth Potential,” according to Business Facilities magazine in 2010. Dubuque also won an Excellence in Economic Development award this year from the International Economic Development Council, while Forbes.com named it both the “Best Small City to Raise a Family” and “Best Smaller Metro for Projected Job Growth” nationwide.

Non-profit organizations: Dubuque came in third place at the International Awards for Livable Communities in 2010 in the category of cities with populations between 20,000 and 75,000. The city won the 1000 Friends of Iowa 2010 Best Development Award in the leadership category for its recently adopted Unified Development Code, which “promotes best practices in sustainable development and will serve as a model for other cities in Iowa.” (Side note: Dubuque also contains more private Best Development Award winning-projects than any other Iowa city. Most recently, the “beauty and authenticity” of the Hotel Julien historic rehabilitation earned it the 1000 Friends of Iowa 2010 Best Development Award in the renovated and commercial/civic category.)

Too many Iowa politicians portray eco-friendly policies as bad for business or economic growth. Dubuque is proving that sustainability makes a community more attractive to potential job-creators:

According to Mike Blouin, president of the Greater Dubuque Development Corporation, the cachet that comes with operating a business in a sustainable region is becoming increasingly important.

“A growing segment of companies — manufacturers and service providers — want to be a part of this trend,” he said. “They want to be a part of communities that are into sustainability, and they believe it will be easier to attract the kind of workforce they want there. Or companies may manufacture items used in these sustainable communities. Whatever it might be, they want sustainability to be a part of their message.”

He added, “You can be pro-economic development and be sustainable. They’re not mutually exclusive. A smarter city is not the initial thing companies look at, because they still have to make money. The community has to make sense overall, but if it does, sustainability could very well be a deal-maker. If there are a half-dozen cities in front of a company, it may look at smarter sustainability and see that it fits the company’s philosophy. Final decisions are made by those kinds of factors.”

In 2009, the IBM corporation renovated the historic Roshek building in partnership with the city of Dubuque and selected the city for sustainability pilot programs. After the jump I’ve posted more details on some projects implemented this year. These benefit the city by finding ways to reduce costs and use of resources, and benefit IBM by promoting technologies it hopes to sell to other cities.

Deals struck during the Congressional lame-duck session have scuttled for now the federal government’s plan to purchase and open the Thomson Correctional Center facility in Illinois. The high-security prison was mostly built in 2001 but never utilized for lack of state budget funds. A year ago, officials announced plans for the Federal Bureau of Prisons to purchase the facility. The plan involved the Defense Department leasing part of one building to house some detainees transferred from the Guantanamo Bay military prison. Clinton, Iowa lies just across the Mississippi River from Thomson and is the main population center for the area. Local, state and federal officials estimated that opening the prison would generate nearly a thousand jobs directly and more indirectly as workers spent money in the local economy. In late 2009, Representative Bruce Braley said his constituents supported the plan for a new prison at Thomson, while prominent Iowa Republicans stoked fears about bringing terror suspects to a maximum-security facility anywhere in the midwest.

When drafting the 2011 defense authorization bill, House members barred the use of any federal funds for a facility to house former Guantanamo detainees, pending “a thorough and comprehensive plan that outlines the merits, costs, and risks associated with utilizing such a facility.” Similar language made it into the final version of the defense authorization bill, which the House and Senate approved on December 22. The provision will prevent the Obama administration from trying some terrorism suspects in U.S. civilian courts, and was struck to secure Republican support. (By some accounts, Republicans insisted on this provision in exchange for letting Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal move forward.)

Federal Bureau of Prisons officials made clear this year that they still planned to purchase the Thomson Correction Center to relieve overcrowding in the federal prison system. However, it would cost the federal government more than $200 million to purchase and renovate the facility. The 2011 federal budget omnibus bill included funding to buy the Thomson Correctional Center, but an uproar over earmarks prompted Senate Republicans to reject the omnibus bill on December 16. Consequently, the federal government is operating on a continuing spending authorization until March 2011. Republican Congressional leaders have promised big domestic spending cuts next year, and it’s not clear whether the Bureau of Prisons, which is part of the Justice Department, will have the money to purchase Thomson. When the state of Illinois attempted to auction the facility last week, neither the federal government nor anyone else placed a bid.

The stalemate surrounding federal plans for Thomson runs counter to a decades-long American tradition of bipartisan political support for prisons as economic development projects.

Iowa’s U.S. Senators Tom Harkin and Chuck Grassley were among a large bipartisan majority that voted to advance a bill to extend unemployment benefits, the Bush tax cuts and various special tax breaks and credits. The Senate passed the cloture motion by a vote of 83 to 15. Just 10 members of the Democratic caucus and five Republicans voted against cloture for various reasons. A handful of senators who voted for cloture may vote against the bill itself, but the bill will pass easily.

The Los Angeles Times summarized key points in the Senate’s version of the deal President Barack Obama negotiated with Republican leaders in Congress:

The package extends the Bush tax cuts for two years on families at all income levels, including the wealthiest 2% who have incomes above $250,000 a year. Obama once campaigned against tax cuts for those earners.

The package also continues unemployment insurance through 2011 for up to 7 million Americans who otherwise would see their extended jobless aid expire.

One key change for most taxpayers will be a 2-percentage-point reduction in payroll tax worth up to $2,000. It replaces the so-called Making Work Pay tax cut for 95% of Americans, a break that expires Dec. 31.

The package also reinstates the estate tax that lapsed this year under a quirk of law. It establishes a 35% rate on inheritances above $5 million for singles and $10 million for families. […]

[T]he Senate added $10 billion in energy assistance, including nearly $5 billion in ethanol and coal credits that environmentalists oppose. But it also included an extension of grants for renewable energy developers, which supporters credit with having doubled solar plant production in 2010.

The package also includes a long, $55-billion list of specialty tax breaks that tend to be extended each year – help for Puerto Rican rum makers, racetrack developers and Los Angeles film producers.

I don’t have time to list all the shameful aspects of this deal tonight, but I discuss seven big problems after the jump. UPDATE: I recommend Rortybomb’s post on “who got what” in this package.

The ban on gays in the military appears likely to live on despite broad public support for letting gays serve openly and a Pentagon review showing repeal would pose a “low risk” to the armed forces. Democrats in Congress attached a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal provision to the 2011 defense authorization bill. But on December 9 the U.S. Senate rejected a cloture motion to proceed with considering that bill on a mostly party-line vote of 57-40. Iowa’s Tom Harkin was among 56 Democrats who voted to proceed with the bill; newly-elected Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia gave a convoluted excuse for voting no, while just-defeated Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas did not vote. Chuck Grassley was among all but three Republicans who voted no; two didn’t vote and Senator Susan Collins of Maine voted yes. Three Republicans who have claimed to support repealing the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy upheld yesterday’s filibuster: Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Scott Brown of Massachusetts and John Ensign of Nevada.

Negotiations between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Collins of Maine appear to have broken down over how Reid would allow amendments to be offered to the bill, and/or the length of time he would permit for debate. Collins and Senator Joe Lieberman say they will offer a stand-alone bill to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, but whether that bill could clear the Senate before the end of the year is a big question mark. Even if it does, the House may not have time to vote on it before the new Congress takes office.

President Barack Obama publicly opposes Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, but he has so far declined to order a moratorium on discharges under the policy. That means federal courts will have the final say on whether the ban survives. A federal judge declared Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell unconstitutional earlier this year, and the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will take up the case next year.

In other Senate news yesterday, Republicans showed they were serious when they promised to block every single piece of legislation until the Bush tax cuts were all extended. The GOP caucus unanimously blocked consideration of a bill “that would provide medical benefits and compensation for emergency workers who were first on the scene of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.” The vote was 57 Democrats in favor, including Harkin, and 42 Republicans opposed, including Grassley. According to the New York Times, “Republicans have been raising concerns about how to pay for the $7.4 billion measure,” which is laughable, because they have no problem voting for trillions of dollars in unpaid-for tax cuts.  Republican priorities disgust me, but they do know how to stay united, unlike Democrats.

Incidentally, Grassley said in a statement yesterday that he was able to get a full extension of ethanol and biodiesel tax credits included into the tax deal Obama negotiated with Republicans. Sounds like he will definitely support the package on the Senate floor (no concern from the phony deficit hawk about finding a way to offset the $858 billion price tag). Harkin hasn’t committed to voting yes or no on the tax cut deal. Grassley believes a short-term extension of unemployment benefits might have been possible even without a deal on the tax cuts. That would fall way short of what’s needed to help unemployed people and stimulate the economy. I am frustrated that no Congressional leaders in either party are serious about getting help to the “99ers” who have exhausted all their unemployment benefits.

President Barack Obama announced the “framework” for his unilateral surrender betrayal of core principles deal with Republicans on extending the Bush tax cuts today. It’s worse than I expected, which is saying something. Republicans get tax cuts for all income levels extended for two full years (we’re supposed to believe Obama will stand up for letting them expire during a presidential election year). They agreed to extend some unemployment benefits, but only for 13 months. Although long-term unemployment is at historically high levels, the “99-ers” (people who have exhausted 99 weeks of unemployment benefits) will get nothing out of this framework. To sweeten the deal for Republicans, the estate tax will be reduced to 35 percent, and it will apply only to estates exceeding $5 million in assets. That’s very costly and not at all stimulative. To provide more disposable income for working people, the payroll tax on employees will be cut by two percentage points for a year. That’s good as long as it doesn’t become an excuse later to cut Social Security benefits. UPDATE: David Dayen reports that a senior administration official told him the payroll tax cut “would be paid for out of general revenue through a credit, and so would not impact Social Security and Medicare finances in any way.”

It astounds me that Obama could think he will gain politically from this bargain. How many videos like this one are floating around? October 30, 2008: “Why would we keep driving down this dead-end street? […] At a moment like this, the last thing we can afford is four more years of the tired old economic theory that says we should give more and more to billionaires and corporations and hope that prosperity trickles down on everybody else.”

After the jump I’ve posted some Iowa politicians’ reactions to the deal. I’ll update as more statements become available.

UPDATE: Late on Tuesday afternoon, the offices of Representatives Bruce Braley (D, IA-01), Dave Loebsack (D, IA-02) and Leonard Boswell (D, IA-03) have not responded to my requests for comment on the tax deal. How hard is it to express an opinion about the major decision of the lame-duck session? U.S. Senate conservadem Mary Landrieu of all people came out guns blazing today against the “moral corruptness” of the deal.

Iowa’s three-member Revenue Estimating Conference again raised projections for state revenues during the current fiscal year and fiscal year 2012, following another month of growing state tax collections in November. The news hasn’t deterred Republican leaders from planning mid-year budget cuts, and legislators from both parties acknowledged the end of federal stimulus funds will make the next budget year difficult. Details and proposals are after the jump.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics report on U.S. employment in November 2009 was much worse than expected: the unemployment rate went up from 9.6 percent to 9.8 percent as total nonfarm payroll employment increased by only 39,000. The Calculated Risk blog posted ugly graphs here and here. The U.S. economy needs to add about 140,000 jobs per month just to keep up with population growth. The unemployment rate won’t start dropping until the economy is adding close to 200,000 jobs per month, and it’s hard to see how that will happen.

Interest rates are already extremely low, and “quantitative easing” by the Federal Reserve probably won’t stimulate huge new demand.

Spending from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is winding down, and Congress won’t approve any significant new money for infrastructure. Members of Congress can call employer tax breaks “stimulus,” but businesses won’t start hiring until they expect or experience more demands for the goods or services they sell.

The number of long-term unemployed remains at the highest level in decades. Republicans are holding an extension of unemployment benefits hostage to continuing all the Bush tax cuts, which won’t create jobs. Even if benefits are extended for some of the long-term unemployed, it won’t help the “99ers,” who have received the maximum 99 weeks of unemployment benefits.

A payroll tax holiday could permanently weaken the Social Security system.

It all adds up to high unemployment for the forseeable future.  

Share any relevant thoughts in this thread.

P.S.- Some people are way too confident that Barack Obama will be re-elected. Ronald Reagan presided over a higher spike in unemployment in 1982, but by 1984 the economy was booming. That is unlikely to be the case by 2012. A 10 percent unemployment rate nationally means even higher jobless rates in many states Obama would need to win (Nevada, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Florida). Even if Republicans nominate a bad candidate, like Newt Gingrich or Sarah Palin, Obama would not coast.

For a smart guy, President Barack Obama has surprisingly poor bargaining skills. Putting lots of tax cuts in the too-small stimulus without insisting on Republican concessions made the Recovery Act less stimulative but failed to win bipartisan support for it. Expanding off-shore oil drilling without gaining anything concrete from Republicans did nothing to advance a comprehensive energy bill.

Despite those failures, Obama still seems unable to start negotiations from a position of strength. To set the tone for his first post-election meeting with Congressional Republican leaders, the president announced a new policy designed to appeal to conservatives, with no strings attached. During yesterday’s meeting, he even apologized to top Republicans for not reaching out to them more.

Naturally, Republicans haven’t made any policy gestures toward the president this week, nor have they apologized for not working constructively with him.

Millions of Americans will pay the price for Obama’s inability to grasp basic negotiating tactics.

Governor-elect Terry Branstad today put Debi Durham in charge of job creation for his administration. She will start as head of the Iowa Department of Economic Development, which Branstad plans to convert into a public-private partnership. Durham’s work will be crucial for some of Branstad’s central campaign promises: creating 200,000 new jobs, increasing family incomes by 25 percent, and reviewing all state economic development programs to discard ones that don’t work. Branstad has said he will travel widely to sell Iowa to the business community, and Durham will be a partner in those marketing efforts.

Durham has worked for the Siouxland Chamber of Commerce for 17 years, and “chairs the board of the Iowa Chamber Alliance, a coalition representing the chambers of commerce in the state’s 17 largest metro areas.” She told reporters that leaving Sioux City was a hard choice. Outside economic development circles, she is best known as the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in 2002, the year Doug Gross lost to Governor Tom Vilsack. Bret Hayworth wrote a good profile of her during the 2002 campaign. Incidentally, Gross also intended to remake IDED into a public-private partnership. Yet again, Branstad is following his former chief of staff’s playbook. David Roederer, who also headed Branstad’s staff in the past and will run the Department of Management in the new administration, has worked closely with Durham too. He was executive director of the Iowa Chamber Alliance during her time as board chair.

During this year’s campaign, Governor Chet Culver said IDED already has plenty of business input and has helped keep Iowa’s unemployment far below the national average. He also cited news reports showing that the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, which Branstad embraced as a model, touted “bogus” job creation claims and concealed information about tax credits some companies received. Iowa legislators should ensure that the revamped IDED doesn’t have similar transparency problems. Branstad can’t restructure economic development programs by government directive; he needs a new state law for that.

Culver appointed Durham to the Iowa Department of Transportation Commission and “spoke highly” of her during the September gubernatorial debate in Sioux City. Assuming the Iowa Senate confirms Durham (which should be no problem), she may need to give up her position on the transportation commission. If so, expect Branstad to appoint someone friendly to road-builders’ interests.

In related news, Branstad is raising money from private donors to help pay for the transition from Chet Culver’s administration to his own. Current Iowa law set aside only $10,000, clearly not enough to cover those costs. I look forward to seeing the list of donors. People looking to preserve certain business tax breaks or economic development incentives may be eager to help the new administration.

UPDATE: From Jason Clayworth’s blog at the Des Moines Register:

“Obviously when you hear private/public partnership that is the biggest question is the transparency,” Durham said. “What I can assure you and I’m going to take my lead from Gov. Branstad. Everything about Gov. Branstad and this administration is transparent  So anything that will have anything to do with any public funds or public funding will certainly meet that threshold of transparency.

One of Branstad’s key campaign promises is to create 200,000 jobs throughout the next five years. Durham acknowledged after today’s press conference that the goal is a tall order.

“I think it is a stretch goal but like I said will go to work every single day knowing that is the goal before us,” Durham said.

Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement criticized Branstad’s appointment of Durham today. Their statement is after the jump.

The House of Representatives on November 18 failed to approve a three-month extension of unemployment benefits beyond November 30.

If the measure is not renewed, some 2 million people by the end of the year will stop getting weekly checks they receive as they look for work, says the National Employment Law Project, which advocates for workers’ rights.

By a vote of 258 to 154, the proposal to extend benefits through February fell short of the two-thirds margin needed to pass the House under special rules allowing an expedited vote.

Some 21 Republicans joined 237 Democrats to vote for the measure, while 11 Democrats and 143 Republicans voted against.

Under normal rules, the measure needs only a simple majority to pass. Democratic leaders in the House said they would schedule another vote for the week of November 29.

The roll call shows that Iowa’s House members split on party lines. Democrats Bruce Braley (IA-01), Dave Loebsack (IA-02) and Leonard Boswell (IA-03) voted to extend the unemployment benefits, while Republicans Tom Latham (IA-04) and Steve King (IA-05) voted against doing so.

The bill that failed would have cost $12.5 billion, and various House Republicans cited concerns about increasing the deficit. That’s a sick joke when the GOP caucus is eager to make all the Bush tax cuts permanent without any plan to pay for them. Jobless benefits are among the most efficient ways the government can stimulate economic activity, because people who are out of work will almost certainly spend any additional income on goods and services. Tax cuts in general are far less stimulative, especially tax cuts for people with plenty of disposable income.

In other Congressional news, House Democrats elected outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as minority leader this week. She defeated Blue Dog Heath Shuler by 150 to 43 in a secret ballot vote. Outgoing Majority Leader Steny Hoyer will be minority whip, and outgoing Majority Whip Jim Clyburn will be assistant leader, a newly-created position. Braley’s staff confirmed that he voted for Pelosi, but for some reason, Boswell’s and Loebsack’s staffs declined to answer the Des Moines Register’s question about whom those representatives backed for minority leader. I would be shocked if either of them voted for Shuler.

The iowa Farmers Union has endorsed Chet Culver for Governor.  IFU President Gary Hoskey warned in last weeks' Iowa Farmer Today that “Branstad … can't be trusted” to do what's in Iowa's best interests.

Another independent analysis concludes Iowa is well-managed and compares favorably to most other states. 24/7 Wall St, a website geared toward investors, released its survey of “The Best and Worst Run States in America on Monday. Iowa ranked third, behind Wyoming and North Dakota. This survey took many indicators into account:

It is based on evaluation principles used in the award-winning Best Run States In America ratings published by the Financial World Magazine during the 1990s. These studies were used by state governments to evaluate the efficiency of their own operations. The new 24/7 Wall St. study is meant to help businesses and individuals examine state operation with an unbiased eye.

The word involved in comparing states is challenging. This is due the volume of the data and the many ways it can be interpreted. A comparison is made even more difficult because state governments have advantages and disadvantages that may be decades old. These include the presence of natural resources, the the decisions by large companies to locate or leave and the extent to which populations are rural or urban. […]

Ultimately, however, states can control their own destinies. Well-run states have a great deal in common with well-run corporations. Books are kept balanced. Investment is prudent. Debt is sustainable. Innovation is prized. Workers are well-chosen and well-trained. Executives are picked based on merit and not “politics.”

24/7 Wall Street identified surveys with complete data sets for each state. Using this data, our formula ranked each state giving weight to metrics that are most important to prudent governance. In addition to traditional fiscal information, including GDP per capita, debt per capita, and and credit rating, our analysis also showed the impact of state policies on its residents.

24/7 Wall St posted more information about its methodology near the bottom of this page. Governor Chet Culver and the Democratic-controlled state legislature can’t take credit for all of the factors that helped Iowa gain such a high ranking. However, this survey demonstrates the emptiness of Republican campaign rhetoric about “out of control” state spending and borrowing. Iowa has maintained a top credit rating and the sixth-lowest debt per capita, and our unemployment rate is relatively low by national standards.

Since Democrats gained Iowa House and Senate majorities four years ago, they have passed bills to expand access to health care for children and adults (see here and here for two examples). Those laws helped reduce Iowa’s already low percentage of residents without health insurance. Only Massachusetts and Hawaii now score better than Iowa on this metric, according to a chart near the middle of this page in the 24/7 Wall St report.

Yet again, outside analysts who don’t have a dog in the outcome of Iowa elections have concluded that the state is doing well, thanks to capable and prudent management. Don’t expect Republicans to notice, though.

President Barack Obama is discussing the economy this morning at a private home in Des Moines. Governor Chet Culver and several other elected Democrats are there, but the president isn’t doing any campaign rallies in Iowa like his appearance in Wisconsin yesterday.

The latest Des Moines Register statewide poll by Selzer and Co showed just 45 percent of all Iowa respondents approve of Obama’s performance, while 50 percent disapprove. Among the “likely voters” subset, Obama’s approval is 42 percent, with 55 percent disapproving.

Last night Obama tried to fire up a group of Democratic activists about this year’s election. Maybe Democrats would be more enthusiastic about voting and volunteering if the president had delivered on more of his campaign promises and implemented better economic policies. That’s a topic for another post.

I’ll update this post later with links on today’s event on the economy. Meanwhile, share any thoughts about Obama or his impact on the Iowa elections in this thread.

LATE UPDATE: The group of people invited for Obama’s backyard visit wasn’t representative of Iowans struggling in today’s economy. He spent a lot of time criticizing Republican ideology on tax cuts, mostly with accurate facts and figures. But I just don’t find Obama’s economic message credible. He seemed afraid to face the people hurt the most by the recession, and he won’t acknowledge or correct his administration’s inadequate response to the housing crisis and continuing high unemployment. Where is the president’s plan to help the “99ers,” people who have exhausted all their unemployment benefits but still can’t find work? Why did he reappoint a Federal Reserve chairman who won’t do much to attack the unemployment problem? Heads should have rolled at Treasury for designing a foreclosure response program primarily to benefit banks rather than Americans who are underwater on their mortgages. (See David Dayen’s “Portrait of HAMP failure” series at Firedoglake.)

Obama’s backyard event succeeded at what may have been its primary aim–generating positive vibes with Iowa journalists like Kathie Obradovich. She somehow concluded the staged performance helped “Obama reconnect with Iowa” by allowing “the president to interact with people in a way he never could in a huge venue.” Oh, and we’re supposed to be impressed he got a couple of semi-critical questions during the Potemkin visit.

The House of Representatives approved the Small Business Jobs Act today by a vote of 237 to 187. Iowans Bruce Braley, Dave Loebsack and Leonard Boswell joined most House Democrats in supporting the bill; Tom Latham and Steve King joined all but one House Republican in voting no. CNN summarized the bill’s main provisions:

The Small Business Jobs Act authorizes the creation of a $30 billion fund run by the Treasury Department that would deliver ultra-cheap capital to banks with less than $10 billion in assets.

The idea is that community banks do the lion’s share of lending to small businesses, and pumping capital into them will get money in the hands of Main Street businesses.

Another provision aims to increase the flow of capital by providing $1.5 billion in grants to state lending programs that in turn support loans to small businesses. The state programs have proven themselves to be efficient, targeted and effective, but with many states struggling to balance their budgets, the programs are going broke.

The bill would also provide a slew of tax breaks that will cost $12 billion over a decade, according to a preliminary estimate from the Joint Committee on Taxation. The breaks aim to encourage small businesses to purchase new equipment, to incentivize venture capital firms to invest in small businesses, and to motivate entrepreneurs to start their own business.

When the Senate approved the same bill on a mostly party-line vote, Democrat Tom Harkin voted for it, while Republican Chuck Grassley voted against. Several House Republicans today characterized the lending fund as another “bailout”; Grassley used the same talking point last week. Republicans have supported similar small business tax breaks in the past, and the House Republicans’ new “Pledge to America” mentions small business many times.

In other news from Congress, a motion to start debate on new campaign finance regulations fell one vote short in the Senate. All 59 senators who caucus with Democrats voted for the DISCLOSE Act, but 60 votes are needed to pass a cloture motion. Grassley was among 39 Senate Republicans to voted against starting debate on this bill. Open Congress summarized the DISCLOSE Act as follows:

This is the Democrats’ response to the Supreme Courts’ recent Citizens United v. FEC ruling. It seeks to increase transparency of corporate and special-interest money in national political campaigns. It would require organizations involved in political campaigning to disclose the identity of the large donors, and to reveal their identities in any political ads they fund. It would also bar foreign corporations, government contractors and TARP recipients from making political expenditures. Notably, the bill would exempt all long-standing, non-profit organizations with more than 500,000 members from having to disclose their donor lists.

The DISCLOSE Act wouldn’t do nearly enough to reduce the influence of money in American politics, but it’s amazing to see Republicans united against even these modest disclosure rules and restrictions. Democratic Senate candidate Roxanne Conlin’s campaign sharply criticized Grassley’s vote:

“Senator Charles Grassley voted today to allow foreign interference in U.S. elections.  This vote means that BP and other foreign companies, the Iranian government and other foreign governments, are free to spend any amount of money to affect the outcome of U.S. elections,” said Conlin spokesperson Paulee Lipsman.

“In voting against debate on the federal DISCLOSE ACT, meant to provide Iowans with information on who is funding campaign attack ads, Senator Grassley also sided with the Wall Street bankers, insurance companies, corporations and other special interests who have filled his campaign war chest.  The Senator is protecting those who want to anonymously produce the ads filled with distortions and lies that are intended to influence voters.”

Grassley also voted against ending the filibuster on the DISCLOSE ACT on July 27.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad is rolling out two new commercials this week to highlight the campaign’s new applications for Droid, Blackberry, iPad and iPhone. I’m not a smart phone user, so others will have to review the applications.

The main thing I learned from the television ads, which I’ve posted below, is that no amount of fact-checking will deter Terry Branstad from lying about the I-JOBS infrastructure bonding program.

UPDATE: The Iowa Democratic Party produced a web video imagining what a Terry Branstad app would really look like. “Nothing says innovation quite like moving backwards.”

During Tuesday night’s debate, Republican gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad bashed the “ill-fated” I-JOBS infrastructure bonding program as a “huge” mistake. Bleeding Heartland has noted before that Iowa’s debt load is still low by national standards, and Branstad grudgingly acknowledged that fact. At the same time, he argued that Iowa’s debt load is moving in the wrong direction and had tripled since he left office.

As usual, Branstad exaggerated the I-JOBS repayment costs and failed to explain how he would have financed rebuilding after the worst floods in Iowa history on a “pay as you go” basis during a severe recession. I was intrigued to see a couple of new angles in the Republican’s case against I-JOBS, though.  

Senator Chuck Grassley remains a loud and proud voice for extending all the Bush tax cuts, as he and Democratic challenger Roxanne Conlin argue over who is the real advocate for small business interests.

That and other news from the U.S. Senate race is after the jump. You can also view Conlin’s second television commercial of the general election campaign, which introduces her as “one tough grandma.”

Democrat Roxanne Conlin launched her first television commercial in the U.S. Senate general election campaign yesterday, highlighting Chuck Grassley’s vote for the Wall Street bailout in 2008 and tax breaks for companies that move manufacturing overseas.

The ad, transcript and other thoughts about the Senate race are after the jump.

UPDATE: I’ve added the Conlin campaign’s response to one of Grassley’s new tv ads too.

Less than a week after his first general election television ads went on the air across Iowa, Senator Chuck Grassley launched two new commercials today.

The first ad is the most brazen image make-over I’ve seen in a while, casting Grassley as a brave warrior against drug companies. The other commercial touts the way Grassley uses new media to keep in touch with constituents.

Videos, transcripts, and more are after the jump.

UPDATE: I’ve also added the Conlin campaign’s response to one of these ads.