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.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is paying for robocalls attacking 60 House Republicans, including Iowa’s Tom Latham, for their intransigence in debt ceiling negotiations. Latham currently represents the fourth district but will run against Democrat Leonard Boswell in the new third district in 2012. Boswell can use the help, because Latham is building up a much bigger campaign war chest. I’ve posted the DCCC call script after the jump. Excerpt:

“Congressman Tom Latham and Speaker Boehner would rather our economy default just to protect tax breaks for Big Oil companies and billionaire jet-owners. Republicans quit negotiating with President Obama on raising the debt ceiling.

“This is serious. Latham’s billionaire buddies will be ok. But we will pay the price if government can’t pay its bills. Our Social Security and Medicare benefits are at risk. Interest rates would spike for our credit cards, car loans, and mortgages. Our 401(k) retirement accounts would drop. And, gas and food prices would skyrocket.”

That message might be persuasive if Obama weren’t begging Republicans to join him in cutting Americans’ Social Security and Medicare benefits. On a related note, Senate Democratic leaders just spent the weekend working on a deal to massively cut government spending without increasing tax revenues at all–not even from (gasp) “Big Oil companies and billionaire jet-owners.” No matter how the debt ceiling drama ends, the Democrats’ incompetence this summer will cause problems for the party’s Congressional candidates in 2012.

Meanwhile, Latham is pushing a plan B in case no deal comes through by August 2:

Under [Latham’s] bill, H.R. 2605, the federal government would prioritize payments to seniors, veterans, military personnel and “core public-safety functions” if the debt ceiling is reached and federal spending must be curtailed.

Latham said his bill is partly a response to what he called “scare tactics” that these critical payments would not be made.

“The White House and irresponsible special-interest groups have begun employing scare tactics as a means of achieving their political ends in the debt-limit debate,” he said Friday. “My legislation removes the use of these priority groups as political pawns and shields them from these contentious debates.”

No one knows exactly what would happen if Congress failed to raise the debt ceiling in the next week, but even if Latham’s bill became law, financial markets would see the federal government unable to pay all its bills. That would likely result in a downgrade of all U.S. debt.

After the jump I’ve posted Latham’s press release on what he called “safety net legislation.” It’s notable that he acknowledges the need to raise the debt ceiling, provided a “long-term plan” is in place to reduce government spending. Some House Republicans, like Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann, oppose increasing the debt limit under any circumstances.

Latham’s bill is much broader than a fallback plan introduced by Bachmann and Representative Steve King (IA-05) earlier this month. That dead-on-arrival proposal would have “set payment of military salaries and payment of principal and interest on publicly-held debt as the top priorities if the debt limit is reached.” The DCCC immediately accused King of “putting China before Iowa’s seniors,” saying his bill “would require the U.S. government to pay debts to China before ensuring seniors receive the Social Security they count on every month.” Latham may not be the brightest bulb in Congress, but he wasn’t about to walk into that trap.

The U.S. Senate voted down the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act of 2011 today, three days after the House approved that Republican budget-cutting plan. All members of the Democratic caucus present, including Iowa’s Tom Harkin, voted for a motion to table the motion to proceed with considering the bill (roll call). All Senate Republicans present, including Iowa’s Chuck Grassley, voted against the motion to table. Tabling the bill in effect kills it for this session of Congress.

After the jump I’ve posted the floor statement Grassley submitted yesterday in support of the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act. He argued that raising taxes would neither increase federal government revenues nor reduce the federal deficit. He described Cut, Cap, and Balance as “the only plan that has been put forth to address our deficit and debt problem” and claimed it would “impose budget caps to get our spending down to a manageable level compared to our gross domestic product.” This piece by Michael Linden and Michael Ettlinger points out that the “last time federal spending dipped below 18 percent of GDP was 1966.” Click through for a chart showing how severe spending cuts would have to be to bring fiscal year 2016 spending down to 18 percent of GDP. Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities described this bill as “one of the most ideologically extreme pieces of major budget legislation to come before Congress in years, if not decades.”

I’ve also posted below Harkin’s floor statement opposing Cut, Cap, and Balance. He reminded colleagues that President Ronald Reagan warned Congress against refusing to raise the debt ceiling, and that Reagan supported “corrective income tax increases in 1982 and 1984” when he realized that “his 1981 tax cuts were resulting in large deficits.” Harkin also claimed the Republican bill would defund Medicare by putting “the federal government in a fiscal straightjacket, allowed to spend no more than in the mid-1960s, before Medicare.”

The U.S. House passed the so-called “Cut, Cap and Balance Act” yesterday on a mostly party-line 234 to 190 vote (roll call). Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities summarized the key features of the proposal:

The plan would lock in cuts over the next ten years at least as severe as those in the [House Budget Committee Chairman Paul] Ryan budget plan that the House passed in April, by writing spending caps into law at the year-by-year levels of spending (as a share of GDP) the Ryan budget contains.

It also would hold the increase in the debt limit needed by August 2 hostage to approval by two-thirds of the House and the Senate of a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget every year while effectively barring any increases in revenues.  The constitutional amendment would make all revenue-raising measures unconstitutional unless they secured a two-thirds supermajority in both the House and the Senate.

The “Cut, Cap & Balance” measure cites three constitutional balanced-budget amendments (H.J. Res 1, S.J. Res 10, and H.J. Res 56) and states that Congress must approve one of them or a similar measure before the debt limit can be raised.  All three of the cited proposals would require cuts deeper than those in the Ryan budget.  All three measures would establish a constitutional requirement that total federal expenditures may not exceed 18 percent of GDP, and all three would essentially require that the budget be balanced within the coming decade.

The Ryan plan, by contrast, does not reach balance until the 2030s, and its federal spending level is just below or modestly above 20 percent of GDP for most of the next two decades, equaling 20¾ percent of GDP in 2030 for example, according to the Congressional Budget Office.  The only budget that comes close to meeting the requirements of these constitutional amendments is the Republican Study Committee budget, which eliminates 70 percent of non-defense discretionary funding by 2021, contains deeper Medicare cuts than the Ryan budget, cuts Medicaid, food stamps, and Supplemental Security Income for the elderly and disabled poor in half by the end of the decade, and raises the Social Security retirement age to 70.

Iowa’s Republicans Tom Latham (IA-04) and Steve King (IA-05) both voted for “cut, cap and balance,” while Democrats Bruce Braley (IA-01), Dave Loebsack (IA-02) and Leonard Boswell (IA-03) voted against it. I recommend reading Greenstein’s whole analysis or this piece by Michael Linden and Michael Ettlinger to get a sense of how ludicrous this plan is. Severe spending cuts would not only hurt the most vulnerable Americans, they would drag down the whole economy. I doubt Republicans believe in this fiscal policy. When the U.S. economy was hurting in late 2001 and 2002, the GOP-controlled House passed big deficit spending to stimulate demand, with the support of a Republican president.

But I digress. Yesterday’s House vote was designed to give Republicans cover. Everyone knows “cut, cap and balance” could never clear the Senate. Even if it did, President Barack Obama would veto the bill.

This vote isn’t just about short-term political battles over the debt ceiling. It will be cited by both parties during next year’s campaigns in Iowa’s new third and fourth Congressional districts. As a preview of campaign rhetoric to come, I’ve posted comments from both sides after the jump. First, Latham makes the case for the bill and pledges not to vote for any debt ceiling increase “without passage of the major features outlined in the Cut, Cap and Balance Act.” Latham voted many times for unbalanced budgets and to raise the debt ceiling while Republicans controlled the House during George W. Bush’s presidency. He’s hoping those votes will slip down the memory hole.

Next, I posted a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee press release charging that Latham just voted to “cut, cap and end Medicare.” An almost identical statement went out targeting King.

King didn’t send out a press release on yesterday’s vote, but he has stood with Republicans who demand huge spending cuts and no revenue increases as the price for raising the debt ceiling. After the jump, I posted a DCCC statement highlighting King’s previous votes to increase the debt ceiling. Both King and Latham stopped voting for debt ceiling hikes when Democrats had a House majority from 2007 through 2010.

Final note: two House Republicans who are running for president, Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul, voted against “cut, cap and balance” yesterday. Bachmann “said the bill does not go far enough to fundamentally restructure the way Washington spends money, and in particular does not go after ‘ObamaCare.'” Paul said “this Act cannot balance the budget under any plausible scenario,” because it’s “impossible” to do that without cutting defense spending, Medicare and Social Security.

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.  

For months, the Des Moines rumor mill has said former Governor Chet Culver was under consideration for some federal government position. The speculation was confirmed this week when President Barack Obama named Culver to the Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation board of directors. An excerpt from the White House press release is after the jump.

Better known as “Farmer Mac,” the corporation purchases agricultural loans, in theory freeing up credit to “improve the ability of agricultural lenders to provide credit to America’s farmers, ranchers and rural homeowners, businesses and communities.” Farmer Mac also “finances rural electric and telephone cooperatives.”

Many Iowa politics-watchers will recognize the name of the Farmer Mac board chairman: Lowell Junkins. He served 12 years in the Iowa Senate, rising to the position of majority leader, before he ran for governor against Terry Branstad in 1986. President Bill Clinton appointed Junkins to the Farmer Mac board in 1996.

In April of this year, Culver formed a consulting firm “to work with individuals and public and private sector entities to provide strategic consulting, cut through red tape and promote cutting-edge ideas that will move the country forward.” He also became “co-champion” of the national popular vote movement, an effort to ensure that the winner of the presidential election is the candidate who wins the most popular votes.

There was bad news for travelers in north central Iowa this week. Delta Airlines announced plans to drop service to 24 unprofitable small markets across the country, including Fort Dodge and Mason City. According to KSCG radio, “Delta flights in Mason City have a 46-percent load factor, with Fort Dodge flights having a 39-percent load factor.” Senator Tom Harkin warned in a statement that Delta’s decision “could disrupt air service across the state, forcing Iowans to drive farther and travel for longer periods of time to meet their destination.  It will also negatively impact business operations in these areas.” Harkin noted that Delta is also seeking aid to continue serving Sioux City and Waterloo. The whole statement from Harkin’s office is after the jump. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a bill this year eliminating the Essential Air Service program, which subsidizes air travel to smaller communities. The Senate is trying to preserve the program, but House and Senate negotiators haven’t reached a compromise on that provision, which is part of a larger Federal Aviation Administration authorization bill.

By the way, that FAA bill passed the House on a mostly party-line vote (roll call). Republicans Tom Latham (IA-04) and Steve King (IA-05) voted for the bill, while Democrats Leonard Boswell (IA-03), Dave Loebsack (IA-02) and Bruce Braley (IA-01) voted against it. Currently Burlington, Mason City and Fort Dodge are the only Iowa communities receiving support through the Essential Air Service program. Loebsack represents the Burlington area, while Latham represents Mason City and Fort Dodge. Both of those cities are part of the new fourth Congressional district, where King will be running against former First Lady Christie Vilsack in 2012.

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

UPDATE: Someone tried to break into Representative Leonard Boswell’s farm outside Lamoni on Saturday night. Boswell was there with members of his family at the time. No one was seriously injured; a statement from Boswell’s office Sunday morning suggests that the intruder hasn’t been apprehended. That statement is after the jump.

President Barack Obama announced a slight change in our Afghanistan policy on television last night.

[S]tarting next month, we will be able to remove 10,000 of our troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year, and we will bring home a total of 33,000 troops by next summer, fully recovering the surge I announced at West Point. After this initial reduction, our troops will continue coming home at a steady pace as Afghan security forces move into the lead. Our mission will change from combat to support. By 2014, this process of transition will be complete, and the Afghan people will be responsible for their own security.

He asserted that the U.S. undertakes this drawdown “from a position of strength,” as the Al Qaeda terrorist network is now “under more pressure than at any time since 9/11.” He said the U.S. can achieve its goal to allow “no safe-haven” from which terorists “can launch attacks against our homeland, or our allies.” Obama also linked his gradual drawdown to boosting the U.S. economy:

Over the last decade, we have spent a trillion dollars on war, at a time of rising debt and hard economic times. Now, we must invest in America’s greatest resource – our people. We must unleash innovation that creates new jobs and industry, while living within our means. We must rebuild our infrastructure and find new and clean sources of energy. […]

America, it is time to focus on nation building here at home.

We’d have more resources to invest in the U.S. economy if we were bringing more troops home sooner. By the end of next summer our troop presence in Afghanistan will still be larger than it was when Obama became president. He ordered at least 21,000 additional U.S. troops to that war zone before the surge of 30,000 troops he announced at West Point in December 2009. Recent polling suggests a majority of Americans support withdrawing troops from Afghanistan at a faster pace.

We’d also be better positioned to “focus on nation building” at home if the president had not agreed to extend all the Bush tax cuts and bought into the austerity politics that makes another federal stimulus package unthinkable.

After the jump I’ve posted the full text of Obama’s televised remarks, along with comments released by Democratic Senator Tom Harkin and Representative Leonard Boswell (D, IA-03). Boswell praised Obama’s plan “to significantly reduce troops by the end of the year” as “an important first step in lessening our military presence and financial obligations in Afghanistan.” In contrast, Harkin said U.S. troops should be brought home from Afghanistan at a faster pace, saying, “We cannot justify the continued loss of life” and “can’t sustain the nearly $10 billion we are spending each month in Afghanistan this year.” Harkin questioned our presence in Afghanistan following the killing of Osama bin Laden. He was among 27 U.S. senators (24 Democrats, two Republicans and one independent) who wrote to Obama earlier this month urging “a shift in strategy and the beginning of a sizable and sustained reduction of U.S. military forces in Afghanistan, beginning in July 2011.”

I will update this post if other members of Iowa’s Congressional delegation comment on Obama’s speech. Representative Dave Loebsack (D, IA-02) is the only Iowan on the House Armed Services Committee. Last month Representative Bruce Braley (D, IA-01) called for “immediate withdrawal of our combat troops from Afghanistan,” bringing them home by the end of this year.

In related news, the U.S. Senate on June 21 unanimously confirmed Leon Panetta as the new Secretary of Defense. Greg Jaffe reported on outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ reaction to Obama’s speech last night:

“I support the President’s decision because it provides our commanders with enough resources, time and, perhaps most importantly, flexibility to bring the surge to a successful conclusion.” It’s clear that Gates would have preferred the surge troops stay in place through the end of 2012. But his statement suggests he still believes that the military will have enough forces to continue with the current counterinsurgency strategy.

UPDATE: Braley’s statement is now also below. He doesn’t agree with Obama’s plan and wants troops to come home sooner.

LATE UPDATE: Loebsack’s statement is now below.

Catching up on news from Congress, the U.S. House on June 16 approved an Agriculture appropriations bill for fiscal year 2012. House Republican leaders worked hard to whip up support for the bill, which squeaked through on a 217 to 203 vote (roll call). Of Iowa’s five House members, only Republican Tom Latham (IA-04) voted for final passage. He is close to House Speaker John Boehner. Steve King (IA-05) was among 19 Republicans to vote no; that group included “tea party” favorites like Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, Ron Paul of Texas and Jeff Flake of Arizona. Every Democrat present voted against the agriculture appropriations measure, including Iowans Bruce Braley (IA-01), Dave Loebsack (IA-02), and Leonard Boswell (IA-03).

Latham did not send out a news release on passage of this bill, which is odd, since he serves on the House Appropriations Committee. Then again, Latham also didn’t officially comment on House passage of the Defense Authorization Act last month.

Many Democrats opposed the agriculture appropriations bill because of big spending cuts like $600 million less for the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition program and a $30 million less for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. That commission is supposed to protect the public from fraud and manipulation of commodities markets. Loebsack and Boswell didn’t release statements explaining their vote against the agriculture appropriations legislation, despite the fact that Boswell serves on the House Agriculture Committee. Braley charged that the bill would hurt the Iowa economy in this statement to the media on June 16:

“Since the start of this Congress, we’ve seen a sustained attack on Iowa farmers and our state’s economy. This bill is just the latest to threaten the thousands of jobs that depend on agriculture and the ethanol industry. I voted against previous bills that threatened Iowa jobs and I voted against this bill today because I will always stand up for Iowa farmers, jobs and our middle class families.”

King didn’t draw attention to his vote against final passage of the appropriations measure, but he hailed the House votes on both of his amendments (only one of which passed). King’s statements and background on his amendments are after the jump. I also discuss how the Iowa delegation voted on other important amendments brought to the floor during two hours of debate. Sometimes all five Iowans voted the same way, sometimes they split on party lines, and sometimes King stood alone.

New YouTube Video: Environmental Protections Undermined Nationwide

A national network of state level environmental organizations, including the Iowa Environmental Council, has produced a new, YouTube video: “Our values, our environment, our future,” to draw attention to the impact of current and proposed state and federal budget cuts on environmental safeguards across the nation.

Melissa Gavin, Executive Director of the State Environmental Leadership Program, explains: “Basic protections for air and water quality are on the chopping block in states throughout the country. At the same time, EPA’s budget has also been under attack. People need to know that part of what is getting slashed is our capacity to enforce laws that protect health and quality of life—even funds that help us maintain sewage treatment and drinking water purification plants.”

READ MORE  ...

Seven- and three-minute versions of the video are available for viewing at the following urls:
Our values, our environment, our future – 7 minutes
Our Values, our environment, our future – 3 minutes

Please share this video with others!

Former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum is back in Iowa today, meeting and greeting potential caucus-goers in Denison before attending a “Trunk & Tusk” reception at a farm near Holstein later in the afternoon. Tonight he headlines an event for the Ida County Republican Party, and tomorrow he will join the Iowa Tea Party bus tour in Spencer.

Starting this week, Santorum will reach Iowa Republicans though the radio as well. His first commercial went up yesterday on nationwide satellite radio and hits the airwaves in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina later this week. The campaign didn’t release the size of the ad buy.

You can listen to Santorum’s 60-second spot at his presidential campaign website. I’ve posted my transcript after the jump, along with some analysis of the message and what’s notably absent from the message.

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.

Iowa’s five U.S. House representatives split on party lines when the House approved a 2012 budget for the Homeland Security department on June 2. Republicans Tom Latham (IA-04) and Steve King (IA-05) voted with most of their caucus for the bill, which significantly reduces Homeland Security appropriations from current levels. Democrats Bruce Braley (IA-01), Dave Loebsack (IA-02), and Leonard Boswell (IA-03) voted against the bill, as did all but 17 House Democrats.

Follow me after the jump for more about how the Iowans voted on notable Homeland Security budget amendments. I also discuss various amendments King tried to add to this bill.

The U.S. House of Representatives failed to approve a presidential request to increase the debt ceiling yesterday. Members rejected a motion to suspend the rules and proceed with that bill by a 318 to 97 vote (roll call). Every House Republican present voted against raising the debt ceiling, including Tom Latham (IA-04) and Steve King (IA-05). Nearly half the Democratic caucus also voted against yesterday’s motion, including Dave Loebsack (IA-02) and Leonard Boswell (IA-03). House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer advised Democratic colleagues to reject what he described as a “political charade” aimed at producing fodder for campaign attack ads. Bruce Braley (IA-01) missed yesterday’s vote to attend a family funeral but released a statement saying he would have opposed raising the debt ceiling. I’ve posted his comments after the jump. Since last November’s election, Braley has consistently been talking like a deficit hawk.

The U.S. hit its current debt ceiling in mid-May. If Congress does not raise the limit by August 2, the federal government will not be able to pay all of its bills. Republican leaders are pushing for major domestic spending cuts as a condition for raising the borrowing limit. Naturally, austerity won’t apply to the military budget, and that’s fine with Boswell, Loebsack, Latham and King.

I believe Democrats are making a mistake by accepting Republican demands for strings attached to the debt ceiling hike. President Bill Clinton refused to make such negotiations part of a deal on raising the borrowing limit in 1995, saying he would not let Congressional Republicans use the occasion to “backdoor their budget proposals.”

King asserted yesterday that repealing the federal health insurance reform law would “save the taxpayers $2.6 trillion” and would be a good start toward finding spending cuts to offset the president’s debt request. I’ve posted his full statement after the jump. At this writing I have not seen official comments on the debt ceiling from Loebsack, Boswell or Latham. If those become available, I will update this post.

UPDATE: Latham’s statements on the debt ceiling are now after the jump.

Catching up on news from last week, Democrat Bruce Braley (IA-01) was the only Iowan in the U.S. House to vote against the National Defense Authorization Act for 2012, which passed May 26 on a 322 to 96 vote (roll call). While Dave Loebsack (D, IA-02), Leonard Boswell (D, IA-03), Tom Latham (R, IA-04) and Steve King (R, IA-05) all supported the bill’s final passage, their votes broke down differently on a number of important amendments the House considered Thursday.

Follow me after the jump for details on those votes and statements some of Iowa’s representatives released regarding this bill.

The U.S. Senate rejected motions to proceed with considering four draft budgets for the 2012 fiscal year yesterday. Democratic leaders scheduled the vote primarily to get Republicans on the record supporting the budget that passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives last month. That blueprint, also known as Paul Ryan’s budget, foresees big changes to the Medicare program and became a central issue in Tuesday’s special election in New York’s 26th Congressional district.

Senator Chuck Grassley voted for two out of the three Republican proposals on the table, including the Ryan budget, while Senator Tom Harkin voted against all three GOP budgets as well as President Barack Obama’s budget blueprint.

Details on the votes and proposals are after the jump.

Two new reports examine how well Iowa and other states are serving people who travel on foot or by bicycle. Yesterday Transportation for America released Dangerous by Design 2011: Solving the Epidemic of Preventable Pedestrian Deaths. The report looks at factors contributing to 47,700 pedestrian deaths and more than 688,000 pedestrian injuries that happened in the U.S. from 2000 through 2009. Iowa didn’t emerge as one of the most dangerous states for pedestrians, but our state did conform to national trends showing ethnic minorities, lower-income residents, senior citizens and children are at greater risk of dying as pedestrians struck by vehicles.

Iowa placed sixth on the League of American Bicyclists 2011 Bicycle Friendly States rankings, but our state scored much better in some categories than others. Falling short in a couple of areas cost Iowa the “silver” or “bronze” recognition that several other states received.

Follow me after the jump for details from both reports and many other transportation links, including an update on passenger rail funding in Iowa.

A bill to expand offshore drilling for oil failed to advance in the U.S. Senate yesterday. Iowa’s Chuck Grassley was among 42 Republicans who voted to proceed with considering the Offshore Production and Safety Act of 2011 (roll call). Five Republicans joined every Democrat present, including Tom Harkin, in voting against the motion, which needed 60 votes to pass.

This bill was written as the Republican way to address high gasoline prices, in contrast with Democratic efforts to repeal oil company tax breaks. Although oil market experts agree that more drilling in the outer shelf won’t affect prices at the pump, I am surprised that no Senate Democrats backed yesterday’s motion to proceed. When the House of Representatives approved a different offshore drilling bill two weeks ago, a large chunk of the Democratic caucus (including Iowa’s Leonard Boswell) voted with Republicans.

In other Senate news, Grassley hasn’t announced how he will vote on House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan’s budget: “[Grassley] said the burden is on Senate Democrats to explain why they haven’t introduced their own alternative budget.” I would be shocked if Grassley voted against Ryan’s plan. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell isn’t whipping his colleagues to vote for the legislation, probably because Democrats plan to make proposed Medicare reforms the centerpiece of the 2012 election campaign. But Grassley doesn’t have to worry about being re-elected.

Nine-term incumbent Republican Tom Latham (IA-04) and eight-term incumbent Democrat Leonard Boswell (IA-03) will face off next year in Iowa’s third Congressional district. Latham spoke about the 2012 campaign today, making his first public remarks on the subject since he confirmed he would run against Boswell. Highlights from his comments are after the jump, along with Boswell’s first preview of how he will compare his record to Latham’s.

Sometime this week the Iowa Senate will consider Senate File 390, the nuclear energy rip-off bill Bleeding Heartland discussed here and here. MidAmerican Energy, which would benefit from the bill, has given generously to Iowa legislators from both parties and to political action committees. Constituents need to urge senators to reject this bill, which would hurt consumers, or at least table it. MidAmerican is in only the first year of a three-year feasibility study on nuclear power in Iowa. The Senate switchboard number is (515) 281-3371, or you can e-mail your senator. The Sierra Club Iowa chapter created an easy e-mail form here and posted a four-page pdf with more background information: “MidAmerican Energy Company’s Misguided Pursuit of Nuclear Power: removing barriers, providing incentives, and skirting the existing regulatory process.”

The Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation is hiring a Land Projects Associate to “provide support for 40-50 active land protection projects.” Click the link for the job description and skill requirements. Applications are due May 2. The 125-acre Bernau Prairie in Kossuth County is one recent example of a completed INHF land protection project.  

The Women, Food and Agriculture Network is accepting nominations for the second annual “Sustainable Farming Mom of the Year” award. Click here to view the 2010 finalists and winner. Nominations are due by 5 pm central time on Friday, May 6.

Trees Forever is seeking Iowans age 25 or younger to serve on its Youth Advisory Council. Applicants may be in high school, college or out of school. The Trees Forever site has more information on the council’s role.

Details on lots of events coming up this week are after the jump. Please post a comment or send me an e-mail if you know of another public event that should be mentioned here.

Former First Lady Christie Vilsack announced Wednesday that she will move to Ames next month and “continue to explore the possibility of representing Iowa in the US House of Representatives.” A Christie Vilsack for Iowa Facebook page and Christie Vilsack for Iowa website launched today as well. Vilsack’s statement and more news on the IA-04 race are after the jump.

The federal government is no longer in danger of shutting down. Today Congress approved a bill to fund operations through fiscal year 2011, which ends on September 30. In the House of Representatives, the bill passed by 260 votes to 167 (roll call). The bill needed bipartisan support, because only 179 House Republicans voted yes, including Iowa’s Tom Latham (IA-04). Steve King (IA-05) was among the 59 Republicans who voted against; that’s about one-fourth of the House GOP caucus. Leonard Boswell (IA-03) was among the 81 House Democrats who voted for the budget bill; Bruce Braley (IA-01) and Dave Loebsack (IA-02) voted against it.

After the bill passed, the House voted for two “corrections” to the bill, which passed on nearly party-line votes (roll calls here and here). One of those resolutions would defund the 2010 health care reform measure, the Affordable Care Act. The other would eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood. Latham and King voted for both “corrections,” while Boswell, Loebsack and Braley voted against them.

The Senate quickly took up the spending bill. The House measure to defund health care reform went down first; all 47 Republican senators voted yes, but all 53 senators who caucus with Democrats voted no. Then senators rejected the measure to defund Planned Parenthood. On that resolution, 42 Republicans, including Iowa’s Chuck Grassley, voted yes, while a few GOP moderates and the whole Democratic caucus, including Tom Harkin, voted no. The Senate then voted 81 to 19 to pass the spending bill. Most of the no votes were Republicans. Both Grassley and Harkin voted for the compromise to fund the government through the current fiscal year.

After the jump I’ve posted statements from some members of the Iowa delegation. I will update those as more become available. I noticed that Leonard Boswell did not issue a statement on his vote today; he also didn’t send out a press release Friday night about voting for the stopgap one-week spending measure. King’s press release today glossed over his vote against the budget deal; instead, he emphasized the House vote on language to block funding for “Obamacare.”

There’s some confusion about how much federal spending will be cut in the current fiscal year. According to the Congressional Budget Office, “while the agreement cuts almost $40 billion in budget authority, the near-term reduction in the federal deficit is only about $352 million.” Philip Rucker explained some of the accounting gimmicks in this Washington Post article. Many of the cuts will hurt, however.

Of the $38 billion in overall reductions in the budget that funds the government for the rest of the fiscal year, about $20 billion would come from domestic discretionary programs, while $17.8 billion would be cut from mandatory programs. […]

Although the pain would be felt across virtually the entire government – the deal includes a $1 billion across-the-board cut shared among all non-defense agencies – Republicans were able to focus the sharpest cuts on areas they have long targeted. The Education, Labor, and Health and Human Services departments, which represent about 28 percent of non-defense discretionary spending, face as much as a combined $19.8 billion, or 52 percent, of the total reductions in the plan.

In addition, the Environmental Protection Agency, long a target of conservatives, will see a $1.6 billion cut, representing a 16 percent decrease from 2010 levels. At the Department of the Interior, affected agencies include the Fish and Wildlife Services ($141 million cut from last year), the National Park Service ($127 million cut from last year) and “clean and drinking water state revolving funds” ($997 million cut from last year).

Democrats were able to beat back the most severe cuts originally proposed by House Republicans and protect funding for some cherished programs, such as Head Start, AmeriCorps and the implementation of the new health-care and food safety laws.

This pdf file lists the program cuts, grouped by department. There are basically no Defense Department cuts, although spending has been reduced on military construction and a few veterans’ programs. In other areas of domestic spending, there are too many ill-advised cuts to list in this post. Some terms in this deal are merely short-sighted: reducing spending on various literacy and conservation programs, energy efficiency and renewable energy, and a big cut to high-speed rail projects. Other provisions are immoral, like slashing spending for community health care centers and the Low-Income Heating and Energy Assistance Program’s contingency fund. It depresses me that a Democratic president and Senate majority leader agreed to make the largest USDA spending reduction apply to the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program.

The bill also contains provisions that have nothing to do with federal expenditures. For instance, it removes gray wolves from the endangered species list in Montana so that farmers and ranchers can shoot them.

At the end of this post I’ve added reaction from the Iowa Congressional delegation to President Barack Obama’s April 13 speech on bringing down the national debt. I didn’t watch the speech, but I read through the full text, as prepared. It contained some nice words for liberals and some Republican-bashing. The trouble is, based on the president’s handling of budget negotiations in the past few months, I believe Obama will end up agreeing to almost all the spending and entitlement cuts Republicans want. Despite his promises yesterday, I very much doubt he will block a permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts for all income levels.

At literally the eleventh hour Friday night, President Barack Obama and Congressional leaders struck a deal to keep the federal government running through the end of the 2011 fiscal year. The deal cuts a further $38 billion in spending, bringing total spending to a figure $78 billion below Obama’s original 2011 budget request. (That request was never enacted; the federal government has been running on a series of continuing resolutions since October 1.) The Hill reported last night,

Because it will take several days to translate the agreement into a legislative draft, both chambers passed a stopgap to keep the government funded until the middle of next week. The short-term measure would cut $2 billion from the budget […]

The deal cuts a total of $37.7 billion from current spending levels over the next six months. Of that total, $17.8 billion came from mandatory spending programs, including $2.5 billion in House transportation spending, according to a senior Democratic aide familiar with the deal.

Democrats knocked off most of the controversial policy riders that House Republicans had included in H.R. 1, the package of spending cuts that passed in February.

Republicans, however, won the inclusion of a rider to expand the District of Columbia’s school voucher program and to authorize a Government Accountability Office study of a financial oversight board established by the Wall Street reform bill.

Most significantly, Democrats won the disagreement over funding that included Planned Parenthood, which provides abortion services.

The Senate approved the short-term spending bill on a voice vote last night. I posted a statement issued by Senator Tom Harkin after the jump.

The House approved the bill a few minutes after midnight on a 348 to 70 vote (roll call). Republican Tom Latham (IA-04) and Democrats Bruce Braley (IA-01), Dave Loebsack (IA-02) and Leonard Boswell (IA-03) all voted yes. Steve King (IA-05) was among 28 Republicans to vote no. I’ve posted Loebsack’s statement after the jump and will add comments from other Iowans in the House when I see them.

Although most of the House Democratic caucus voted to keep the government running, this deal is a huge victory for House Republicans, especially Speaker John Boehner. He gave up the Planned Parenthood and EPA riders, but only after getting much deeper spending cuts, almost all from non-defense domestic programs. Reuters listed the cuts in the short-term spending bill. Most of the money comes out of high-speed rail, which is an idiotic program to cut from a job creation perspective. The deal covering the remainder of the fiscal year includes only about $3 billion in defense spending cuts, compared to $17.8 billion from benefit programs.

Obama bragged in his weekly radio address today, “Cooperation has made it possible for us to move forward with the biggest annual spending cut in history.” Yet again, he’s validating Republican ideology, rhetoric and tactics on the budget. Look for House Republicans to insist on even deeper cuts in domestic spending as a condition for raising the debt ceiling. I dread thinking about what will be in the 2012 budget bills. Republicans will make sure all the “shared sacrifice” comes from people who depend on government benefits.

Share any thoughts about the federal budget in this thread. I enjoyed Philip Rucker’s feature on the top negotiators for Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

A federal government shutdown appears imminent, with Republicans and Democrats still far from a deal and the last continuing resolution on fiscal year 2011 spending set to expire at the end of April 8. Trying to buy more negotiating time, House Republicans approved a new continuing resolution today that funds most of the federal government for just one week but the Department of Defense through the end of September (the remainder of the fiscal year). The bill passed on a 247 to 181 vote, mostly along party lines, despite a rare veto threat from President Barack Obama earlier today. The roll call shows that Steve King (IA-05) was one of only six Republicans to vote no on this bill, and Leonard Boswell (IA-03) was among only 15 Democrats to vote yes. Tom Latham (IA-04) voted yes, along with most of the GOP caucus. Democrats Bruce Braley (IA-01) and Dave Loebsack (IA-02) voted no, like most of the Democrats.

House and Senate leaders have been negotiating at the White House today and are scheduled to continue this evening, but prospects for a budget deal don’t look good. Both sides are “already spinning a shutdown.” The main sticking point seems to be not the dollar figure for cuts to the current-year budget, but a number of “riders” demanded by House Republicans, which are unacceptable to Democrats. Some of the most contentious ones would defund health care reform, Planned Parenthood and forbid the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases.

After the jump I’ve posted recent statements from Braley, Loebsack, and Latham regarding the federal budget negotiations and the continuing resolution passed today. Braley and Loebsack both denounced Washington political “games” and pointed out how thousands of Iowans would be affected by a shutdown. Latham said, “No one wants a government shutdown, and I’m doing everything I can to keep that from happening while protecting our troops […] However, we can’t continue to spend money we don’t have, and any budget approved by Congress must contain serious spending cuts.” Earlier today on the House floor, Latham stuck to the GOP script on the “troop funding bill”. I’ll update the post as more reaction becomes available.

Senator Tom Harkin has blamed Republican intransigence for the potential shutdown in many media interviews this week. Speaking on MSNBC today, he said that even in 1995 and 1996 he’d never seen anything like the current attitude among some Republicans who won’t compromise. Radio Iowa quoted Harkin as saying, “It is flabbergasting, that actually people are walking around here saying ‘shut the government down.’ I gotta ask sometimes, where’s their patriotism, where is their patriotism?” Speaking to reporters yesterday, Senator Chuck Grassley expressed frustration about Senate Republicans being excluded from the direct negotiations at the White House. He still sounds optimistic a shutdown can be avoided, though.

If Friday night’s deadline passes with no agreement, some government services would continue, including various law enforcement activities, air traffic control, the U.S. Postal Service, National Weather Service monitoring, and payment of food stamps and Social Security checks. However, approximately 800,000 federal employees would be furloughed, and many other Americans would be affected by cutbacks in government services. For instance, tax refunds would be delayed, national parks and forests would be closed, and neither the Federal Housing Administration nor the Small Business Administration would be able to process or approve new loans. Federal courts can continue to operate for two weeks, but if a shutdown lasts longer than that, “the federal court system faces serious disruption.” Over at Iowa Independent, Tyler Kingkade looked at how a federal government shutdown would affect Pell grants and the Head Start program in Iowa.

Share any thoughts about the federal budget impasse in this thread. I’m worried that the final deal will include too many spending cuts aimed at vulnerable people, and will be a drag on the economy as a whole. Tens of billions of dollars in cuts would not be on the table now if the Democratic-controlled Congress had completed work on the 2011 budget on time last year.

UPDATE: King explained his vote to IowaPolitics.com:

“I am on a singular mission to undo Obamacare,” King said. “I took the position that I’m going to hold my ground and I’m going to vote ‘no’ to any bill that does not cut off funding to Obamacare. When I give my word, I keep it. I see leadership moving away from using it as a lever. That’s a point of greater frustration.”

King also said, “I think the shutdown at this point is inevitable […] Then it becomes a stare down: who will blink.” Unfortunately, I think we can guess that President Obama will blink.

SECOND UPDATE: Jamie Dupree on the broken federal budget process: both parties have failed to approve budget bills on time during the last five election years.

Eli Lehrer has a post up on lobbyist influence over the “riders”: “the much longer list of environment-related riders looks like it was written almost entirely by specific industry lobbyists who have good relationships with certain members of Congress. Although there are some very broad efforts that would end virtually every climate-change or carbon-regulation program in the government, most of the environmental efforts are very narrow and, one assumes, serve a very few interests.”

THIRD UPDATE: Click here to listen to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack discuss the impact a shutdown would have on USDA operations.

On April 8 Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen and Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal vowed that legislators will settle their parties’ differences over the state budget in the coming weeks through “healthy dialogue,” with no chance of an impasse like what’s occurring in Washington.

Also on April 8, Bruce Braley’s office sent reporters a memo prepared by chief of staff John Davis about the impact a government shutdown would have on Iowa families and the Iowa economy. Among other things, the memo asserts that nearly 60 Iowa small businesses would not have SBA loans approved, about half of Iowa Guard personnel would not be paid, veterans would see delays in various benefits and support services, Farm Service Agency loans would be delayed, as would export licenses and applications for Social Security cards. Also, the memo warns, “Over 3000 employees of Rock Island Arsenal could be out of work,” based on what happened during the 1995 government shutdown.  

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.

The U.S. Senate approved a three-week continuing resolution on current-year federal spending yesterday, one day before the last continuing resolution was set to expire. Iowa’s Chuck Grassley and Tom Harkin both supported the measure, which passed on an 87 to 13 vote (roll call). Harkin was one of only nine senators to vote against the last temporary budget fix two weeks ago.

According to Josiah Ryan’s report for The Hill,

The new measure will keep the government funded through April 8. If the two sides do not reach a deal by then, the government would shut down. […]

The bill would reduce spending this year by $6 billion. Both the Obama administration and Senate Democrats supported many of the cuts.

The measure approved Thursday includes $2.1 billion in rescissions of funds that have not been used; $2.5 billion in earmark terminations and  $1.1 billion to financial services/general government programs.

This includes $276 million for a fund to fight flu pandemics; $225 million in funding for community service employment for older Americans; and $200 million in funding for Internet and technology projects.

In other Congressional news, the House of Representatives voted yesterday to “permanently prohibit direct federal funding to [National Public Radio], ban public radio stations from using federal funds to pay their NPR dues and prevent those stations from using federal dollars to buy programming.” The 228 to 192 vote went mostly on party lines. Iowa Republicans Tom Latham (IA-04) and Steve King (IA-05) both voted yes, while all Democrats present voted no, including Bruce Braley (IA-01), Dave Loebsack (IA-02) and Leonard Boswell (IA-03). In a speech to the House floor,

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) compared to the current move to strip NPR of federal funding to previous battles to strip ACORN and Planned Parenthood of the same, both of which were sparked by sting videos by conservative activists.

“Of all of the data that we’ve seen, we still had not absorbed the culture of NPR until we saw the video of that dinner,” Rep. King said.

That “sting video” was heavily edited to take certain comments out of context.

As far as I know, Braley was the only member of the Iowa delegation to issue a statement on the NPR funding vote. I’ve posted that after the jump. Both the White House and Democrats who have a majority in the U.S. Senate oppose defunding NPR.

UPDATE: I’ve added a March 18 e-mail blast from Loebsack after the jump.

The House of Representatives approved a three-week continuing resolution on current-year spending today by a vote of 271 to 158 (roll call). If the Senate does not approve the bill by Friday, the federal government will shut down. The Iowa delegation split the same way as two weeks ago, when the House approved the last continuing resolution. Republican Tom Latham (IA-04) and Democrats Bruce Braley (IA-01), Dave Loebsack (IA-02) and Leonard Boswell (IA-03) all voted for the spending bill. Two weeks ago Steve King (IA-05) was among only six House Republicans to vote against the continuing resolution. Today he had much more company; 54 House Republicans voted against the bill backed by their leaders. The measure would have failed without Democratic support.

That support is eroding as well. Two weeks ago, yes votes outnumbered noes in the House Democratic caucus, but today a majority of House Democrats voted against the continuing resolution. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), has said he will not support another continuing resolution after this one. If House and Senate leaders don’t reach a comprehensive agreement on fiscal 2011 spending during the next three weeks, it may become more difficult to avoid a shutdown.

King told ABC News this week he isn’t worried about that outcome:

Rep. Steve King is lobbying his colleagues to take their fight against President Obama’s health care law to a new level: He wants to cut off funding for the law as a condition for keeping other government funds in place.

“We have a leverage point, and it is the funding for the government for the balance of the fiscal year 2011,” King, R-Iowa, told us today on ABC’s “Top Line.” “This is the place to pitch the fight.”

If such a stance brings about a partial government shutdown, it would be Democrats’ fault, King said: “If we shut off the funding to implement Obamacare and the Senate or the president refuses to go along with it, that is their decision, not ours.”

Still, King argued, a shutdown might not be a bad result.

“If essential services keep going, no, it wouldn’t be. And I think that we’d be able to keep essential services going on. You know, the wedge issue is this: Is the president — would he think that his signature issue is more important to him than all the functions of government? That’s the question. And in the end, will American people stand with us, or will they stand with Obamacare?”

In other Congressional news, King is the only Iowan among 81 House Republicans cosponsoring a concurrent resolution that “condemns the Obama administration’s direction that the Department of Justice should discontinue defending the Defense of Marriage Act; and demands that the Department of Justice continue to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in all instances.” King has vowed to seek a funding reduction for the DOJ since President Barack Obama instructed the department not to defend Section 3 of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act in court.

After the jump I’ve posted Braley’s statement on today’s vote. I will add press releases from the other Iowans in the House if and when I see them.

UPDATE: I see King has introduced a federal official English bill again: “A common language is the most powerful unifying force known throughout history, […] We need to encourage assimilation of all legal immigrants in each generation. A nation divided by language cannot pull together as effectively as a people.” As a state senator, King was the leading advocate of Iowa’s official English bill, which Governor Tom Vilsack signed in 2002. King later sued successfully to stop the Secretary of State’s office from providing voter registration information in languages other than English.

I’ll be interested to see whether the House Republican leadership lets King’s new bill go forward, or whether the same concerns that cost King a subcommittee chairmanship this year sink his efforts to require the federal government to conduct most services in English.

SECOND UPDATE: King’s statement is now after the jump. Politifact provides more context on the $105 billion figure King mentions here.

Last October the U.S. Department of Transportation approved $230 million for passenger rail between Iowa City and Chicago, going through the Quad Cities. However, the November election results placed both federal and state money for that project in doubt.

Follow me after the jump for recent news on prospects for funding the passenger rail link.  

With about a week left before the latest continuing resolution on federal government spending expires, Congress is nowhere near a budget deal for the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year. Yesterday the U.S. Senate rejected both a House bill that would cut about $61 billion in spending and an alternative favored by most Democratic senators, which would cut only a few billion in spending before September 30. H.R. 1, the House Republicans’ bill, received 44 yes votes and 56 no votes (roll call). All Democrats voted against the House proposal; the three Republicans who joined them rejected it because in their view, it did not cut federal spending deeply enough. A Democratic amendment offered by Senator Daniel Inouye failed by a wider margin, 42 to 58 (roll call). Eleven Democrats joined all Senate Republicans in rejecting that proposal.

After the jump I’ve posted statements on yesterday’s votes from Senators Chuck Grassley and Tom Harkin. Grassley voted for the House Republican proposal and against Inouye’s amendment, while Harkin voted the opposite way.

Today Senate Democratic leaders called on House Republicans to compromise:

“The lesson that Sen. Reid was referring to, the lesson that we’re all referring to, is that H.R. 1 can’t pass, and if you insist on H.R. 1 we’re going to be gridlocked, so give us some alternatives,” [Senator Chuck Schumer] added, in reference to the package of House-passed spending cuts.

Schumer accused Republicans of intransigence and said Boehner must come forward with a new proposal for fiscal 2011 spending levels to avert a government shutdown.

“We are now asking Speaker Boehner to go talk to his 89 freshmen who seem to say they just want H.R. 1 or nothing, show them that that can’t happened and come back and say ‘what are you willing to put on the table,’ ” he said.

Schumer later corrected himself to note there are 87 Republican freshmen in the House.

House Speaker John Boehner told reporters today,

“I think it’s time for them to get serious – and they’re not serious, and it’s time to get serious about cutting spending, and the talks are going to continue but they aren’t going to get very far if they don’t get serious about doing what the American people expect them to do,” Boehner told reporters.

House Republicans are now working on a new three-week continuing resolution, which would cut about $6 billion in current-year spending. It needs to pass by March 18 to avoid a federal government shutdown. Four of Iowa’s five House representatives voted for the last continuing resolution; Steve King rejected it “because some of ObamaCare is funded by it and the Pence amendment to block Planned Parenthood is not in.”

It was an action-packed week at the state capitol, with Iowa House and Senate committees deciding which non-budget bills merit further consideration and which would be dead for the 2011 session. The full news roundup from the state legislature is coming later this weekend.

Governor Terry Branstad rolled out more than 200 appointments this week. I covered some of them here and here. Look over the governor’s long list and post a comment if I left out any appointees who seem particularly noteworthy.

Here’s an unsurprising story: Senator Tom Harkin is “greatly disappointed” in the White House approach to negotiations over fiscal year 2011 spending:

Harkin said that he objected to the White House’s emphasis on non-security discretionary spending, which is about 12% of the overall budget but has drawn the overwhelming attention of both parties in their efforts to trim the deficit. Neither Democratic or Republican leaders are proposing raising taxes to help bridge the gap. According to Harkin, discretionary spending cuts disproportionately hurt working families by targeting safety net programs and education.

“The White House is wrong on that,” Harkin said. “I want to see proposals like what Bill Clinton did in 1995. He said we’re not going to cut education, we’re not going to cut women, infant, and children programs, we’re just not going to cut those specific things. I want to see the President out there using his bully pulpit…talking about what those specific cuts are out there and then to advocate, saying ‘Look everything is on the table.’” […]

“If we’re going to do this let’s do it fair — one-third mandatory, one-third discretionary, one-third revenue,” he said.

I’m “shocked, shocked” that the Obama administration conceded the heart of the budget cut dispute to the GOP before the serious deal-making began.

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

The U.S. Senate approved a two-week continuing resolution on spending today by a vote of 91 to 9 (roll call). The House of Representatives passed the same resolution yesterday to avert a federal government shutdown. Previous legislation on fiscal year 2011 spending expires on March 4. Iowa’s Chuck Grassley was among the large bipartisan majority supporting today’s bill. Tom Harkin was one of the few dissenting votes (five Republicans, three Democrats and independent Bernie Sanders, who caucuses with Democrats).

Explaining his vote, Harkin said,

I voted against this proposal not because I want to see the government shut down, but because this is not the right way to budget: Congress should not keep the government open in two-week increments with proposals that slash funding for priorities such as education or unfairly target the most vulnerable.  

My primary concern with this specific proposal stems from my concern about the economy overall, which is greatly threatened by Republican budget cuts that economists agree will kill jobs and increase the odds of a double-dip recession.   I am also troubled by the substantial cuts to education programs.  This amounts to significant funding cuts that hurt kids, especially the neediest kids, some of our Title I schools and others.

I’ve posted the full statement from Harkin after the jump. Grassley’s office has not yet released a statement on the continuing resolution, but if one appears I will add it to this post.

Yesterday four Iowa representatives in the House voted for the continuing resolution. Steve King (R, IA-05) voted no “because some of ObamaCare is funded by it and the Pence amendment to block Planned Parenthood is not in.”

I can’t think of any other legislation on which Tom Harkin and Steve King voted one way, and the rest of the Iowa delegation in Congress voted the other way. If you know of any examples, please post them in the comments.

The House of Representatives approved a two-week continuing resolution today by a bipartisan vote of 335 to 91. If approved by the Senate, the continuing resolution gives members of Congress more time to strike a deal on spending during the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year. The previous spending resolution is set to expire on March 4, and leaders in both parties have said they are not seeking a shutdown of the federal government. The roll call shows that Steve King (IA-05) was one of only six House Republicans to vote against the continuing resolution. Tom Latham (IA-04) was among 231 Republicans who voted in favor. Democrats Bruce Braley (IA-01), Dave Loebsack (IA-02), Leonard Boswell (IA-03) were all among the 104 House Democrats who voted for the continuing resolution. The 85 Democrats who voted no included representatives from all wings of the party, but primarily members of the Progressive caucus, Congressional Black Caucus or Hispanic Caucus.

Pete Kasperowicz reports for The Hill,

More Democrats voted for the measure, which would reduce spending by $4 billion over the next two weeks, than against it, despite criticism of the GOP proposal ahead of the vote by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the Democratic leader and former Speaker.

Democratic leaders were divided. Pelosi voted no, but House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) voted for it. Democratic leaders urged their members to vote against the rule for the bill, but did not urge their members to vote against the spending measure itself.

I don’t have details on the $4 billion in cuts, but according to Raven Clabough, “Many of the cuts are from programs that President Obama has called for eliminating and the rest of the savings comes from ending the practice of earmarks.”

Before the final vote today,

the House voted on an amendment proposed by Representative William Keating that would eliminate taxpayer-funded subsidies to oil companies, a measure that failed by a vote of 176 to 249.

The roll call shows that vote went primarily along party lines. All House Republicans present (including Latham and King) voted against ending subsidies to oil companies. Boswell, Loebsack and Braley were among the 176 Democrats who voted to save money by cutting those subsidies.

UPDATE: As of Tuesday evening, only Braley’s office had released comments on today’s House votes. I’ve posted them after the jump. Like other recent statements by Braley, they emphasize the need to reduce the federal deficit.

SECOND UPDATE: King posted on his Twitter feed, “I will vote “NO” on the two week CR because some of ObamaCare is funded by it and the Pence amendment to block Planned Parenthood is not in.” Representative Michele Bachmann, a close ally of King who is considering running for president, voted against the continuing resolution for the same reasons.

The U.S. House approved a continuing resolution to fund the federal government through September 30 by a 235 to 189 vote at 4:40 am Saturday morning. The bill contains about $61.5 billion in spending cuts; it “would kill more than 100 [federal] programs and cut funding for hundreds more.” The roll call shows remarkable party unity; all but three House Republicans voted for the bill, and every Democrat present voted against it. Iowa’s representatives voted along the usual party lines.

Much of the language in this continuing resolution will never become law. President Barack Obama has already threatened to veto the House bill, and the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate is working on its own continuing resolution with roughly $25 billion to $41 billion in spending cuts. Some signs point toward a federal government shutdown, but House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan says House Republicans are not seeking that outcome. Quinn Bowman and Linda Scott further note:

To make time for the negotiations between the two chambers, yet another short term [continuing resolution] might need to be passed – which brings up another wrinkle: as time passes and the fiscal year gets shorter and shorter, Republicans set on cutting billions from the rest of the year’s budget will have a smaller pie to slice as money is spent.

Many House Democrats denounced the Republican budget cuts, but I didn’t see any of them acknowledge the failure to pass 2011 budget bills when Democrats still controlled both chambers of Congress. U.S. Senate Republicans blocked the Democratic omnibus spending bill during the lame-duck session in December, setting the stage for the current budget brinksmanship. None of these fiscal 2011 spending cuts would be on the table if Congress had passed budget bills on time last year.

After the jump I’ve posted the five Iowa House representatives’ statements on the House continuing resolution for fiscal year 2011. All include themes we are likely to hear during the 2012 Congressional campaigns. Democrats Bruce Braley (IA-01), Dave Loebsack (IA-02) and Leonard Boswell (IA-03) embraced the principle of reducing government spending, but argued that the GOP plan would eliminate jobs here and undermine the national economic recovery. I noticed that Boswell is holding a roundtable discussion about transportation on February 22; expect him to warn of the dire consequences of proposed GOP spending cuts.

Braley’s comment on the continuing resolution warned that the proposal “will kill thousands of jobs in Iowa’s ethanol industry.” In that vein, I’ve also enclosed below his statement from February 16, touting an amendment he proposed to “safeguard the Renewable Fuel Standard.” The Environmental Protection Agency issued its final rule on the Renewable Fuel Standard earlier this month. Braley asserts that the continuing resolution blocks the EPA “from setting renewable fuel standards for 2012,” and industry groups are worried. House leaders ruled Braley’s amendment out of order, and Republican Tom Latham (IA-04) argued that the language prohibiting the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases would not affect the ethanol industry in any way. At The Iowa Republican blog, Craig Robinson says Braley “didn’t understand what he was talking about,” while Bleeding Heartland user SamuelJKirkwood claims here that Latham was misinformed or ignoring the facts. If that portion of the continuing resolution becomes law, we’ll find out later this year who was correct (either ethanol industry jobs will disappear or they won’t). Iowans are likely to hear more about this issue during the 2012 campaign, especially if the new map throws Braley and Latham into the same district.

Latham’s statement on the continuing resolution praised Congress for starting down “the road less traveled,” passing “some of the biggest spending cuts in the history of Congress.” He did some sleight of hand: “I joined a majority of my colleagues […] to vote in favor of cutting $100 billion in federal spending over the president’s funding request for the current fiscal year.” Jamie Dupree explains,

As for the budget cuts in this bill, Republicans persisted in calling this a cut of over $100 billion – but that figure is misleading, as it compares the bill’s spending levels to President Obama’s budget from last year, which was never enacted by the Congress.

It’s worth noting that Latham didn’t stand with the most ambitious House GOP axe-wielders. He was among 92 Republicans who joined Democrats to reject an amendment containing $22 billion more in cuts. Without elaborating, Latham described that proposal as “not thoughtful.” (As opposed to, say, zeroing out federal support for the Public Broadcasting Service or the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change–very thoughtful!)

The statement from Republican Steve King (IA-05) focused on his own successful amendments to the continuing resolution, which prohibit the use of federal funding “to implement and enforce ObamaCare.” King has consistently been one of the loudest voices in the House for repealing or otherwise blocking the health insurance reform law approved last March. Incidentally, unlike Latham, King voted for that amendment proposing to cut an additional $22 billion from current-year spending.

I haven’t seen any statement from Senator Chuck Grassley regarding the House GOP’s spending cut plans. Democratic Senator Tom Harkin has been on a tear for days, blasting how the House continuing resolution would affect health care in Iowa, employment and training in Iowa, the Social Security Administration in Iowa, education in Iowa, and so on.

Share any thoughts about the federal budget or the political debate over spending cuts in this thread.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? Some news that caught my eye recently:

Tens of thousands of people in Wisconsin have protested against efforts by Republican Governor Scott Walker and the GOP-controlled legislature to impose big benefit cuts on public employees and curtail their collective bargaining rights. The 14 Democrats in the Wisconsin Senate left the state to deny Republicans a quorum for passing the anti-union bill. I’ve been following the day to day news on the Uppity Wisconsin blog.

Joel Northup, a wrestler for Linn-Mar high school, qualified for the state tournament but defaulted when his bracket paired him with Cassy Herkelman, a girl from Cedar Falls. Herkelman and Megan Black of Ottumwa made history this year by becoming the first girls to qualify for the Iowa high school state wrestling tournament.

Johnson County supervisors voted 5-0 on Thursday to ban firearms and dangerous weapons from buildings, lands and vehicles owned by the county. Some Republicans in the Iowa legislature are pushing a bill that would bar local governments from restricting guns in that manner.

State Senator Mark Chelgren’s stupid comments about Iowa’s voluntary preschool program for four-year-olds prompted Mr. desmoinesdem to look up information about pre-primary education in the Communist bloc. Contrary to Chelgren’s assertion that the Soviets started indoctrinating children early, when “they’re so malleable,” the USSR provided essentially day care rather than formal education for children under age 7.

The Internal Revenue Service declared this month that breast pumps are a tax-deductible expense, reversing a determination made last fall. A quality pump can cost hundreds of dollars. Pumping has its detractors but can be invaluable for working women who want to continue breastfeeding, or for women whose babies are unable to breastfeed.

Zach Wahls, whose testimony against the marriage amendment at an Iowa House public hearing went viral on YouTube, appeared on the Ellen show this week.

Governor Terry Branstad’s double-dipping (continuing to draw his $50,000 state pension while receiving a $130,000 salary as governor) made news in Iowa a few days ago. Branstad’s communications director, Tim Albrecht, said the governor “made a significant personal sacrifice” by resigning as president of Des Moines University. In that job he had received more than $350,000 per year.

One low-profile story that should be getting more attention is the wide-ranging spending cut bill under consideration in the House of Representatives. H.R. 1 would decimate funding for too many good programs to list in this post. For example, Iowa would lose $12 million in K-12 funding for various programs, $116 million in Pell grant funds, $1.4 million for vocational and adult education, $6.9 million for job training, $1 million for mental health and substance abuse treatment grants, $4.3 million for various low-income housing programs, $28 million in clean water-related funds, $28 million for Community Development Block Grants, and $1.3 million for justice assistance grants. Key transportation programs nationwide would also lose funding, including public transit and high-speed rail.

This is an open thread.

In a surprising victory for common sense over lobbying by major defense contractor General Electric, the House of Representatives on February 16 scrapped funding for an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter backup engine the Pentagon doesn’t want.  The amendment to the continuing resolution on defense funding for the current fiscal year passed on an unusual bipartisan vote; 123 Democrats and 110 Republicans voted to kill the $450 million appropriation, while 130 Republicans and 68 Democrats voted to keep money for the jet engine in the bill (roll call). Democrat Bruce Braley (IA-01) was the only member of the Iowa House delegation to vote for ending the funding. He should cite this vote as evidence that he is serious about tackling government waste. Democrats Dave Loebsack (IA-02) and Leonard Boswell (IA-03) and Republicans Tom Latham (IA-04) and Steve King (IA-05) all voted against the amendment. They should explain why they want to spend $450 million this fiscal year to continue a program that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has called “a waste of nearly $3 billion.”

Loebsack serves on the House Armed Services Committee. Boswell used to serve on that committee but no longer does in the new Congress.

In other Congressional news, the U.S. Senate approved a three-month extension for controversial PATRIOT Act provisions on February 15 by a vote of 86 to 12. Senator Chuck Grassley voted yes, as did all but two of his Republican colleagues. Senator Tom Harkin was among ten members of the Democratic caucus to vote no (roll call). Harkin’s office did not issue a statement on this vote and did not respond to my request for comment, so I don’t know whether he is against all efforts to extend those controversial PATRIOT Act provisions, or whether he would support Senator Pat Leahy’s bill to extend the provisions through 2013 with “additional safeguards to the act which would provide for increased oversight of U.S. Intelligence gathering tools.” Grassley has introduced a rival Senate bill that would permanently extend the government surveillance powers.  

President Barack Obama delivers the State of the Union address tonight. Share any comments about his speech or his presidency in this thread.

I find the prospect of a Democratic president arguing for austerity budgeting deeply depressing. A domestic budget freeze is a bad idea, and an earmark ban is just a waste of time. Earmarks don’t add to the deficit; they just give members of Congress more power to control how certain pots of money are spent.

I cannot believe how much media coverage has been wasted on plans for some Democrats and Republicans to sit together for the State of the Union. Who cares?

The “revisionist history” blaming Rahm Emanuel for Obama’s mistakes during his first two years sounds pathetic, even though I am not at all an admirer of Emanuel.

UPDATE: John Deeth is liveblogging at his place.

SECOND UPDATE: I don’t know why Obama is so intent on repeating the “great mistake” of 1937.

I’ve posted statements released by Iowa’s Congressional delegation after the jump.

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.

The U.S. Senate approved a continuing resolution today to fund the federal government at current levels through March 4, 2011. Both the cloture motion and the bill itself passed by large bipartisan majorities; Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin and Republican Chuck Grassley voted for the cloture motion and the funding resolution. Harkin slammed Republicans for blocking the fiscal year 2011 omnibus bill last week, because unlike the continuing resolution approved today, the omnibus bill would have increased funding for programs such as Head Start, child care subsidies, meals for seniors and drugs for AIDS patients. The House of Representatives is expected to approve the continuing resolution later today to stop the government from running out of money at midnight. UPDATE: The House approved the spending bill by 193 to 165, with 75 representatives not voting. All five Iowans voted, and they split along party lines.

A bigger problem will come in March, when House Republicans force through major cuts in domestic spending (probably with the eager cooperation of President Barack Obama). Those will be a drag on the economy, erasing any stimulative effect from the lousy deal Obama struck on extending the Bush tax cuts.

Meanwhile, the House gave final approval to the food safety bill today on a mostly party-line vote of 215 to 144. Iowa’s representatives split the usual way, with Democrats Bruce Braley, Dave Loebsack and Leonard Boswell voting for the bill and Republicans Tom Latham and Steve King voting against it. I am still surprised that the Senate resurrected the food safety bill on Sunday. I have yet to see any explanation for why Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma agreed to let it pass. Coburn had been that bill’s most vocal opponent in the Senate all year. It’s not as if Coburn suddenly decided to stop being a jerk; he appears ready to block the 9/11 responders bill from becoming law during the lame-duck session. Even some Fox News commentators are upset about that political maneuver.

The Senate took a step toward ratifying the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) today. Eleven Republicans joined all Democrats present to approve a cloture motion on that treaty, which the U.S. and Russia signed in April. Grassley voted with most of his GOP colleagues against the cloture motion on START; he has voted for various Republican amendments offered to the treaty. I haven’t seen any statement from his office explaining his opposition. The last START expired in December 2009, and we need to ratify the new treaty in order to resume inspecting Russian nuclear bases. There could hardly be a more important national security issue. Ronald Reagan’s former chief arms control negotiator said last month that Iran and North Korea were the “only two governments in the world that wouldn’t like to see this treaty ratified.”

Yesterday the House of Representatives approved and President Barack Obama signed a $26.1 billion package to support state education and Medicaid budgets in the current fiscal year. The bill passed the House by a 247 to 161 vote. Iowa’s House delegation split on party lines, as with the 2009 federal stimulus bill and previous legislation designed to support public sector jobs in the states. Iowa will receive about $96.5 million of the $10 billion in education funding, enough to save an estimated 1,800 teachers’ jobs.

The bill also contains $16.1 billion in Federal Medical Assistance Percentage or FMAP funding, including about $128 million to support Iowa’s Medicaid budget in the 2011 fiscal year. Last week I read conflicting reports about how much Medicaid assistance Iowa would receive, but staffers for Representatives Bruce Braley and Dave Loebsack confirmed yesterday that $128 million is the correct figure. That’s a bit more than Iowa legislators were counting on for FMAP funding in the 2011 budget. Extra federal spending on Medicaid also “has an economic benefit for the state of Iowa far greater than the federal government’s initial investment,” according to Iowa State University economist Dave Swenson.

For the last several days, I have been searching for some comment on this legislation from Republican gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad. I’ve found nothing in news clips, and his campaign has not issued a press release on the federal fiscal aid since the Senate approved the bill on August 4.

Branstad rails against “one-time sources” of funding to support the state budget, but he has nothing to say about $96.5 million for Iowa schools and $128 million for Iowans dependent on Medicaid services.

Branstad is happy to run false advertising about the number of teachers’ jobs supposedly lost in Iowa, but he has nothing to say when federal action saves a significant number of teachers’ jobs. The issue is a bit awkward for Branstad, because Republicans Tom Latham and Steve King voted against the fiscal aid bill in the House, just as Republican Chuck Grassley voted no in the Senate.

Perhaps Branstad lacks the courage to go beyond vague campaign rhetoric about excessive government spending. It’s easy to talk abstractly about “one-time” funding, but risky to slam government support for education and Medicaid. CNN’s latest nationwide poll, which was in the field from August 6 through August 10, asked respondents, “Do you favor or oppose a bill in which the federal government would provide 26 billion dollars to state governments to pay for Medicaid benefits and the salaries of public school teachers or other government workers?” 60 percent of respondents favored such a bill, while only 38 percent opposed it.

Speaking of conspicuous silence from Branstad, when will he tell us how he plans to keep his contradictory promises to cut state spending by 15 percent while having the state pay a larger share of mental health and school funding?

Share any relevant thoughts in this thread.

Good news: the U.S. Senate overcame an attempt to filibuster a bill containing $26.1 billion in fiscal aid to state governments today. About $10 billion will support state education budgets in order to save teaching jobs. The other $16.1 billion will support state Medicaid budgets according to the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage or FMAP formula, which was originally part of the 2009 stimulus package. The Senate’s final vote on this bill is set for August 5, and it will easily gain more than the 50 votes needed for passage. Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to call the House of Representatives back from August recess in order to approve this bill next week.

Iowa’s Senator Tom Harkin was a co-sponsor of this bill. Senator Chuck Grassley joined Republicans who tried to block it from getting an up-or-down floor vote. I haven’t seen a statement from his office explaining why. The bill does not add to the deficit, because expenses are offset by revenue-raising measures:

Senate Democrats said the $26 billion bill would be paid in part by revenue raising changes in tax law. Senate Democrats said the modifications would curtail abuses of the U.S. foreign tax credit system. The bill would also end the Advanced Earned Income Tax Credit and would return in 2014 food stamp benefits to levels set before last year’s federal stimulus plan.

I’m not happy about cutting future food stamp benefits, but there may be opportunities to restore that funding in other bills. This federal fiscal aid is urgently needed to prevent teacher layoffs in the school year that’s about to begin.  

Republican gubernatorial nominee Terry Branstad has been touring Iowa this summer with a contradictory campaign message. On the one hand, he blasts education cuts that have eliminated some teaching positions (he exaggerates the number of teacher layoffs, but that’s a topic for another post). On the other hand, Branstad criticizes the use of “one-time money” from the federal government to support the state budget. He promises to veto any budget that would spend more than 99 percent of projected state revenues. Branstad has never explained what he would have cut to make up for the federal stimulus money, but other questions are on my mind today, namely:

1. Does Branstad think Grassley did the right thing in trying to stop this fiscal aid package from reaching Iowa and other states?

2. Iowa’s budget for fiscal year 2011 assumes about $120 million in additional Medicaid funding under the FMAP program. If elected governor, would Branstad try to return that money to the federal government?

3. Would Branstad reject federal education funding that is targeted for saving teachers’ jobs in the upcoming academic year?

Share any relevant thoughts in this thread.

UPDATE: A statement from Senator Harkin’s office says this bill would provide “at least $128 million in additional Medicaid funding” to Iowa in the current fiscal year. Harkin also said,

“This vote came down to one thing: priorities.  Today, a majority of Senators proved that our priority is helping those who are the backbone of this country, America’s teachers and our families, to weather the continuing effects of the great recession.  And we provide this funding without adding one dime to the deficit.

“This is a crisis of the first order.  Not since the Great Depression have our public schools faced the prospect of such massive layoffs.  With this fund, we will preserve tens of thousands of education jobs that states can use for retaining or hiring employees at the pre-K and K-12 levels.

“Also with the funding, we provide critical assistance to states, whose budgets are already stretched to the limit, to protect Medicaid.  This six month extension of federally-matched funding will allow states to continue health benefits for some of the nation’s most needy.”

SECOND UPDATE: Jennifer Jacobs reported somewhat different numbers for the Des Moines Register:

A federal spending plan that advanced in Congress Wednesday would route $83.1 million in extra money to help Iowa pay for children’s services and payments to hospitals and nursing homes.

But the Iowa Legislature banked on getting an $116 million in extra federal Medicaid money in the first six months of next year.

That means the state budget will be short $32.9 million – or short $116 million if the bill fails to pass Congress altogether, according to the non-partisan Legislative Services Agency. Medicaid is the government health insurance plan for the poor. […]

The measure would give states $16 billion to help cover their Medicaid budgets, and $10 billion to extend programs enacted in last year’s stimulus law to help preserve the jobs of teachers, police officers, firefighters and other public employees.

Iowa would get about $96.5 million in the jobs piece, which would protect about 1,500 jobs, said U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, a Democrat.

Keep in mind that Iowa’s budget for fiscal year 2011 has an ending balance of $182.6 million, providing a cushion in case some expected revenue doesn’t materialize. Also, state revenues for the first month of the current fiscal year exceeded projections. Falling short $32.9 million in federal Medicaid assistance isn’t ideal, but it is manageable and far better than falling $116 million short, as would happen if Grassley and other Republicans got their way.

THIRD UPDATE: The Senate gave final approval to this bill on August 5 by a 61-39 vote. Grassley voted no along with most of the Republican caucus.

It took me a week longer than I anticipated, but I finally finished compiling links to Bleeding Heartland’s coverage from last year. This post and part 2, coming later today, include stories on national politics, mostly relating to Congress and Barack Obama’s administration. Diaries reviewing Iowa politics in 2009 will come soon.

One thing struck me while compiling this post: on all of the House bills I covered here during 2009, Democrats Leonard Boswell, Bruce Braley and Dave Loebsack voted the same way. That was a big change from 2007 and 2008, when Blue Dog Boswell voted with Republicans and against the majority of the Democratic caucus on many key bills.

No federal policy issue inspired more posts last year than health care reform. Rereading my earlier, guardedly hopeful pieces was depressing in light of the mess the health care reform bill has become. I was never optimistic about getting a strong public health insurance option through Congress, but I thought we had a chance to pass a very good bill. If I had anticipated the magnitude of the Democratic sellout on so many aspects of reform in addition to the public option, I wouldn’t have spent so many hours writing about this issue. I can’t say I wasn’t warned (and warned), though.

Links to stories from January through June 2009 are after the jump. Any thoughts about last year’s political events are welcome in this thread.