The Siemens corporation announced today that “it will lay off 407 of the 660 workers at the blade manufacturing plant that is one of the five largest employers” in Fort Madison, Iowa (Lee County). Follow me after the jump for more details and reaction from Iowa elected officials and Congressional candidates.

Republican Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan campaigned in Des Moines yesterday, while Vice President Joe Biden kicked off a two-day swing through Iowa in Burlington. I’ve enclosed highlights from both men’s speeches after the jump. I’ll update this post later with clips from Biden’s events today in Ottumwa and Grinnell.

Three days after proudly announcing the largest set of tax incentives Iowa has ever offered to a corporation, Governor Terry Branstad criticized President Barack Obama’s “penchant for trying to pick winners and losers in the marketplace.”

The two major-party presidential candidates held rallies yesterday in Iowa’s key Republican and Democratic strongholds. Mitt Romney was in Sioux County, which has voted more than 80 percent Republican in past presidential elections. Barack Obama and Joe Biden were in Johnson County, which has delivered big margins to Democrats who won close statewide elections in the past.

A bidding war between Iowa and Illinois ended yesterday, as an Egyptian company’s representative stood with Governor Terry Branstad to announce plans for a $1.4 billion fertilizer plant in Lee County. A package of state, federal, and local tax incentives worth hundreds of millions of dollars will support the project, costing taxpayers more than $1 million for each of the 165 permanent jobs created.

Voting for the so-called “failed stimulus” has become a stock phrase in Republican attack ads against Congressional Democrats. But as Bleeding Heartland has discussed many times before, the “Great Recession” would have been more devastating without the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

State budget cuts are a huge drag on the economy. Follow me after the jump for a picture that’s worth a thousand words on how a favorite conservative punching bag helped soften the recession’s impact in Iowa.

Hope the Bleeding Heartland community has been enjoying the long holiday weekend. This is an open thread. I’ve enclosed some Labor Day-related links after the jump, including an excerpt from the Iowa Policy Project’s recent report on wage theft, which “deprives low-wage Iowa workers of an estimated $600 million, deprives state and local government of revenue, and puts law-abiding businesses at a competitive disadvantage.”

President Barack Obama held a campaign rally in Ames today, drawing a crowd of approximately 6,000 on the Iowa State University campus. I enclosed the transcript of the president’s remarks at the bottom of this post. As in all his campaign speeches, he framed the election as a “choice” between two paths, rather than as a referendum on his performance. Obama also emphasized his administration’s efforts to make college tuition and student loans more affordable.

The president will need strong turnout in places like Ames this November, because yet another Iowa poll shows the gap between Obama and Romney within the margin of error.

One of the top international news stories of this week was the criminal conviction of three Russian feminist punk rockers from the group Pussy Riot. Maria Alyokhina, Yekaterina Samutsevich, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova face two years in prison on trumped-up charges of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.” Read the closing statements they delivered at their trial and tell me these women aren’t more brave than anyone you know. They must be missing their families and hating their crummy prison conditions, but the defendants denounced the show trial instead of apologizing and asking for mercy from the court.

Meanwhile, Iowa politics-watchers once again debated whether it’s appropriate to heckle speakers at the Iowa State Fair soapbox.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney announced his running mate this morning: Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the chair of the U.S. House Budget Committee. The two men are launching a four-day bus tour today. I don’t know what surprises me more: Romney not choosing Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, or Ryan’s willingness to give up his committee chairmanship for a shot at the vice presidency.

Democratic House incumbents and challengers have already been running against the Ryan budget. Iowa’s representatives split on party lines when the House approved this plan in April 2011, and Representative Leonard Boswell was eager to draw this contrast between himself and IA-03 opponent Representative Tom Latham. Having Ryan on the Republican ticket ensures that tax and budget issues will be at the center of the presidential campaign discourse this fall. Ryan’s approach to solving the long-term deficit problem asks virtually nothing of wealthy people but would devastate Medicaid, not to mention the Medicare program for future retirees. After the jump I’ve posted excerpts from a new report on the Ryan plan’s impact on state budgets, along the Iowa Policy Project’s comment on how the Ryan budget would affect Iowa in particular.

Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread. I will update this post with Iowa reaction and more news and links after the jump. Representative Steve King was enthusiastic about the pick.

When is a vote for extending the Bush tax cuts at all income levels “protecting the middle class”? Apparently, only when Representative Dave Loebsack (IA-02) does it.

Iowa’s two U.S. senators were on opposite sides yesterday in near party-line votes on tax policy.  

Despite finishing a distant third in the June 5 primary, John Landon won a district nominating convention last night to be the Republican candidate in the new Iowa House district 37. Since Democrats did not field a candidate in the Ankeny area district, Landon is in effect guaranteed a seat in the Iowa House for the next two years. I’ve posted background on Landon and the House district 37 campaign after the jump.

President Barack Obama is visiting Iowa yet again today. Tax policy will be the focus of his speech at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids. Some links related to his tax proposals and other campaign themes are after the jump. I’ll update later with highlights from and reaction to the event.

Any comments about the presidential election are welcome in this thread. A forthcoming post will focus on the latest television ads for or against Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney in Iowa.

A week doesn’t go by without some new ad related to the presidential campaign hitting the Iowa airwaves. The latest commercials from the Barack Obama and Mitt Romney campaigns are after the jump, along with highlights from Romney’s event in Council Bluffs on Friday.  

All three Iowa Democrats in the U.S. House voted for the 2010 health insurance reform bill, but last week Dave Loebsack (IA-02) and Leonard Boswell (IA-03) joined Republicans in repealing a tax established under the Affordable Care Act. It’s the second time this year that Boswell and Loebsack voted to roll back part of that law.

Iowa home and business owners can expect small solar power systems to pay for themselves more quickly, thanks to a new law Governor Terry Branstad signed last Friday.

In 2011, Governor Terry Branstad played hardball to force Cedar Rapids leaders to abandon a project labor agreement for a public building. Last Friday, one of the governor’s line-item vetoes boxed in Des Moines leaders. The governor’s action may eventually push capital city officials toward unpopular ways of refunding so-called “franchise fees” to residents.

Republican nominee in waiting Mitt Romney went up on the air yesterday with his first general election television commercial in Iowa. The video and transcript are after the jump.  

Some bad public policy ideas take hold because decision-makers become convinced they will work. Other times, bad ideas gain momentum because politicians who should know better are too scared or lazy to make the case against them.

In what looks like a textbook example of the second scenario, all three Democrats representing Iowa in the U.S. House are now on record supporting some form of constitutional amendment to require a balanced federal budget.

Crossroads GPS, the super-PAC headed by Republican strategist Karl Rove, is going up on the air today in Iowa and nine other states as part of a $25 million advertising campaign over the next month. The 60-second negative spot about President Barack Obama is after the jump, along with an annotated transcript.

Speaking in Des Moines this afternoon, Mitt Romney promised to lead the country “out of this debt and spending inferno” by reducing federal government spending from 24.3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product to 20 percent of GDP within four years. Romney would address what he called a “prairie fire of debt” by moving some federal programs to the state level or the private sector, repealing “Obamacare,” reforming Medicare and Social Security, and reducing “redundancy and waste” in government programs.

I’ve posted the full prepared text of Romney’s remarks after the jump, along with a few comments.

UPDATE: Governor Branstad signed Senate File 2342 on May 25.

Iowa lawmakers always cram so much action into the last few days of the legislative session. Instead of writing one long news roundup on the final decisions by the Iowa House and Senate, I’m covering specific issues in separate Bleeding Heartland posts this year.

Rod Boshart posted a good, comprehensive list here on what bills did and didn’t pass during the 2012 legislative session. Follow me after the jump for details on a good renewable energy bill, which made it through at the eleventh hour, and some thoughts on the nuclear power bill, which for the second year in a row didn’t make it to the Iowa Senate floor.

“Local control” has long been a rallying cry for conservatives who oppose taking governing decisions away from school districts, city officials, or county supervisors. However, Iowa Senate action this week rejecting a ban on traffic cameras is the latest sign that Iowa Democratic lawmakers are more likely than Republicans to respect this principle over centralized standards.

I’ve been skeptical that Iowa House Republicans and Iowa Senate Democrats would agree on comprehensive education or property tax reform in an election year. Until today, though, it never occurred to me that anyone would propose adjourning the 2012 legislative session without passing a budget for the next fiscal year, which begins on July 1.

Then State Senator Bill Dix floated one of the worst ideas I’ve heard lately.

Governor Terry Branstad released details from his 2011 tax return late last week. His income was down considerably from 2010 to a little more than $190,000. That’s still nearly four times the median household income in Iowa and puts Branstad in the top 5 percent of Iowa households by income level. The bulk of his income came from the salary for being governor ($116,131) and pension payments from his previous service in state government ($52,954).

Branstad’s tax bill was a bit of a head-scratcher: $17,777 in net federal taxes but only $52 in state taxes for 2011. Most Iowans pay way more than $52 in state taxes on income way below $190,000. Even more surprising, last year Branstad received a $369 refund on his state tax return despite reporting $313,663 in adjusted gross income during 2010.

The governor’s tax bill illustrates the inequities in Iowa’s tax code and the need for a more effective alternative minimum tax.

The U.S. House approved a bill yesterday to cut taxes by 20 percent for one year for companies with fewer than 500 employees. All the Iowans present voted for the legislation: Republicans Tom Latham (IA-04) and Steve King (IA-05) and Democrats Dave Loebsack (IA-02) and Leonard Boswell (IA-03). Bruce Braley (IA-01) was absent. His staff have not responded to my request for comment on how he would have voted.

The roll call shows that only 18 House Democrats supported this bill. Once again, Progressive Caucus member Loebsack joined Republicans and a small group of primarily Blue Dog Democrats. Bleeding Heartland has discussed this pattern in the context of Loebsack’s votes for a balanced budget constitutional amendment, to block non-existent EPA regulations on farm dust, to make it more difficult for the federal government to regulate small business, and to extend a pay freeze for mostly middle-class federal workers.

After the jump I enclose a statement from King and more details on the Congressional debate over small business tax cuts.

Federal income taxes are due today for most Americans, unless you’ve filed for an extension like Mitt Romney. (What was he thinking?)

This thread is for any comments related to tax policy at any level of government. Follow me after the jump for links to news, facts and figures about taxes.

UPDATE: Added statements from Representatives Steve King, Dave Loebsack, and Leonard Boswell below. Loebsack and Boswell reference “equal pay day” rather than “tax day.”

This afternoon U.S. Senate Republicans blocked a bill to impose a minimum tax rate of 30 percent on taxpayers who collect at least $1 million in income. The motion received 51 votes in favor and only 45 against, but in the convoluted world of Senate procedure, Democrats needed 60 votes to approve a “motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to consider” the bill. All but one Democrat voted for cloture, while all but one Republican voted against. Iowa’s Tom Harkin and Chuck Grassley split on party lines. Neither has issued a statement on today’s vote, but after the jump I’ve posted an excerpt from the “Q&A on taxes” in Grassley’s latest e-mail newsletter to constituents.

President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats plan to flog the “Buffett rule” repeatedly throughout the election year. A few samples of the preferred talking points on both sides are below, just after the Grassley commentary.

Left unsaid: we wouldn’t be having this debate if Congressional Democrats and/or the president had refused to extend the Bush tax cuts for the top income brackets in late 2010 (as most of them had promised to do during the Bush presidency).

President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign accuses Republican front-runner Mitt Romney of standing with Big Oil in a new television commercial running in Iowa, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, Ohio, and Virginia. The video and transcript of the Obama campaign’s second ad in Iowa are after the jump. It’s a direct response to an anti-Obama spot about high gasoline prices, which is now running in Iowa and other swing states.

The Obama campaign’s first television commercial in Iowa and other swing states focused on energy policy and criticized the “secretive oil billionaires attacking President Obama.”  

Groups opposing and supporting President Barack Obama’s re-election are making high gas prices the focal point of new television commercials in Iowa and other swing states. Videos and transcripts of the latest ads by the American Energy Alliance and Priorities USA are after the jump.

Last week Obama urged Congress to end tax breaks for oil companies, citing the industry’s high profits. U.S. Senate Republicans filibustered a bill that would have ended several deductions for five major oil companies and extended various renewable energy tax incentives. Senator Tom Harkin voted to move forward with that bill, but Senator Chuck Grassley voted to block it, as he did with similar legislation in May 2011.

Most bills that lack bipartisan support in the U.S. Senate die by filibuster, but senators voted overwhelmingly yesterday to move forward with debate on a bill that would end tax breaks for oil companies.  

In a step forward for small-scale wind power in Iowa, the Iowa Utilities Board designated Johnson County and Floyd County as our state’s first Small Wind Innovation Zones last week.

The Iowa legislature’s second “funnel” deadline passed on Friday, which means that most non-appropriations bills are dead unless they have been approved in one chamber and in at least one committee in the other chamber. It’s time to catch up on the most significant bills being debated in the Iowa House and Senate.

The U.S. Senate approved a new transportation authorization bill on March 14. Iowa’s senators Chuck Grassley and Tom Harkin were both part of the 74 to 22 majority supporting the highway bill, officially called MAP-21. Republicans cast all of the no votes. In today’s polarized Senate, 74 votes looks like an overwhelming mandate, but it’s worth noting that even larger bipartisan majorities approved the four previous transportation authorization bills from 1987, 1991, 1998, and 2005.

Before final passage of MAP-21, senators voted on numerous amendments. Some were related to transportation policy, while other “non-germane” proposals were considered as part of a deal to avoid a Republican filibuster. Bleeding Heartland covered how Grassley and Harkin voted on the first batch of amendments here. Follow me after the jump for details on the rest of the Senate debate over the transportation bill. Iowa’s senators were on opposite sides most of the time.

Iowa is one of five states to receive a failing grade in the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund’s new report, Following the Money 2012: How the 50 States Rate in Providing Online Access to Government Spending Data. The full report is here (pdf). I’ve posted highlights and excerpts after the jump.

Two-term Democratic State Senator Tom Rielly announced today that he will not seek re-election in the new Iowa Senate district 40. That seat was arguably the Senate Republicans’ best pickup opportunity even before Rielly confirmed his retirement plans.  

NOTE: On March 12, Democrat Shelley Parbs announced her candidacy in this district, and a third Democrat, Nick Volk, filed nominating papers on March 15.

Iowa Senate Democrats finally announced their challenger to first-term Republican Tim Kapucian last week, setting up a potentially competitive race in the new Iowa Senate district 38.

Christie Vilsack toured Iowa’s new fourth Congressional district late last week to roll out an energy plan “geared towards bringing a new prosperity to Iowa’s small cities and rural communities by creating layers of economic opportunity.”

The five-point plan is more of a political statement than a detailed policy document. Like some of Vilsack’s previous proposals, it embraces some Republican talking points.

Upon closer examination, the energy plan looks like two parts bipartisan no-brainers, two parts conservative buzzwords, and one part fairy dust.

The Des Moines Register’s latest statewide poll conducted by Selzer & Co included more than a dozen questions about issues Iowa legislators are considering this session. Proposals to raise the gasoline tax and allow a large utility company to bill its customers up front for a nuclear power plant were among the most unpopular ideas polled.