Republicans in the Iowa legislature have just released a basic sketch of their state spending plan for next year — and it’s about 14 million dollars LEANER than the CURRENT year’s state budget.
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That’s Representative Pat Grassley of New Hartford, the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. Senator Charles Schneider, a Republican from West Des Moines, leads the Senate Appropriations Committee.
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The new G-O-P plan is even 38 million dollars below Governor Terry Branstad’s recently revealed suggestions for next year’s budget. However, the Republican-led executive and legislative branches of government have agreed on this latest round of pruning.
Senator Joe Bolkcom (BOWL-kum), a Democrat from Iowa City, says these budget cuts could have been avoided if Branstad had delivered on promises “to increase family income by 25 percent and create more than 200-thousand new jobs in Iowa.”