Legislative Delegation Talks Budget

eggsissues

Members of Southeast Iowa’s legislative delegation touched on expectations regarding the tax cuts with local community and business leaders on Saturday.

State Senator Tom Greene (R-Burlington), State Representative Dennis Cohoon (D-Burlington), and State Representative David Kerr (R-Wapello) spoke at the monthly Eggs and Issues Breakfast sponsored by the Greater Burlington Partnership.

A big crowd attended January 2018’s session of Eggs and Issues (KBUR/Meghan D’Souza)

The trio was asked about the possibility of a de-appropriation bill and where they see the $19-to-$40 million coming from for tax cuts.

Kerr stated that he couldn’t make a comment about tax cuts until the House and Senate have formulated their budget.

Greene gave his opinion on why the state is facing this deficit.

“Six budget years ago, we had an over $900 million surplus. Now we’ve run into a deficit.” Greene stated, “The government has overpromised and overspent for years… You’ve got to be realistic… hopefully, you can enact some measures that will stimulate the economy a little bit. Hopefully, commodity prices will come up, grain prices will come up, farmers will spend a little money. Let’s see what we can do to stimulate growth, stimulate jobs, and get the Iowa economy rolling.”

In response, Cohoon reiterated what he has stated before.

“It is true that you can’t spend more than you take in. But, as I have said before, this is not just a spending problem, this is a revenue problem. With the tax cuts that we gave, we gave too much all at once to out-of-state corporations,” he said. “Add that in with the downturn of the farming economy and the slow down of the general economy and you are kind of burning things from both ends.”

Cohoon went on say the government cannot stop spending money because they need to address healthcare, including the opiod problem, education, and corrections — both understaffing and overcrowding.

“So there are a lot of costs that are going up that we are going to have to address one way or another,” he stated. “If we don’t want to address it, we’ll be forced to address it.”