Tuesday, January 13, 2009

The Condition of our State: DIRE

We all know the hardships facing our state, but what really puts Iowa in a dismal position is the fact that we our governor is incredibly weak and obviously in over his head.

Iowa is facing some of the most serious challenges in its history, yet our Governor ‘s address to the legislature and the people of Iowa lasted about 48 minutes, of which significant portions were spent on thanking or praising other “leaders” of our state, consoling victims of recent natural disasters, thanking his family and those who serve our country, especially those who have sacrificed their lives, and watching a 10 minute video about the floods. Out of those 48 minutes Culver probably spoke maybe 10 minutes about what he thinks should be done.

Even those 10 minutes were weak. Culver asked for $42 million from the Rainy Day Fund, and if you read between the lines that money is needed to keep the lights on his newly created Rebuild Iowa office, meaning a significant portion of that money is going to fund it, not to help people get back on their feet.

If you were looking for details about Iowa’s economic situation, like the 2010 state budget for instance, you didn’t get anything. Culver wants to borrow $700,000,000 and create another government entity called Rebuild Iowa Infrastructure Authority, meaning a portion of this is used to grow government, not build bridges and roads.

His solution to balance the budget was also short on specifics. Culver’s plan is to nix the $37 million for the new state office building, even though I’m pretty sure that could be deemed as needed infrastructure with the sad state of the Wallace building and then take $10 million from another fund. That doesn’t get us anywhere close to the projected $600 million dollar deficit he has to deal with.

I don’t know about you but I’m pissed off. These are serious times and the Governor failed to outline anything significant in his speech. I think it is very telling that Culver acknowledged his own weakness as our Governor by ceding the most important speech of his administration to a movie producer. Obviously our Governor is unable to inspire the members or the legislature and the people of Iowa in a great time of need.

The 10 minute video Culver had produced was an embarrassment. I was waiting for Sally Struthers to emerge on the screen and ask me to sponsor a poor flood victim for less than what it cost for a cup of coffee. It was no different than that commercial Sarah McLachlan does for the ASPCA.

Culver’s speech reminded me of high school speech class, you know the kid who’s lazy and thinks he can get by with bringing in Dad’s metals from Vietnam or by showing off his new four-wheeler. The people of Iowa deserved more than what we got this morning.

41 comments:

  1. Prediction:

    Before the session is over the Dems will be talking about bringing back Touch Play. It made the State $121 million in fiscal 2006 -- You can look it up.

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  2. www.youtube.com/iowagopchairman

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  3. strawn has a more clear response than paulsen or mckinley

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  4. Speaking of clear, the Youtube video was out of focus for the first 20 second. That'll impress the younguns!

    You never get a 2nd chance to create a good first impression.....

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  5. Huckabee Takes Swipe at Palin

    Mike Huckabee (R), a likely Republican presidential candidate in 2012, took a shot at Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R), one of his possible rivals, in an Esquire interview.

    Said Huckabee: "Now I must say I did not think that either the Charlie Gibson interview or the Katie Couric interviews were unfair. In fact, if anything, Katie Couric was extraordinarily gentle, even helpful. [Palin] just... I don't know what happened. I can't explain it. It was not a good interview. I'm being charitable."

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  6. Don't Mormons believe Palin is the devil's sister?

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  7. Wow! Huckabee what the hell are you doing Palin was one of the best people that emerged last cycle!!!

    It was bad enough seeing your daughter get drunk here in DM and then your son kills defenseless dogs, and your wife goes to hooters now you insult Palin? Did you move into the trailer next to the tv show?

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  8. If Huckabee doesn't have the sense to hold his own darn tongue, then why would we ever allow him to hold office?

    My money's on the Sarah smackdown, let's see if he has the testicular fortitude to bring her on his show....she'll have him skinned out by the first commercial break!!

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  9. No Mike, charitable is keeping your freakin mouth shut!

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  10. At the police station, Mike Huckabee explained to the police officer why his cousin Ray shot him.

    "Well," Huck began, "We wuz havin' a good time drinking, when my cousin Ray picked up his shotgun and said, 'Hey, der ya fellows wanna go hunting?'"

    "And then what happened?" the officer interrupted.

    "From what I remember," Huck said, "I stood up and said, 'Sure, I'm game.'"

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  11. wow, talk about a hijacked thread

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  12. Sarah's defenders quite succinctly show just how low the collective intellect of our party has become under a decade of Limbaugh tutelage.

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  13. I thought that I would become informed about shortcomings in State of the State message by reading this blog. Never imagined that there'd only be sniping about former Presidential/VP candidates. Did the conservative flank think the proposal to bond was fine? I didn't.

    Signed, A NW Iowa conservative who can never run for office because her mother likes the salads at Hooters

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  14. It's all about how "pure" we are. Any hint of being moderate, which has taken on a life of it's own, means you're tagged with a Nussle, Grassley, Latham, Gross, Sukup label. I'm telling ya - the fringe wing is going to take down this party come hell or high water, and this nothing to do with "watering" down our core beliefs! I'm pro-life and NOT welcome in this party!!! OMG!!!

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  15. Hate to mention it Krusty, but "Dad's _metals_ from VietNam" are all non-removable from his body, while his medals are in the drawer.

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  16. Does anyone have a copy of the picture of Huckabee drinking beer while playing with Capital offense?

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  17. How exactly is Huckabee’s admission that Palin gave a poor interview with Couric “eating our young” or an attack against moderates by the “fringe?” The Couric interview WAS a disaster. Take a look at Palin’s polling before and after that interview. Admitting that wasn’t an attack, it was honesty. I actually had to turn the interview off when I watched it because it was so painful. Go back and watch it again some time. She bombed, plain and simple. I’m just waiting for one of these anon posters to tell me how saying that is an attack?
    Moreover, how is any of this conversation relevant to the fact that Iowa has a Governor who just said that he intends to mortgage the state up to its eyeballs to pay for a new layer of bureaucracy? A Governor who basically said he is going to sell the state lottery and expand gambling in our state to cover his short term spending goals? The state is on the brink of financial collapse on the watch of an irresponsible and unfit Governor and you guys are more interest in trying to settle old scores from over a year ago? If you are looking for someone to blame for the fact that this party is teetering on the brink of chaos, you should take a look in the mirror. The time has come to get over the caucus and start focusing in on replacing Chet Culver. Our state is on the edge of bankruptcy, our Governor is unfit to lead and the massive Democratic majority in the legislature gave him a standing ovation when he said is to bond enough money in long term debt that our Grand kids will ultimately be left to clean up the mess … Lets try to keep our eye on the ball here folks.

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  18. What the person above didn't mention was that Huck goes on to say that Palin was being bombarded with McCain aides saying "say this, say that" which wasn't helping. The Palin interview WAS a disaster and I was cringing and knew that we lost after that. Palin's popularity numbers DID go down. Yes, Palin is a great conservative but give her a few terms of Gov. under her belt first. REad the full article at ESQUIRE and don't get a few soundbites. What if Obama did that poorly in an interview? We would all be writing and making fun of Barack. What's the dif? Huck actually defended Palin if you would read the whole article and not soundbites. Couric treated Palin like any other candidate period.

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  19. FYI, the flood video the Governor showed was produced by a Cedar Rapids metro area company for the community as a way to wrap up the flood with poigniant images and grieve as a community. It was NOT commissioned by the Governor and has nothing to do with the man-made natural disaster (the Governor turning his back on us) after the disaster.

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  20. Hey fringe social conservatives, thanks to you we have a pro-abortion Gov mortgaging our future. Aaah but PURITY FIRST!!!!

    Run BVP Run! Run BVP Run!! LOL

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  21. SoCo's were fully on board with Nussle, did you forget that BVP was also on that ticket? Someone is stirring up hatred .....

    IDP has no money but have tons of loonies down at Java Joe's with laptops

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  22. THIS SoCo turned his back on the entire boat with Nussle in it. The common philanderer thought he could sucker us in with Family Values talk hoping we'd forget or overlook the truth about him.

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  23. Enough! With infighting like this we have no chance to have anyone take us seriously. I'm a social conservative and want those issues advanced. However, I also understand the idea of a majority party. A moderate republican still votes for our leadership in the house or senate. When you have a majority in that body, it means you control the committees. This means you decide what bills get hearings and eventually make it to the floor for votes.

    When you're in the minority, guess what? Your bills have little to no chance of going anywhere. So if we have moderate Republicans that put us in the majority, that means we control the committees, and the bills we want, such as a parental notification bill for abortion or a 24 hour waiting period as two examples, will get hearings and move to the floor. With Democrats in control, there's little to no hope of that happening.

    We need all Republicans, not just those who agree with us 100% of the time on the social issues, to be a ruling party.

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