IOWA Politics 03 Feb 2007 12:41 pm
Iowa Legislative Session – Early February
If you live in Iowa, look up your representative’s email address by clicking here to express your opinion on these issues.
Right to Work. Iowa is a right to work state.
Some people dispute that in nuanced language but even Johnson County, one of our most liberal counties, notes that Iowa is a Right to Work state on their economic development brochures. One must conclude there is a value to posting that phrase to stimulate economic growth.
Today, if a union exists in a company in Iowa, an employee has the right to decide to join that union or not. In the Bill the Democrats are working on in the Iowa Legislature “The Fair Share” proposal, will require workers to belong and/or pay dues to unions in companies that already have unions. The dialog at this point: Passage of that law effectively removes the right for Iowa to say we are a “right to work” state. The actual wording of the bill is not final but the Governor has already indicated he’ll sign the bill. Keep an eye on the status of this Bill - as it could be fluid and move quickly. Passage of this bill would set back economic development in Iowa tremendously.
At our Legislative Forum in Muscatine on FEB 3 a gentleman who runs a trucking company implied he would look to relocate to Missouri; and a representative of IPSCO, one of our largest industrial additions to Muscatine in the last decade said IPSCO would not have located in the state if it was not “right to work”. (IPSCO has unions and IPSCO has spent 500 million dollars to build and fund the plant in Muscatine and is working on an expansion)
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In this legislative session I will also be tracking Health Care, related to support of small businesses. Small businesses in Iowa will be hit hardest by the minimum wage adjustment over the next two years.
We can expect some part time job losses, maybe even full time job losses as a result of the minimum wage increase – that is a part of business metrics.
We need to continue to build a structure where small businesses can and are encouraged to pool resources to supply affordable insurance to its workers.
There was a study quoted that I can find on request that said around 97% most businesses of over 100 employees offered health insurance, it dropped to less than 50% for businesses under 100 employees. I’m not talking about nationalizing health insurance, but helping small businesses pool resources somehow.
This is where the cigarette tax bucks (if revenue grows) should be used, in my opinion.
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Cigarette tax hike - $1.00 a pack. Below I posted the tax rates for other states around Iowa. There is no reason to think that most of the cigarettes won’t be bought in Missouri – eliminating the opportunity for Iowa revenue.
$1.00 a pack? Maybe $.64 to bring the tax to $1.00? I have two concerns:
- Don’t earmark these taxes until you know you’ll have the money (people will drive to Missouri or other states to buy them or mercifully stop or reduce smoking)
- The taxes should all go to Health Care of some sort.
Missouri and Nebraska needs to get on board with a tax hike of their own if this is going to do any more than drive revenue out of the state. I have no problem with this tax as long as all the revenue is earmarked for Health Care and we don’t commit to spending money on false assumptions.
MIDWEST CIGARETTE TAXES
State Tax per pack
South Dakota 1.53
Minnesota 1.49
Illinois 0.98
Wisconsin 0.77
Nebraska 0.64
Iowa 0.36
Missouri 0.17
Source: Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids
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2 Responses to “Iowa Legislative Session – Early February”
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on 09 Feb 2007 at 6:38 pm 1.gshuston said …
I have already started my contact with Representative Kevin McCarthy. I am asking what his feeling is about the Right to Work state. I do not understand how people feel that eliminating this is a good deal and that it reaches such levels within any state. We went through the same thing in Oklahoma and luckily it got voted down. It has always been shown that it has a negative affect on states and yet it seems to keep life.
Any thoughts on how this is promoted to be created as a good thing?
on 10 Feb 2007 at 4:56 pm 2.Political Football said …
It’s a good thing for Unions. With their numbers in decline they need to find new money sources. My irritation is that this is being handled almost subversively. “it’s a study bill” “can’t we talk about it?” I need to write a new post on this soon because it is moving through the legislature as quickly as Jeff Kaufmann said it would.
There is no good thing I can see for employees, economic development or anything related to business growth.
The only reason it’s being pushed is Iowa is becoming a new test case for the Union power bases to see if they can get the law passed. Unions are taking credit for Democratic gains in the legislature, which I don’t believe is true even though they did spend a lot of money.