From the Desk of Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer:
It’s hard to believe that Labor Day weekend has arrived. It has been an eventful summer and I have enjoyed visiting with many of you at various community events along the way. With classes well underway in Iowa’s K-12 schools, community colleges, and universities- the focus now turns back to academics and fun fall activities.
The newly created Iowa Public Information Board recently held its initial organizational meeting. This Board was established by the Legislature last session in Senate File 430 and was signed into law by the Governor. It is intended to provide more transparency in government through a variety of mechanisms, such as educating government entities and Iowa residents on open-records and open-meetings laws, ensuring the public has convenient access to public documents, and investigating complaints of open-records and open-meetings violations. We are looking forward to working with the Iowa Public Information Board as we move forward. Assuring Iowans that state government is operating in the most open, transparent, and honest manner possible is one of my highest priorities.
I recently read an article published in many of my local newspapers by Mid-America Publishing Corporation’s President, Ryan Harvey, that I thought was incredibly illustrative of how out-of-control the federal budget has truly become. While it may be difficult for our human minds to process just how large trillions and trillions of dollars is, the following startling numbers provide a relatable comparison:
U.S. Tax Revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
Federal Budget: $3,820,000,000,000
New Debt: $1,650,000,000,000
National Debt: $14,271,000,000,000
Recent Budget Cuts: $38,500,000,000
Remove eight zeros and pretend it’s a household budget:
Annual family income: $21,700
Money the family spent: $38,200
New debt on the credit card: $16,500
Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
Total budget cuts: $385
Regardless of one’s party affiliation, these numbers should be extremely eye-opening and concerning to all Americans. Anyone who has ever managed a personal or family budget knows that spending more than you take in is completely unsustainable and unacceptable.
American families are faced with tough decisions every day on how to best manage their personal finances. Choices must be made and priorities must be ranked. Government should be expected to do the same with your tax dollars.
In contrast to the federal government, my caucus has a proven record of responsible, strong budget leadership. Iowa’s state budget is balanced…and we refused to use any budget gimmicks to get there. Instead, we remained determined not to spend more than we take in, not use one-time dollars for ongoing expenses, and not underfund commitments we have made knowing the Legislature will need to fix it down the road. As we move forward, we will continue to focus on these principles in order to return more of your hard-earned dollars back to your pocketbooks.
As always, I appreciate hearing your thoughts and concerns. If you have any feedback, please don’t hesitate to contact me at linda.upmeyer@legis.state.ia.us or 515-281-4618.
This will change next year.
The only way it’s going to change is to fire the worthless guy occupying the White House.
While there is no budget much of the money has went over seas.
Obama is totally UN-American. He don’t understand our American way of life and how success is celebrated. On the other hand Obama thinks success is dirty word and your bad if you work hard. He wants to tax the middle class while he is howling about taxing the rich. The man lies.
You don’t have a clue of what you are talking about. Nothing but a bunch of lies in your post.
Don’t worry, republicans will raise taxes on the middle class and give huge tax breaks to the wealthy and everything will be fine.
While I completely agree that the first cuts should be in the money we GIVE to country’s that don’t like us and in some cases hate us. After we have that money back then we should look at some of the great American give-a-ways. I am not talking about Medicare or even Medicaid but there are programs in each that do not belong there. Why do we give our tax money to illegal’s. Can you imagine how they laugh at us. Go to Mexico or even Canada and try to get helth care without paying for it and watch yourself die. Wake up people. Operating without a budget is absolutely STUPID and criminal.
Nice illustration but what is the breakdown of where the money is going. How much is being spent in other countries that we have no business being in? Why consider removing funds and services from the vulnerable in this country such as the elderly, etc. and blame it on medicaid/medicare programs that impact those in need in our own backyard without reducing excesses elsewhere such as the wars we are involved in?
Again, nice illustration, but basically meaningless unless we see the actual breakdown of where the money is going.
There is no budget, so there is nothing to reconcile. There has not been a budget since Obama took office.
what a great leader we have! Harry Reed has blocked every attempt to bring the budget to the floor.
Over 1200 days since a federal budget was passed. Last 2 of Obamas budgets presented in Senate failed 0-97 and 0-99. Now that is bi-partisonship agreement. And Senator Reid says he isnt bringing another to a vote. Leadership?? Dont think so..