February 15, 2008
Bottle bill declared dead
By Dan Gearino
DES MOINES -- Two of Gov. Chet Culver's key proposals were declared dead Thursday by legislative leaders.
The leaders said there isn't enough support to revise the bottle-deposit law or to change the rules for how corporations pay state taxes.
"When it was all said and done, I don't think there's a way to reach consensus in the Legislature," said Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs.
Culver said the Legislature didn't give the proposals enough of a chance. "This idea of stifling debate and having no discussion about critically important issues related to our environment, related to our tax code, is not a healthy thing," he said.
Without the two initiatives, Culver and the Legislature will need to find a way to make up for the roughly $100 million in new revenue that would have been generated. The Legislature's unwillingness to pursue the proposals was unusual considering the same party controls the governor's office and the House and Senate. This may be the highest-profile example of the two branches failing to work together since Democrats gained control of the Legislature in the 2006 election.
Gronstal sought to downplay the differences. "I think in a lot of ways we're not very far away from the governor on this budget," he said.
The two Culver proposals were part of his $6.4 billion budget for 2008-09. Legislative leaders released a rough outline of their plans for a few parts of the budget. Their $3.3 billion plan would increase spending for education and health care, while decreasing spending in many other areas. The Democrats' outline did not include several billion dollars worth of items that will be filled in later, such as infrastructure spending and employee pay raises.
Culver released his bottle deposit plan early last month. He wanted to raise the deposit from 5 cents to 10 cents, and only give customers 8 cents back when they return the bottles or cans. He would have used the other 2 cents for an environmental program and to increase the fee paid to companies that process the containers.
His plan got an immediate cold reception from the Legislature. In the weeks since, Culver scaled back the proposal, but legislators said no version has enough support to pass.
On the corporate tax plan, Culver wanted to end a loophole that allows multi-state companies to avoid state taxes. He said big companies use accounting gimmicks in a way that is unfair to other taxpayers.
Pro-business groups said the plan would hurt Iowa's chances of recruiting big employers.
Dan Gearino can be reached at 515-243-0138 and dan.gearino@lee.net.
http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/articles/2008/02/15/news/iowa/dfc0cdac24689230862573f00016576b.txt
