Vander Plaats: ‘Culver’s the One Confused About the Condition of the State’
DES MOINES – Gov. Chet Culver’s Condition of the State speech today was a “desperate defense of a failed administration rather than a vision for a vibrant future,” Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats said today.
“If Chet Culver was right about one thing it is that Iowans are ‘looking forward not back.’ Iowans are looking forward to new leadership that faces up to the reality, grows our economy and puts his mismanagement behind us,” Vander Plaats said. “This speech was vintage Chet Culver: spend our reserves, soak property taxpayers some more and hope to buy himself a second term with our tax dollars. He needs to quit reading what his speechwriters gave him and have a one-on-one talk with State Auditor David Vaudt.”
Vander Plaats continued, “Chet Culver is not fully funding obligations school boards must absorb. Instead, he’s trying to control school districts by forcing them to spend down cash reserves. Our school boards are solid local leaders who know what is best for their own districts. Local control, not more intervention from Chet Culver or the federal government, is the answer.”
Vander Plaats noted that Culver “continues to hide behind the fig leaf of the temporary state’s bond rating instead of facing the reality that his emptying of the state’s coffers is going to hurt us for a long, long time.” He also took aim at Culver’s claim that critics of the first-term governor are confused about the state’s budget crisis.
“If anyone’s confused about the budget it is Chet Culver. He claims the budget is balanced even as legislators in his own party acknowledge they’re forced to cut $500 million to $1 billion in the coming year. That’s a direct result of his indiscriminate spending and hiring of more bureaucrats during the first two years of his term,” Vander Plaats said. “The way to get Iowa going again is to cut taxes, cut government spending and regulation and open Iowa for business.”
Vander Plaats said Culver continues to “overpromise and under-deliver” with his costly I-Jobs program and is “tying our hands to the back of gambling to fund that ill-conceived initiative.”
“Borrowing our way out a self-created government disaster is not the answer. Neither is increasing our reliance on gambling,” Vander Plaats said. “Gambling should have never been signed into law and to increase our dependency on it lacks of leadership Iowans can trust.”
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