Vander Plaats on WHO Radio: “Culver in Over His Head, Has Bad Leadership Instincts”

DES MOINES – Governor Chet Culver’s second dispute with the facts in less than a week proves he is “in over his head,” Sioux City businessman Bob Vander Plaats said today.

“It’s the propensity of the governor to ignore the truth and bend the facts to the way he wants the facts to be,” Vander Plaats said during an interview on the Steve Deace program on WHO Radio. “Here is a great example of what many people across Iowa have told me and that is that Governor Culver is in over his head.”

Vander Plaats, who is the frontrunner for the Republican gubernatorial nomination referred to a “repetitive theme with Governor Culver,” who is claiming that the $47 million the state has spent on his pet project, the Iowa Power Fund, has created 8,700 jobs. A Legislative Service Agency analysis has concluded the fund has created only 100 jobs, meaning each new job has cost Iowa taxpayers $470,000. Culver also claimed Monday that state revenues went up in July, contradicting the LSA’s determination that receipts actually fell 6 percent last month.

Vander Plaats pointed out that Culver and his aides told Iowans earlier this year that the first-term Democratic governor’s borrow-and-spend I-Jobs program would create or retain 30,000 jobs. An Iowa State University economist said the $800 million program would create approximately 4,000 jobs – one-seventh of Culver’s inflated estimate – while costing Iowans an additional $750 million in interest and other fees.

“Chet Culver has bad leadership instincts,” Vander Plaats said.

Noting his prior experience as a turnaround CEO, Vander Plaats said he would exert his leadership to stop the state’s overspending, reform the delivery of state services and reopen Iowa for business again with policies that spark and fuel the entrepreneurial spirit.

Vander Plaats also said the Obama administration’s proposed health care plan would be “devastating for an insurance capital like Des Moines” and would eventually bankrupt state governments as more and more costs would shift from the federal government to the states.

“The ‘public option’ will squeeze out private options,” he said. “While people don’t want to say ‘rationed care,’ it will lead to rationed care. … It will bankrupt states. It’s also going to threaten state sovereignty.”

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