Monday Mania

The fire alarm went off this afternoon, and while all the newbies grabbed their jackets and headed for the exits, Statehouse veterans stood their ground recalling the regularity of pranksters past.

The House Rebuild Iowa & Disaster Recovery Committee met this afternoon to discuss HSB54 the local option sales tax bill. This bill allows a city or unincorporated area located in a county in which the president of the United States declared a disaster to exist at any time during 2008 to impose a local option sales tax pursuant to Code chapter 423B using an expedited procedure. The bill requires the question of the imposition of a local sales and services tax to be submitted to the registered voters of a city or to the unincorporated areas of the county. The bill itself doesn’t add new taxes; it just accelerates the implementation date of a vote for more taxes.

Amendments were introduced which would make five changes to the original bill. One of the changes adds a second set of implementation dates. The amendments passed though the Republicans voted together against them.

A vote on the whole bill yielded 11 “ayes” and 6 “nos” with Republicans voting together against it. The bill passed and will move to Ways & Means.

The House may be debating the local option sales tax bill as soon as tomorrow afternoon.

Governor Culver’s Budget is expected to come out tomorrow. The rumor circulating earlier today was that he’s going to do a 10% across the board cut and let legislature figure out the rest. It turned out to be a little high as the Des Moines Register is now reporting at 6.5% budget cut affecting 205 of the state’s 280 programs. Click here to read the article.