This week, the Iowa Senate Republicans passed a budget-busting tax giveaway to special interests and corporations that would leave generations of Iowa taxpayers to pick up the tab. If Republicans were serious about investing in working Iowans, they wouldn’t be proposing deep cuts to education, health care, mental health, and public safety. Instead, this bill is just another example of the Iowa Republicans' extreme agenda that prioritizes partisanship and special-interests over the people they were elected to represent. Iowans deserve better.

The Iowa tax plan would cost billions of dollars, including a $790 million giveaway to corporations to be paid for by working families.

Des Moines Register: “A plan by Iowa Senate Republicans to provide state tax reform would slash state general fund revenues by more than $1 billion annually when fully implemented. […] The revenue declines would increase steeply to $777 million in the 2020 fiscal year, reaching $941 million in fiscal year 2021 and totaling more than $1.1 billion by fiscal year 2023.”

Quad City Times Editorial: “The bill the Iowa Senate passed would annually slash 14 percent of state revenue once fully implemented. And, as if Iowa didn't already dole out enough gifts to multinationals and well-heeled, that's where the bulk of tax cuts would end up.”

The tax scam could lead to deep cuts to school, health care, and public safety funding – and tax increases for firefighters, farmers, credit unions, and more.

Quad City Times Editorial: “Wednesday's tax bill vote was a clear statement of priorities for the GOP Senate majority: School funding, Medicaid nor mental health really matter.”

Iowa Public Radio: “In order to pay for the income tax cuts, some tax credits will be eliminated, including credits that volunteer firefighters and EMT’s receive as compensation for their work. […] Solar and geothermal energy, ethanol, historical preservation and beginning farmers would also see their tax credits cut. The bill raises taxes on credit unions, while cutting taxes for banks.”  

In the midst of an ongoing budget crisis of their own doing, Senate Republicans hastily rushed a vote on a corporate tax giveaway that will cost billions in lost revenue over the next five years.

Associated Press: “The Legislature is currently debating mid-year budget cuts for state agencies and higher education amid lower than expected revenue growth. Lawmakers made similar decisions last year and eventually borrowed about $144 million from emergency reserves.”

Senate Republicans were in such a rush to pass their extreme tax reform plan before Iowans had a chance to learn about how it would affect them, that they didn’t take the time to read it or understand it themselves.

Quad City Times: “The tax bill's sponsor, Sen. Randy Feenstra, couldn't even say how that $200 million hole would get plugged, as if the state isn't already axing services to make up for shortfalls.”

Des Moines Register: “So, how will lawmakers balance the state budget? That’s a question Sen. Brad Zaun, R-Urbandale, wants answered before he votes on the bill.  ‘We really haven’t a chance to really dive into it yet. I haven’t read all 137 pages of it yet,’ Zaun said.”

Associated Press: “The bill was released publicly Wednesday morning. A little over 24 hours later, it had advanced through a tax-writing subcommittee and a full committee. At one of those meetings, lobbyists for various organizations indicated they hadn't read all of the bill's roughly 130 pages.”

Iowans already know that the Republican tax giveaways do not work.

Des Moines Register: “When Iowa passed sweeping property tax reform four years ago, state officials projected commercial taxpayers would save $218 million this year. Lawmakers also promised to fully reimburse local governments for the revenues they stood to lose. The law has failed to deliver on both counts, a Des Moines Register review of state data shows.”