Part 2 in a two-part series
Candidates for the Iowa House of Representatives, District 9, and Senate, District 5, looked at various issues posed by audience members Tuesday night at a forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters.
Questions posed from the audience included:
Would you support legislation limiting the interest rate and other fees that payday lenders can charge?
Rob Bacon: "The payday loan industry is pretty well regulated. It is regulated by the Finance Bureau of the Iowa Division of Banking. I realize that some people have to pay up to 36 percent interest on this. My father-in-law had to use a place like this. At this point, with the economy so fragile, I don't think it's time to oppose any more regulations on any industry."
McKinley Bailey: "The interest rate that they are charging right now is actually over 300 percent in many cases. That is pretty exorbitant amount of money. If people took out those loans once or twice a year in an emergency, I wouldn't have a problem with that. But the state of Iowa has one of the highest rates of people returning for another loan. We need to set up a regulatory system that makes sure these people aren't going back to a regulatory system over and over again. We need to get them into a bank or credit union and learn about real financial literacy and save money, to get back on their feet."
Rich Olive: "Three years ago, we took on the car title loans companies that were doing very similar things. We brought banks and credit unions in to see if they could offer a similar product at a normal interest rate of 6 to 10 percent. We were able to negotiate that. We negotiated payday loans for veterans, where the interest rate was at, again, 6 to 8 percent range. There is no reason why we can't do that for the rest of Iowa."
Stewart Iverson: "Payday lenders are regulated by the banking commission. They can only charge a certain percent. Is it some place that I would go? Absolutely not. The trouble is, many can't go to the bank, to the credit union, can't use a credit card. They all essentially charge the same amount. If you want to bring that down to a certain level, that might be something to work on. I don't know if it's the government's responsibility to say to you, you can't borrow money at this place unless you can borrow for 6 to 8 percent. "
Do you have ideas for regulating food production operations of cattle, hogs, eggs, dairy and produce to ensure food safety and a clean environment?
Stewart Iverson: One of the big issues we have is the spreading of manure, how much you can put on the ground. When I was in the senate, three members of each caucus, went to work on livestock operations. It was a bipartisan bill that passed almost unanimously through both chambers because we worked in cooperation. In regards to the food safety party, that is through a federal agency. With the outbreak of salmonella, I think the Food and Drug Administration needs to get uniform rules across the United States. Chickens can be vaccinated for is salmonella. The FDA could say that all chickens could be vaccinated. That makes sense. We have to have uniformity."
Rob Bacon: "With a guy with the name of Bacon, you wouldn't think I'd know a lot about eggs. But in college one of my jobs, I pasteurized hundreds of egg yolks. The big word that we tried to avoid was salmonella. There were regulations. When I cleaned up, I would be inspected by the USDA guys. They would look over everything. The point being, there is regulations in effect already. We might need some new ones and we might need to look and see that the old ones are being reinforced."
McKinley Bailey: The situation that has brought this back to life, I think is the situation with Jack DeCoster up in Wright County. I think this particular situation is different than most food safety situations or most environmental regulation situations. We are dealing with a man who has broken our immigration laws repeatedly, who has broken our environmentally laws repeatedly, and who has now threatened the food supply safety of the entire country. I feel that when we have a repeat offender of this in Iowa, it makes sense to subject him to additional inspections carried out by the state. He can pay for those himself. If he wants to stop paying for those additional inspections, he can stop breaking the law."
Rich Olive: "I spoke with Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey shortly after the outbreak occurred and we discussed if we should do more up there. Honestly, the federal inspectors could not do their job. So should the state be coming in and doing that? McKinley is exactly right, allow those who have not done it right to pay for those inspectors so we do provide safety."
Former Gov. Terry Branstad has called for 15 percent deduction in the state budget. What specifically would you cut?
McKinley Bailey: "We're talking about something that I'm not going to do. We cut the state budget by 10 percent in the past year. We are looking at lean times ahead and the idea that we are going to cut 15 percent more off the budget I think is preposterous. You can't do it without slashing into things that Iowans truly value. K to 12 education, our community colleges, our regent universities, taking care of our elderly citizens and our mentally disabled. I am going to fight any effort by Gov. Branstad, if he is elected, to cut the budget by 15 percent because I think it is a bad move for Iowa."
Rich Olive: "This last year, we went through a government reorganization bill that should save the state from $150 to 200 million a year. We did an early retirement program, where we expected 700 people to take early retirement, instead we had 2,100 apply for it. That will save us from $65 to 75 million dollars. The governor also did an executive order saving about $15 million dollars a year. I personally worked on tax credits that we give businesses. There are 35 tax credits and we went through and eliminated a number of those that cut about another $100 million a year, without hurting the retention or recruitment of new business. Those were programs that weren't doing what taxpayers expect. We are always looking for programs that aren't working, that we can eliminate, and programs that we can make better. But there is no reason to come in and slash 15 percent off the board."
Stewart Iverson: "I think what Terry Branstad has proposed is 15 percent over the next four years. It doesn't mean taking 15 percent off the budget next year. What it does do is slow down the growth of government. We have more state employees now than we did four years ago. Why? The population hasn't grown. The private sector is losing jobs. If we slow down the growth of government over the next four years by 15 percent, I think we can. It won't be easy. There are people out there who say I just need a little more money from government. All of us have to live with a little bit less, and all of us in government can to. If you don't set a goal, you don't get anywhere."
Rob Bacon: "The governor is not going to cut in and cut straight across. It will be 15 percent over the next three or four years. Where would I cut? Here are some good examples. I wouldn't cut but just control some things. We have a good Hawkeye program for kids who don't have insurance due to folks having poor income. Those same people have to pay $40 a month for a premium. State employees have a fantastic program available for them. They pay absolutely zero on a premium. If they paid the same amount, it would save the state $24 million a year. If we combined a lot of our IT at the Capitol complex, we could save a minimum of $14 million a year."
LWV?positions
LWV member Jo Fletchall talked about the league's view on holding a constitutional convention.
"The league believes that we have a good method of amending our constitution with any amendments being passed by two sections of the legislature and the issue goes to the public for ratification," Fletchall said. "The position is that we not call a constitutional convention."
She also spoke in regards to the retention of judges.
"The league has the position that we retain the justices because we have a good system of a non-political method of selecting judges," she said. "The selection should not be politicized. Any removal of a judge or any time one thinks that they should not retain a judge, that decision should be based on a performance of a judge not on any particular issue on which the judge had ruled."
Contact Carrie Olson at lifestyles@freemanjournal.net or call 832-4350.
