A reminder from the Governor of Iowa about those so called blue state bailouts:
Sure Jan
I have lived through a few board meetings in my life (full disclosure: my mom was a Grundy County Supervisor for 100 years back in the 80s) and the June 28, 2021, meeting in Fairfield was painful to watch. Right out of the gate Supervisor Daryn Hamilton said that he would want to use ARP funds to cut property taxes. Because (I am going to paraphrase) it isn’t often you get that kind of money from the feds.
It’s like people forget: The Feds are the American Taxpayer not some entity out there in the ether. People. Pay. Taxes (unless you are Donald Trump, billionaires, Bezos, Elon, etc.).
Iowa should get money - like the rest of the country it has taken a hit. I would like the GOP to acknowledge the money is only coming to you, your people, your communities because of Democrats (you’re welcome) and then use the money legally. Preferably to directly help the people in your community. You know - good stuff.
Anyway.
Jefferson County is in line for $3.5 million dollars in American Rescue Plan Act funds. To be clear: the money is coming directly to counties and larger metro areas directly through applications to the US Department of Treasury. The one — and I mean thee one crystal clear area of Treasury is about taxes:
- from Journal of Accountancy
Yellen weighed in after a number of GOP states tried to push back on the tax provision within the ARP guidelines (Joined by AG Tom Miller at request of Kim Reynolds) stating that Congress does in fact have the authority to impose reasonable limits on use of federal funds (as with Medicaid, highways, etc):
The Treasury will issue final a final rule after the July 16 deadline for public comment.
The one thing two supervisors commiserated over was the fact that the Jefferson County Department of Public Health wrest a 5% raise out of them. They demanded a bigger raise — after they shitty way they were treated by the people of their own community (my words but you get the gist). They — like other public health officials in Iowa were faced with a truly horrifying onslaught of hate from people in their own community.
One person said during the meeting that the way some people acted (hateful, awful) meant they were just showing who they really are.
I agree (see comments from Reynolds above) oh, the irony.
