Issue Position: Tax Increases? No!

Issue Position

Governor Branstad has proposed increasing the tax on gasoline. After looking at the numbers, it's clear that if we were to stop building new roads that we don't need, there is plenty of money to maintain the roads and bridges that we have now. In addition, the Department of Transportation in Ames is a bloated bureaucracy in dire need of a good pruning.

Another Branstad priority is lowering property taxes on commercial property (which do seem high) and replacing that money with tax revenues from the rest of us. The nonsensical reasoning given is that this is needed to create jobs. This ignores the fact that the recession is over in Iowa, unemployment is down to 5%, and studies have shown that what unemployment we still have is largely due to the unemployed not having the skills that employers need.

Low taxes don't create jobs. Pizza Hut staffs up according to how many pizzas it sells, not according to how high its property tax is. TheGovernor's [sic] proposal is simply a transfer of wealth, largely from the " have-nots" to the "haves".

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