Culver Celebrated Job-Killing Bill with Obama While I-JOBS Languishes

March 26, 2010

Rally for Health Care Highlights Economic Damage of Bill, Irony in Failing State Program

 “I-JOBS is a profound disappointment,

just as national health care will be,

and just as soon-to-be-former Governor Culver has been.”

 Tim Murtaugh, Republican Governors Association

When Iowa Gov. Chet Culver joined President Obama to celebrate the federal health care takeover, he embraced one job-killing policy while his self-described “signature” jobs program, I-JOBS, remains a boondoggle.  
 
“Not content with leading Iowa down the path of mediocrity and unfulfilled expectations, Chet Culver is now enthusiastically embracing a known economic and fiscal disaster in the government-run health care boondoggle,” said Tim Murtaugh, spokesman for the Republican Governors Association.  “I-JOBS is a profound disappointment, just as national health care will be, and just as soon-to-be-former Governor Culver has been.”

Culver has been touring Iowa, re-announcing I-JOBS grants for local projects, despite having announced the very same projects in August 2009.  The $830 million program will cost taxpayers $360 million in interest payments over the life of bonds issued.   Worse, according to an Iowa State University economist, though Culver projected 30,000 new jobs, only 4,050 actually will be created.  

In May 2009 – when Culver signed I-JOBS into law – Iowa’s unemployment rate stood at 5.7-percent. In January of 2010 it was at 7.5-percent.     
 
Culver now proposes to take on $150 million in additional debt, a notion that is not sitting well with legislators, including those in the governor’s own party:

“Rep. Doris Kelley, D-Waterloo, is among those with concerns about expanding I-JOBS. She wants more answers about projected gambling revenue, which pays for the I-JOBS bonds, and a closer look at how the I-JOBS debt could limit future infrastructure spending by the state.

“‘To me it’s about long-term thinking,’ Kelley said. ‘It’s got to be logic over politics. It’s got to be about the long-term future of Iowa.’”