Iowa's Corporate Welfare Slush Fund

Listen, the Iowa Corporate Welfare Slush Fund Values Fund is going to happen. Lawmakers are so jaded and stupid that they think taking tax money from Iowa's sad-sack gamblers and giving it to wealthy out-of-state corporations in order to grease projects along is actually helping Iowa's economy. They're full of it, so naturally it's bound to pass. (pun maybe intended...)

Witness the panic expressed by members of the Iowa Legislature in this Des Moines Register piece. You'd think the Iowa Supreme Court took their teddy bear away.

What's getting lost here is the fact that Democrats can no longer think of tax cuts as appropriations. This throws a giant monkey wrench into their Manual Of Style. For the past 20-odd years Democrats have devolved by blabbering on about how, in order to have lower tax rates, politicians must "pay for" them somehow. It's a delusional theory.

David Yepsen has a pretty good column on the Iowa Supreme Court decision in the Register, at least with regard to the fallout of the Iowa Corporate Welfare Slush Fund Values Fund. At least he's able to recognize that some people think giving "grease money" to fatcat companies like Wells Fargo is stupid.

Whereas the Register Editorial Board completely ignores the angle of Vilsack vetoing tax cuts as an "appropriation" and instead spends all their time whining about the loss of the Iowa Corporate Welfare Slush Fund Values Fund. Surely it's because Vilsack is a Democrat and this is such a transparent way to "create jobs" as a resume-building exercise for Democrat politicians. (Most Democrats, and some Republicans, seem to think if the politicians aren't "creating jobs" then nobody is...)

If Republicans were advocating such a fund, Paul Anger and the Socialists at the Register would be criticizing it (correctly) as Corporate Welfare and as a giveaway to rich, out-of-state companies.