Chet Culver Failed Math Class

From the AP via the Iowa City Press-Citizen:

Gov. Chet Culver today presented his proposed $5.93 billion budget to a joint session of the Legislature...

The proposed budget is a 5.9 percent increase from $5.6 billion this year.

Despite the call for more spending, Culver sounded a conservative tenor is his speech, saying his spending plan will have a $200 million surplus.

State 29 blog on January 11, 2006: Vilsack Wants 6.1% Increase In Spending

Des Moines Register headline on July 4, 2006: State revenue went up by 3.6% in budget year

Is state revenue going up faster than 5.9% now? If not, how can Culver come up with a $200 million surplus? I guess those news reporters also failed math class, too. They wouldn't want to actually look up the numbers.

Also:

[Culver] called on lawmakers to create a $100 million ``Iowa Power Fund'' to boost the renewable fuel industry with a payment of $25 million this year.

More taxpayer-financed corporate welfare.

And:

``It's time for Iowa to become the Silicon Valley of the Midwest,'' said Culver. ``It's time to create the jobs of the future that will keep your children and my children here at home where they belong.''

I cringe when I hear politicians talk about their area becoming the Silicon Valley Of The ____________ (fill in the blank). That phrase was what Chet Culver used when he was trying to float his plan to lose up to $666 million in IPERS pension funds by having his union thug friends "invest" it in Iowa high-tech startups.



Then, finally, there's the cigarette tax:

Culver pledged to use the $140 million that would be generated from a new cigarette tax to bolster health care.

Right, and Tom Miller's shakedown of tobacco companies was going to pay for healthcare for all; that is until Iowa lawmakers and Tom Vilsack got their hands on the money and basically blew it all.