AFP event & ITR Commentary on Tax Funded Lobbyists

• The natives were restless at Davenport AFP event.

• Your tax dollars are funding lobbyists to advocate increasing your taxes.

• City and county government hip deep in bureaucratic featherbedding process

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Vibrant AFP event held at Davenport Eastern Ave. Library last Saturday:

Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is a national lobbying/ issue organization focused on  budgets & spending; energy & environment; health care & entitlement; taxes; labor, education & spending; banking & financial services; property rights and technology.

The Iowa unit has been sponsoring a series of town hall meetings billed as Your Questions, Their Answers, No Spin. The spring schedule of events around the state features Sam Clovis (conservative champion) and Simon Conway (WHO-AM talk radio host). Their most recent event was this past Saturday in Davenport.

While we were not able to attend, our ubiquitous informed sources tell us that the event was very well received and well attended.  At least one hundred busied the room which is more than the Scott County Republican Party Central Committee meetings can muster even with that position’s obligation to attend.  Send some post cards with a genuine town hall purpose, and voila! (or as Rush would say, “walla” for those in Rio Linda.

We mention the attendance comparison because the demeanor of the attendees and the speakers was decidedly dissatisfaction with Republican leadership’s performance.  Heard muttered often, referring to Republican leadership, words to the effect, “didn’t we just have an election that kicked liberals and their ideology in the butt” . . . and . . . “what a pathetic bunch of weak-hitters.”

Iowans for Tax Relief (ITR) reports on the scandal of tax supported advocacy for tax increases and the withholding of records.  From the ITR alert

Taxpayer-Funded Lobbyists*

ITR has long argued that local governments’ associations (Iowa League of Cities, Iowa State Association of Counties, and Iowa Association of School Boards) should be prohibited from lobbying, but allowed to provide information if requested by a Legislative Committee.  They all are funded with taxpayer dollars.  It’s wrong to tax Iowans to pay for lobbying for higher taxes and more spending.

Recently the Des Moines Register highlighted the problems with one of these associations and its lack of transparency.  The Register called for the Iowa League of Cities (ILC) to be labeled as a public body so they would be subject to open records and open meetings laws.  We applaud the Register’s stand on this issue and ask the Legislature to demand accountability from groups like the Iowa League of Cities.  What is ILC hiding?

ILC calls itself an “instrumentality of government” but is using taxpayer dollars to promote city governments’ interests and raise taxes on Iowans!  ITR calls on our Legislators to stop taxpayer-funded lobbying and to require these taxpayer-funded groups to comply fully with open records and open meetings laws.

Previously in these pages:

We are told that Republican Scott County Supervisors Tom Sunderbruch and Carol Earnhardt made a pilgrimage to Des Moines recently (prior to the legislatures vote) to lobby for increasing gas taxes. At a meeting prior to the swearing-in of new board members elected in November the Scott County Board is reported to have voted in support of participating in the association of county government officials lobbying to increase the tax. . . .

A question that might be poised to Scott County Supervisors who are willing to travel to raise taxes on constituents: “are you going to go to Springfield to get them to raise their taxes to benefit our retailers or will you go their to get them to lower their taxes so we can get cheaper gas over there?”

The reimbursement of expenses for such activities  (direct or through the tax supported Iowa Association of Counties or League of Cities) is elitist out of touch government at its worst.

* item posted here in its entirety with permission.

R Mall

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