WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT PAUL MCKINLEY?
Senate Minority Leader Paul McKinley, R-Chariton, said majority Democrats have not cut overall spending enough because they've relied on federal stimulus money to pay for ongoing state expenses.
"What happens when that money runs out?" McKinley said.
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Senate Minority Leader Paul McKinley, R-Chariton, said elected officials have a responsibility to take positions on controversial issues and make it clear to constituents where they stand.
"It's a classic case," said McKinley. "I think he exercised that responsibly. We may or may not agree but it's a freedom of speech issue."
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CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa political observers are fond of saying “you can’t beat somebody with nobody,” but the 2010 governor’s race could be an exception, according to Sen. Paul McKinley.
Things are so bad, the Iowa Senate Republican leader said, that whoever the GOP runs against freshman Democrat Gov. Chet Culver may be less important than being able to capture the frustration and anger voters feel toward state government.
“Let me put it this way,” the Chariton Republican said, “when the centerpiece of the session for the governor is to pass an $890 million bonding, 30-year borrowing bill to spend more money when 71 percent of Iowans say they are opposed to bonding, you have a real disconnect. That characterizes it about as well as anything. Yes, I think he’s in some trouble.”
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CEDAR RAPIDS -- A Republican leader criticized for his lack of effort to get a marriage amendment on the ballot is fighting back.
"Senate Republicans did more to have this brought up than anyone else," Senate Republicans Leader Paul McKinley, R-Chariton, said Tuesday about efforts by his caucus to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot in the wake of the Iowa Supreme Court's decision striking down the state's same-sex marriage ban.
To put the issue on the ballot, the language must be approved by two sessions of the Legislature. At this point, it appears the earliest it could go to voters would be 2012.
He acknowledged supporters of recognizing only marriage between one man and one woman are faulting him for not getting the process for a referendum on the issue started before the 2009 Legislature adjourned.
"We took four strong swipes" at getting the issue on the ballot, "but we were blocked at each and every step," McKinley told the Cedar Rapids Gazette editorial board.
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What the Iowa General Assembly didn’t do this year is as much on the minds of minority Republicans as what it did do, according to Senate Minority Leader Paul McKinley, R-Chariton.
On a statewide tour to present the GOP’s look at the 2009 session, McKinley noted Monday the Legislature “didn’t repeal federal (income tax) deductibility (on state income taxes) … and … failed to approve job-destroying labor legislation proposed over the past two years.”
But in the eyes of Republicans, the damage has been done, particularly in what McKinley said is an $800 million-plus, long-term bonding package adopted late in the session.
“It’s unfathomable that we could saddle our kids with that kind of debt,” he said. “College freshmen will be 50 years old before that debt runs out.”
Iowa’s economy can’t expand fast enough to lessen the effect on taxpayers, McKinley said.
“To grow that much, we’d have to see 10 percent expansion in revenues every year,” he said. “The idea that government can grow itself out of this debt is impossible.”
The owner of Neely Manufacturing, a Corydon-based maker of specialty textiles, including bags, banners and promotional items, McKinley defeated a Democrat incumbent in 2001 and has twice won re-election since then, the latest in 2008. He was chosen to lead Senate Republicans for the 2009 session.
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