What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread.

To get the conversation started, I’ve posted some scary or disturbing news after the jump.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood warned yesterday that air traffic control across the country may be severely disrupted if the “sequester” goes into effect. Budget cuts may prompt the Federal Aviation Administration to shut down air traffic control towers at three Iowa airports as early as April.

CORRECTION: Closing the air traffic control towers would not necessarily shut down all traffic at the affected airports. On the other hand, “many corporations won’t fly into airports that don’t have an active tower.”

Senator Tom Harkin, a lifelong Catholic, believes it would “send a strong signal to the rest of the world” for the church to select a Latino pope as successor to Pope Benedict XVI next month.

Five years ago this week, I was hospitalized with an infection that might have become life-threatening or permanently debilitating had I not had health insurance coverage, which allowed me to receive a relatively early diagnosis. Every day in this country, uninsured people hunker down, hoping their health problem will go away without an expensive doctor’s visit. That’s one of many reasons studies have shown that expanding Medicaid saves lives.

Governor Terry Branstad sounds determined not to expand Medicaid, but none of his arguments can withstand scrutiny.

UPDATE: Branstad confirmed on February 23 that he will not agree to expand Medicaid. Added details and other related news below.

Eighteen casinos currently operate in Iowa, but if backers have their way, that number will grow in the near future. Early voting is under way for the March 5 Linn County referendum on a proposed casino in Cedar Rapids.

Meanwhile, this week some people rolled out plans for a new casino in Norwalk (Warren County), just south of the Des Moines metro area. Links and details are after the jump.

Any comments related to expanding casino gambling are welcome in this thread. I tend to agree with Richard Florida, an expert on urban development who made the case against casinos in the Cedar Rapids Gazette not long ago. Florida commented this week that casinos are a good litmus test, showing which self-styled “city builders” are actually “city destroyers.”

The future of Iowa’s Congressional representation is not encouraging, judging from the latest League of Conservation Voters’ scorecard.

Do you want the good news first, or the bad news? President Barack Obama has reportedly settled on a strong candidate to replace Lisa Jackson as Environmental Protection Agency administrator. On the flip side, Steven Chu’s successor at the Department of Energy is likely to be a nuclear physicist with connections to major polluting industries. Details are after the jump. Still no word on the next secretary of transportation.

Florida Governor Rick Scott is the latest Republican governor to decide to expand Medicaid under the 2010 health care reform law. He was one of those leading the charge to have the law declared unconstitutional. Some comments from today’s press conference are after the jump as well. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, Ohio Governor John Kasich and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder are all Republicans who opposed the Obama administration policy but have agreed to expand Medicaid in their states. I hope that when Iowa Governor Terry Branstad meets with U.S. Health and Human Services officials later this week, he will find some face-saving way to agree to expand Medicaid here. So far he sounds determined to resist the policy, despite the consensus of every major Iowa medical group as well as a wide array of religious and social justice organizations.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Nine days from now, approximately 85 billion in federal spending cuts will go into effect unless Congress and President Barack Obama can agree on an alternative to the so-called “sequester.” After the jump I’ve posted details on how the spending cuts might affect Iowa, as well as recent comments and actions by some of the Iowans in Congress.

Personal business and political agendas aren’t supposed to influence the work of the Iowa Board of Regents, so why did Bruce Rastetter ask University of Iowa President Sally Mason to arrange a meeting between ethanol industry representatives and Professor Jerald Schnoor?

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack may be thinking about running for Iowa governor again in 2014, according to one of his longtime friends.

UPDATE: Vilsack stopped by the Iowa capitol on February 19 to meet with statehouse Democrats. According to State Representative Marti Anderson, he came to “talk about the looming sequester in DC. and other Food, Farm, and Jobs issues from USDA.”

Catching up on news from last week, all four Iowans in the U.S. House supported a bill seeking to “freeze the pay of federal workers for the third year in a row” as well as the salaries for members of Congress.

I’ve been trying to determine if MidAmerican Energy Company (MEC) is paying the correct amount of property tax on their wind farm property in Pocahontas County.  As it turns out, this is not an easy task for an interested Iowa tax payer. The reason for this winter “adventure” stems from the county supervisors proposed creation of a Tax Increment Finance district around MEC’s wind project. If they proceed, tax revenue would be diverted away from our school district, fire department, etc., for other projects in the county. An individual taxpayer within the school district will mostly likely see their tax rates increase as a result.  Since the county is debating where to spend their “windfall” revenue, I became curious about how the county determined the tax rates for an asset with over a $1/2 billion in value. In the interest of full disclosure, I have a company that offers consulting for wind farm development, so I have some experience with this issue. (continues below)

 

Cedar Rapids business owner Steve Rathje announced his candidacy  for the open seat in Iowa’s first Congressional district last Friday. Background on Rathje and thoughts about other possible candidates in IA-01 are after the jump. A district map and the latest voter registration numbers in all 20 counties can be found here.

Many Republicans are thinking about running for Iowa’s open U.S. Senate seat next year, but the field is frozen until Representatives Tom Latham (IA-03) and Steve King (IA-04) make their intentions clear. King has indicated that he needs to battle “elites” like Karl Rove before he can analyze a possible Senate bid. That suggests Latham will be the first to decide whether to seek the Republican nomination.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread.

The Des Moines Register continues to release bits and pieces from the latest Iowa poll conducted by Selzer & Co. After the jump I’ve posted some of the more important findings, other than the IA-Sen numbers, which I discussed in this post. Like the Iowa .Gif-t Shop blog, I found it bizarre that the Register asked respondents whether they’d be “thrilled,” “mildly happy,” or “don’t really care” about the prospect of certain national retailers opening an Iowa store.

The Iowa Democratic establishment continues to consolidate around Representative Bruce Braley for the open U.S. Senate seat. Representative Dave Loebsack (IA-02) posted on his Facebook page this morning,

Bruce, I’m in.

I’m proud to endorse Bruce Braley. We need someone in the U.S. Senate who’ll continue Tom Harkin’s legacy of fighting to strengthen the middle class and speaking out for those who don’t have a voice. I’m pleased to stand with him.

Looking forward to seeing you tonight at the Red, White, and Blue dinner!

We need someone who will continue Harkin’s legacy of speaking some unpopular truths, such as pointing out that a constitutional amendment to balance the federal budget “would require massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare and many other crucial programs” the middle class rely on. Sadly, we won’t hear that message from either Braley or Loebsack in the years to come.

UPDATE: Added the Braley for Iowa press release below.

SECOND UPDATE: Former Representative Leonard Boswell chimed in with his endorsement on January 18. I’ve posted it below. He praised Braley as “a tireless advocate for Iowa’s veterans.” That was a strong theme in Braley’s latest re-election campaign.

Governor Terry Branstad says he called Karl Rove this week to urge the new Conservative Victory Project not to get involved in Iowa races.

The Salisbury House Foundation was founded in 1993 to preserve, interpret and share Salisbury House for the educational and cultural benefit of the public. Implicit in this mission is a role we have embraced since our inception as caretakers of the Weeks Family history: not just for Carl and Edith (who built the house in the 1920s), but for their forebears, their four sons and their later descendants. (Social media has proven an incredible asset in this latter regard, as we have connected with many Weeks grandchildren via our Facebook page). In 2012, we received a Historical Resource Development Grant from the State Historical Society of Iowa specifically to research and interpret Weeks family history, so we have spent much of the past year delving deep into local and remote archives to better tell the story of this remarkable family.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will not run for the U.S. Senate next year, his spokesman Matt Paul told the Des Moines Register this morning. I don’t know anyone who expected Vilsack to run for the seat Senator Tom Harkin is vacating, but the Des Moines Register’s latest Iowa poll write-up emphasized that Vilsack would be the most “appealing” candidate of eight names Selzer & Co tested with 802 Iowa voters.

For now, Vilsack seems to be enjoying his work in President Barack Obama’s cabinet. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him run for U.S. Senate if Chuck Grassley retires in 2016, though.

I expect only token opposition to Representative Bruce Braley in next year’s Democratic primary to replace Harkin. Any comments about the Senate race are welcome in this thread.

The Egyptian company that received the largest tax incentive package in Iowa history has a subsidiary accused of defrauding the federal government out of $332 million, Ryan Foley reported yesterday in a must-read story for the Associated Press. Excerpts from Foley’s article are after the jump, but I strongly recommend reading the whole piece.

Iowa Economic Development Authority Director Debi Durham admitted that the federal lawsuit over improper contracts “did not come up in our due diligence,” which is no surprise. Durham’s negotiating strategy seems to have been not to question anything Orascom executives told Iowa officials. Although Governor Terry Branstad has claimed Iowa landed the fertilizer plant deal “by the skin of our teeth,” evidence suggests Orascom would have invested in Iowa even without generous state and local tax incentives.