Speaking in Des Moines this afternoon, Mitt Romney promised to lead the country “out of this debt and spending inferno” by reducing federal government spending from 24.3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product to 20 percent of GDP within four years. Romney would address what he called a “prairie fire of debt” by moving some federal programs to the state level or the private sector, repealing “Obamacare,” reforming Medicare and Social Security, and reducing “redundancy and waste” in government programs.

I’ve posted the full prepared text of Romney’s remarks after the jump, along with a few comments.

Governor Terry Branstad’s education reform blueprint called for higher academic standards and better methods to assess student skills. I just hope my kids don’t learn to count the way the governor counts jobs created in Iowa.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration was poised to implement new rules on sunscreen labels and marketing this summer, more than 30 years after the first sunscreen labeling rules were introduced in 1978. However, sunscreen manufacturers may keep using misleading language when packaging and advertising their products for at least another six months.

The word “devastating” is overused in political commentary, but I can’t think of a better way to describe the television commercial President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign rolled out today. The fifth commercial the president’s team has run in Iowa since the beginning of April is in my opinion the most effective by far. (The previous ads claimed Republican Mitt Romney “stood with Big Oil,” accused Romney of shipping jobs overseas and maintaining a Swiss bank account, put a positive spin on Obama’s record, and highlighted the unpopular decision to bail out the auto industry.)

The new spot is two minutes long and features workers who lost their jobs after Bain Capital took over GST Steel in Kansas City. The video and transcript are after the jump. UPDATE: Added a new web video from the Romney campaign and two new anti-Obama commercials the American Future Fund is running on cable television in several swing states.

In the final days of the 2011 Iowa legislative session, funding for passenger rail was one of the last disputes House Republican and Senate Democratic negotiators resolved. The final deal called for no passenger rail money in the state budget for fiscal year 2012, but left “intent” language describing future state funding to match federal grants for a train route between Iowa City and Chicago. At that time, news reports indicated that legislators would need to allocate $6.5 million toward passenger rail in fiscal year 2013 to keep this project alive, plus $10 million total in subsequent years.

Before the Iowa House and Senate adjourned last week, I saw no mention of passenger rail funding in any reports about the infrastructure budget for fiscal year 2013, which begins on July 1. Wondering whether no news was bad news, I started asking around. What I learned is after the jump, along with new links on the potential for passenger rail across Iowa.

What’s on your mind this weekend? In the spirit of past Mother’s Day diaries at this site, I’ve posted some mother-related links after the jump. I also added my thoughts on the latest TIME magazine cover, a sexualized depiction of a three-year-old breastfeeding next to a provocative “Are You Mom Enough?” tag line.

Governor Terry Branstad signed an executive order today to nullify an administrative rule banning the use of lead ammunition for hunting mourning doves in Iowa. He advanced two contradictory positions: that the Iowa legislature (not the state Natural Resources Commission) should decide whether dove hunters must use alternative ammunition, and that he was compelled to act because the Iowa Senate failed to assert its authority on this important issue.

President Barack Obama talks about intervening to save the U.S. auto industry in his re-election campaign’s latest television commercial, now on the air in Ohio and Iowa. I’ve posted the video and transcript of the 30-second spot below.

So what if the next Iowa caucuses are nearly four years away? I’m on Public Policy Polling’s wavelength: 2016 Iowa caucus polling is interesting, even if it doesn’t mean much now.

UPDATE: Governor Branstad signed Senate File 2342 on May 25.

Iowa lawmakers always cram so much action into the last few days of the legislative session. Instead of writing one long news roundup on the final decisions by the Iowa House and Senate, I’m covering specific issues in separate Bleeding Heartland posts this year.

Rod Boshart posted a good, comprehensive list here on what bills did and didn’t pass during the 2012 legislative session. Follow me after the jump for details on a good renewable energy bill, which made it through at the eleventh hour, and some thoughts on the nuclear power bill, which for the second year in a row didn’t make it to the Iowa Senate floor.

The U.S. Postal Service announced yesterday that it will save money by reducing hours of operation at thousands of small post offices, rather than shuttering them. The changes will affect 178 Iowa post offices, listed on pages 35 through 46 of this pdf document. After the jump I’ve posted reaction from several representatives in Congress: Republican Steve King (IA-05) and Democrats Bruce Braley (IA-01), Dave Loebsack (IA-02), and Leonard Boswell (IA-03).

The Postal Service will proceed with plans to close more than 200 mail sorting facilities nationwide. Those cutbacks affected facilities in Sioux City, Carroll, and Creston, but the Postal Service decided to keep sorting operations running in Waterloo and Cedar Rapids.

The Iowa House and Senate adjourned for the year today. Tomorrow Bleeding Heartland will sort through the state budget compromises and other news about the survivors (mental health reform, solar tax incentives) and casualties (property tax reform, nuclear power bill) of the session’s busy final days.

For now, enjoy a couple of wild geranium photos after the jump. One of them includes other native plants I can’t identify, so I hope readers with expertise in this area will share their wisdom. Wild geranium is found in woodland areas throughout Iowa and the eastern U.S. The more familiar geranium houseplant is native to South Africa.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

In an interview with ABC News today, President Barack Obama confirmed that he thinks same-sex couples “should be able to get married.”

UPDATE: Added more Iowa political reaction below.

Iowa is second only to Vermont in the number of farmers markets and community-supported agriculture farms per capita, according to data compiled by the Vermont-based non-profit Strolling of the Heifers.

The Iowa Senate and House approved a conference committee agreement on education reform yesterday with bipartisan support in both chambers.

Republican Congressional candidate Ben Lange launched his campaign’s first radio commercial yesterday. In the 60-second ad, Lange makes a broad statement about “restoring the generational compact.”

One of the greatest children’s book authors of the twentieth century died earlier today. Maurice Sendak is most famous for “Where the Wild Things Are,” which President Barack Obama read for children at this year’s White House easter egg hunt.

As a child I loved Sesyle Joslin’s silly books about manners, illustrated by Sendak: “What Do You Say, Dear?” and “What Do You Do Dear?” My favorite stories by Sendak were in the “nutshell” collection of miniature books in their own decorated box (One Was Johnny, Pierre, Chicken Soup With Rice, and Alligators All Around). I saved that collection to pass along to my own children.

Bleeding Heartland readers of a certain age may remember the animated 1970s television special “Really Rosie.” Carole King set many of Sendak’s books to music for that special, and the soundtrack is a fantastic children’s album. I’ve posted two video clips after the jump: the Really Rosie theme and “Alligators All Around.”

Share your own Sendak memories in this thread. UPDATE: NPR posted excerpts from several interviews Sendak has given over the years. Worth a read.

Public Policy Polling’s latest Iowa poll paints a pretty picture for President Barack Obama going into the general election campaign.

Republican Congressional candidate John Archer is up on cable television with a new commercial promoting his jobs plan. Follow me after the jump for the video, transcript, and analysis.

Beef Products, Inc. announced yesterday that it will permanently close three factories in Waterloo, Iowa, Amarillo, Texas and Garden City, Kansas. BPI suspended operations at those plants in March, following public controversy over lean finely textured beef, which detractors call “pink slime.” The Waterloo facility employed 200 people, who will be jobless effective May 25.

Comments from Governor Terry Branstad, Senator Chuck Grassley, and Representative Bruce Braley are after the jump. Branstad and Grassley criticized what they have called a “smear campaign” against lean finely textured beef. Braley, who previously called for a Congressional investigation into media claims about the product, expressed regret that “the facts have been lost in the furor” over lean finely textured beef.