The U.S. House approved a bill yesterday to cut taxes by 20 percent for one year for companies with fewer than 500 employees. All the Iowans present voted for the legislation: Republicans Tom Latham (IA-04) and Steve King (IA-05) and Democrats Dave Loebsack (IA-02) and Leonard Boswell (IA-03). Bruce Braley (IA-01) was absent. His staff have not responded to my request for comment on how he would have voted.

The roll call shows that only 18 House Democrats supported this bill. Once again, Progressive Caucus member Loebsack joined Republicans and a small group of primarily Blue Dog Democrats. Bleeding Heartland has discussed this pattern in the context of Loebsack’s votes for a balanced budget constitutional amendment, to block non-existent EPA regulations on farm dust, to make it more difficult for the federal government to regulate small business, and to extend a pay freeze for mostly middle-class federal workers.

After the jump I enclose a statement from King and more details on the Congressional debate over small business tax cuts.

More than 50 religious leaders in Iowa have signed an appeal for “responsible precautionary action to limit global climate change.” I’ve posted below the full statement below with all the signatories, including Catholic Bishops Martin Amos and Richard Pates, United Methodist Bishop Julius Trimble, Lutheran Bishops Michael Burk and Michael Last, and Episcopal Bishop Alan Scarfe.

The faith leaders mention a recent warning to Iowa legislators from 44 scientists representing 28 Iowa colleges and universities. Unfortunately, even when Democrats controlled the state House and Senate, lawmakers did almost nothing to implement the Iowa Climate Change Advisory Council’s recommendations (pdf).

I enclose below State Senator Rob Hogg’s comments on the religious leaders’ statement. He is of the Iowa legislature’s strongest advocates of policies to combat climate change.

On a related note, the 2011 Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll indicated that 68 percent of Iowa farmers believe climate change is happening, 5 percent do not believe it is happening, and 28 percent are not sure. About 45 percent of that survey’s respondents said human activities are partly or mostly responsible for changing climate patterns.

Representatives Steve King (R, IA-05), Tom Latham (R, IA-04), and Leonard Boswell (D, IA-03) want to know what the U.S. Department of Agriculture has done “to correct the public record and educate consumers about the safety” of lean, finely textured beef. It’s not the first time those politicians have decried the so-called “misinformation” campaign against what critics call “pink slime.” Bleeding Heartland has previously covered this controversy here, here, and here.

After the jump I’ve posted a press release from King’s office and the full text of yesterday’s letter to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, signed by 29 U.S. House members. The letter and press release suggest that Vilsack has an obligation to help repair the image of Beef Products Inc. That company recently suspended operations at three of its four facilities that produce lean, finely textured beef. King is also seeking a Congressional inquiry into the “smear campaign against one of the stellar companies in the country” and has said he is “focused on helping BPI get their brand back and their market share back.”

UPDATE: On April 20, Representative Bruce Braley (D, IA-01) called for a Congressional investigation into “recent claims made in the media about lean, finely textured beef,” including people “on all sides of the issue.” More details are at the end of this post.

Yesterday all five Iowans in the U.S. House helped pass a bill that extends funding for federal transportation programs through September and requires approval of the Keystone XL pipeline project. The vote will lead to conference committee negotiations over a long-term authorization of the Highway Trust Fund and other programs.

Follow me after the jump for more on yesterday’s House vote and other transportation policy news. Younger Americans are increasingly choosing to get around without a car where alternatives to driving are available.

Catching up on some news from last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has unveiled a “a voluntary strategy to promote the judicious use in food-producing animals of antibiotics that are important in treating humans.” The goal is to reduce human infections involving drug-resistant bacteria. Background and details on the new policy are after the jump.

I’m posting the mid-week open thread early today. What’s on your mind, Bleeding Heartland readers?

The wildflower of the week is Jack-in-the-pulpit, which has a distinctive shape when blooming.

Federal income taxes are due today for most Americans, unless you’ve filed for an extension like Mitt Romney. (What was he thinking?)

This thread is for any comments related to tax policy at any level of government. Follow me after the jump for links to news, facts and figures about taxes.

UPDATE: Added statements from Representatives Steve King, Dave Loebsack, and Leonard Boswell below. Loebsack and Boswell reference “equal pay day” rather than “tax day.”

This afternoon U.S. Senate Republicans blocked a bill to impose a minimum tax rate of 30 percent on taxpayers who collect at least $1 million in income. The motion received 51 votes in favor and only 45 against, but in the convoluted world of Senate procedure, Democrats needed 60 votes to approve a “motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to consider” the bill. All but one Democrat voted for cloture, while all but one Republican voted against. Iowa’s Tom Harkin and Chuck Grassley split on party lines. Neither has issued a statement on today’s vote, but after the jump I’ve posted an excerpt from the “Q&A on taxes” in Grassley’s latest e-mail newsletter to constituents.

President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats plan to flog the “Buffett rule” repeatedly throughout the election year. A few samples of the preferred talking points on both sides are below, just after the Grassley commentary.

Left unsaid: we wouldn’t be having this debate if Congressional Democrats and/or the president had refused to extend the Bush tax cuts for the top income brackets in late 2010 (as most of them had promised to do during the Bush presidency).

Approximately 44 percent of Iowa workers earning less than $10 per hour have at least some college education, according to data compiled by Janelle Jones and John Schmitt of the Center for Economic Policy Research.  

While many Americans dread tax day, April 15 holds a silver lining for political junkies: the chance to read the latest federal campaign finance reports. Follow me after the jump for details on the money raised and spent by Iowa’s five U.S. House incumbents and five challengers between January 1 and March 31. Note: at this writing, Dave Loebsack’s primary challenger Joe Seng had not filed a quarterly report with the Federal Election Commission. I will update this post if one appears. He may not have raised enough money yet to trigger reporting requirements.

Click here for the latest voter registration numbers in Iowa’s four new Congressional districts.

I try to ignore the bogus controversies and fake outrage that dominate cable television news coverage, but the big to-do over Hilary Rosen saying Ann Romney “never worked a day in her life” is on my mind this weekend.

A multi-media exhibit on Iowa’s role in the Civil War opens today at the State Historical Museum of Iowa.

The Des Moines Register is losing another group of longtime fixtures in the newsroom. Publisher Laura Hollingsworth announced on Friday the 13th that ten writers and editors are among 13 employees who accepted the Gannett Corporation’s early retirement package.

Some people with big megaphones in the Iowa Republican world are still not sold on Mitt Romney for president.  

Thank Gannett for small favors: the successive rounds of newsroom layoffs at the Des Moines Register have spared Clark Kauffman. He’s been tenacious in covering flawed oversight of Iowa’s nursing homes. On Thursday, Kauffman reported on a recent act by Governor Terry Branstad that worries national advocates for senior citizens.

The U.S. teen birth rate reached “a historic low in 2010,” according to data released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control this week. Iowa was among 47 states where the birth rate for teenagers fell significantly from 2007 to 2010, and Iowa’s rate of 28.6 births per 1,000 teenagers was ranked 34th nationwide. More details are after the jump.

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller was one of 16 state attorneys general to file a federal antitrust lawsuit yesterday against Apple Inc. and three major U.S. publishers. The complaint alleges that the publishers and Apple conspired to raise prices on electronic books, causing consumers to be overcharged by more than $100 million. The U.S. Department of Justice filed a similar lawsuit against Apple and two publishers in a different federal court.

You’d think the USDA would see the flaw of logic in letting the people who make the food inspect the food and decide if it is actually safe to eat.

The USDA has decided in its infinite wisdom, despite pink slime and a few other debacles of the food industry, to test a program allowing chicken companies to check their own livestock and decide whether or not the chickens are safe to eat.

Here’s your mid-week open thread: all topics welcome.

After the jump I’ve posted three photos of bellwort, a yellow flower that can bloom between April and June in Iowa. Like everything else, it came out early this year.

Competing rallies about lean finely textured beef took place on the Iowa State University campus yesterday. Governor Terry Branstad, Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds, and Representative Steve King were among the speakers at a rally supporting continued use of the additive used in some ground beef. Before that event, some family farmers joined activists at a rally to “to protest the collusion between industrial meat production and our political system.”

It’s time for a new Bleeding Heartland thread about lean finely textured beef, known to detractors as “pink slime.” A dozen links to news and commentary about this controversy are after the jump.