Reynolds’ response purposefully misleads the people of Iowa.
Republican Ron Corbett recently called out Governor Reynolds for her consistent under-funding of education in Iowa:
“ ‘We’re in back-to-back years now of 1 percent funding,’ Corbett said, referencing last year’s 1.1 percent increase. ‘So this isn’t an anomaly, it’s more of a trend. We’re actually in a rut, a 1 percent rut — a 1 percent Reynolds rut.’ ”
Corbett went on to rake Reynolds over the coals for giving away millions of Iowa taxpayer dollars to out-of-state special interests instead of Iowa’s schools:
“ ‘I hear all these people in Des Moines talk about how tough the budget is. But remember, under the governor’s Medicaid scheme, the managed care scheme, they’re giving reimbursement rates to the out-of-state managed care providers at over 3 percent,’ Corbett said at his event in Cedar Rapids. ‘And look what happened with Apple. They gave Apple $20 million, that’s $400,000 per job that they gave Apple, and they’re going to give schools 67 bucks a kid.’ ”
Reynolds attempted to push back with an incredibly misleading statement about the Apple deal, purposefully muddling the issue of how tax giveaways take money off the table for critical services.
“Iowans aren’t fooled by Governor Reynolds’ misleading rhetoric on special interest tax giveaways – we know that she’s taking hundreds of millions of dollars that could have gone to education or public safety or health care off the table. We are in a budget crisis because Governor Reynolds played this game with our tax dollars in 2013 and the consequences of that choice are coming home to roost. We deserve leadership that won’t throw Iowans under the bus to give special interests a handout,” said Iowa Democratic Party Chair Troy Price.