Wetlands provide an important anti-pollution role in Iowa's environment, and benefit wildlife habitat as well, but well-intentioned wetland restorations do not always produce the best results.
Read our report 24-page PDF 5/10/12 LATEST!
Read our executive summary 2-page PDF
Read our news release
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Iowa’s approach to economic development has been badly skewed in favor of expensive subsidies aimed at short-term job gains instead of long-term investments in our economy.
Read Iowa Students: Increasingly on Their Own or download 5-page PDF 4/19/12
Read our news release or download 2-page PDF
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The combination of increased tuition and decreased state tuition grants and scholarships threatens to put higher education out of reach for many Iowans.
Read Iowa Students: Increasingly on Their Own or download 6-page PDF 4/12/12
Read our news release
Iowa's community colleges can count less on state support than they did 10 years ago, shifting costs to students and parents also trying to make ends meet.
Read Lost Momentum for Iowa's Community Colleges (4-page PDF) 3/22/12
Read our news release
Likewise, state budget cuts have hammered Iowa's Regents institutions, forcing up tuition and fees.
Read Up and Down: Regents' Costs Rise, Funding Drops in Iowa or download 5-page PDF 3/8/12
Read our news release
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As negotiations proceed behind the scenes on reforms of tax-increment financing — the need for it exposed by Iowa Fiscal Partnership research that showed abuses in Johnson and Polk counties — it is worthwhile to keep reminding Iowans why slapdash changes carrying a "reform" label are not enough.
Read our Iowa Fiscal Partnership backgrounder or download 2-page PDF 3/29/12
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Iowa’s largest county offers good examples of why tax-increment financing, or TIF, can favor city development strategies at an unreasonable cost to schools and counties unless the tool is reformed.
Read our report 8-page PDF 3/15/12
Read our news release or download 2-page PDF
See the Iowa Fiscal Partnership TIF Reform page.
See a 2-pager outlining critical reforms. 2/8/12
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Raising the Iowa Earned Income Tax Credit from 7 percent of the federal EITC to 20 percent not only would raise the threshold at which Iowa families start to owe state income taxes, but would boost local economies throughout the state. In fact, the increase would provide an average benefit per House district of almost $550,000, which residents would use in their local economy.
Read our policy brief 4-page PDF 3/29/12
Read EITC: A Hand Up to Working Families, Local Economy 3-page PDF 2/17/12
Read Support for Working Iowa Families or download 3-page PDF 12/29/11
Read Andrew Cannon's guest opinion in the Iowa City Press-Citizen or download 2-page PDF 2/24/12
Tests of this legislative session: TIF reform, and improvements to working-family tax policy and preschool.
Read Iowa Fiscal Partnership statement 1/10/12
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The "Rebuild America Act" proposed today by Senator Tom Harkin offers several steps that would benefit the middle class and rejuvenate the American economy. Over the last 10 years, IPP has recommended policies that are touched on by several parts of the Senator’s proposal.
Read our statement or download 1-page PDF 3/29/12
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Iowa lawmakers are $5 million behind water-quality funding trends of the last decade, despite greater needs for water protection and public willingness to fund it.
Read our report or download 9-page PDF 3/1/12
Read our news release
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Nearly 143,000 Iowans lost employer-sponsored health coverage in a dramatic national decline in job-based insurance over the last decade.
Read our Iowa news release or download 2-page PDF 2/23/12
Read the Economic Policy Institute report 26-page PDF 2/23/12
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Three large corporations received over $31 million in Iowa research subsidies without paying any state income tax, part of nearly $45 million paid by the state in 2011 for unused research tax credits.
Read our Iowa Fiscal Partnership news release 2/10/12
Read our Iowa Fiscal Partnership backgrounder 2-page PDF 2/21/12
Read the Iowa Department of Revenue report 2-page PDF 2/10/12
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Four towns in Eastern Iowa this week will kick off the Get Energized, Iowa! competition to see which can take the most steps to reduce energy use during 2012.
Read the news release or download 1-page PDF 2/8/12
Visit the Get Energized Iowa! website
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A little friendly competition can prove to be useful in getting Iowans to save energy, researchers say.
Read our report from June 2011 or download 8-page PDF
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The state of Iowa has a lot of catching up to do as lawmakers consider their choices for the Fiscal 2013 budget.
Read about our Iowa Fiscal Partnership policy brief or download report (12-page PDF) 2/7/12
Read Andrew Cannon's post on our Iowa Policy Points blog 2/8/12
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Not only do economic development deals often fall short on job creation or other benefits, states are highly inconsistent in how they monitor, verify and enforce the terms of job subsidies that cost taxpayers billions of dollars per year. A national study gives Iowa a C-plus on that score.
Read Good Jobs First / IPP news release 4-page PDF 1/18/12
Read Good Jobs First executive summary 8-page PDF
Read Iowa appendix 2-page PDF
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A balanced approach to dealing with the federal debt will keep both revenues and spending on the table — including spending made through the tax code, or "tax expenditures." That kind of spending has the very same impact on the budget bottom line — and it was over $1 trillion in 2010, as shown at right. In fact, tax expenditures cost more than Medicare & Medicaid, and more than Social Security.
To judge the work of the "SuperCommittee" and Congress in the coming days, keep in mind that principle, as well as these. No real solution will increase income disparity or make the economic situation worse and cost jobs.
IPP's David Osterberg and Mike Owen made those points at a Heritage Area Agency on Aging forum, "Critical Issues Facing Seniors and People with Disabilities." Click on the graph at right for slides from the presentation November 2 in Cedar Rapids.
11/2/11
For more information and analysis about federal budget issues and impacts on Iowa — click here.
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A changing labor market is diverting workers from jobs that offer insurance toward nonstandard work or arrangements that make finding affordable insurance difficult, a trend that contributes to job instability, according to a new report.
Read full report 59-page PDF 10/5/11
Read executive summary or download 2-page PDF
Read news release
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Iowa has well-qualified individuals performing important tasks and their compensation is less than that for similarly qualified employees in the private sector. None of Iowa's fiscal challenges result from excessive public employee compensation.
Download full report (PDF)
Read executive summary or news release 2/22/11
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