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Iowa’s Legislative Service Agency puts the state of Iowa’s budget surplus at $804.6 million.  Immediately there is discussion on how to deal with it.  Should we spend it on education?  Should we spend it on Human Services?  Should we spend it on ___________?  It is an automatic default for some politicians to feel that we must spend any surplus that we have.  If we have it we must spend.

May I remind our Legislature that it isn’t their money to spend.  They don’t have money of their own, government is not a producer – they collect money involuntarily from their residents.  They are merely stewards of what ever funding they do have.

So this isn’t a surplus – it is an ending balance.  The state of Iowa over collected and that money should be returned to the taxpayers.  A “surplus” isn’t a license to spend more money.

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