Discussion for article #243721
shrug, OK.
If they voters want him, let him serve.
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Good grief, AP. What a love note.
Good to know that governing isn’t a lost art among Republicans – yet.
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Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad…— a graying little man who relies on Midwestern stick-to-itiveness rather than personal flair — is about to enter the political record books as the longest serving governor in American history, dating all the way back to colonial times.
He’s been governor for more than 240 years? No wonder he’s “graying.”
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While credit is due for that time period, many other states have term limits for governors, so it would not be possible for a governor in such a state to break the record no matter how popular they are.
Although he would not have the record yet, I’d say Bill Richardson would still be governor of New Mexico if he were allowed to keep running.
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Look…there…it’s a rare and almost extinct moderate and sane Republican in its native habitat.
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I would refer readers of this article to a DES REGISTER ARTICLE OF 11-15-15: BRANSTAD THINKS HE’S ABOVE THE LAW. As a lifelong Iowa, one needs to pay close attention to the stench coming out of this administration. Our local news needs to do a better job (that is an understatement) in delving into the cronyism, slush fund payouts, his cozy dealings (and rush to privatize) with the companies to privatize Medicaid. The list goes on and on. This guy and his administration are corrupt and perhaps because he has governed way beyond his expiration date.
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Tru, dat. And he would have saved us from Suzie Martinez.
Thank you, marymac. The AP’s puff piece on Branstad seems to summarize the conventional wisdom on him from his earlier administrations, not what’s going on today. I wasn’t in Iowa in the 1980s or 1990s, so I don’t know whether he was an acceptably moderate purple state governor then. All I know is that these days, he governs in a much more partisan style than the article suggests, and he’s constantly embroiled in controversies over his attempts to underfund, close, or gain partisan control over non-partisan state-run institutions. The impending disaster of Medicaid privatization is the most prominent recent example, but the list is long.
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Yeah, great guy. Unless you’re poor. Privatizing Medicaid, to begin 1/1/16 facing huge problems. “The transition of Iowa’s $4.2 billion Medicaid program has made the rollout of HealthCare.gov look orderly,” writes Wapo’s Millbank.
“Branstad’s administration has answered critics by saying the new program will save $51 million in its first six months. But he has been unable to come up with documentation to justify the cost savings for Iowa, which already has a low-cost Medicaid system.”
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More like the writer puckered up and kissed his miserable ass.
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Branstad has to be one of the worst governors in the country. He initiated a program to improve mental health care in the state. His approach is to cut funding and close facilities, turning the mentally ill out to end up on the street or in prison. He answers criticism by saying he’s improving mental health care in the state by returning the mentally ill to the community, and we have to consider what is best for the mentally ill. To help the unemployed, he closed state employment offices. To improve medicaid, he is shutting down the state medicaid administration completely on his own authority and turning the program over to insurance companies that contribute to his campaigns and that have been fined in other states for corrupt practices. When asked by reporters why he is turning state medicaid administration over to companies that have been fined for corruption, his answer was that it is the nature of the business, what are you going to do? Now after cutting school funding on his own authority, after the state legislature came to a compromise agreement after months of negotiation, he is attempting to cut taxes for manufacturers. It’s so bad that a CEO of a medium sized manufacturer in Cedar Rapids said that it’s a mistake because much as he would like to pay lower taxes, he recognizes that police, fire dept, roads, and bridges are necessary and have to be paid for. If the editorial board of the Cedar Rapids Gazette read any of their articles, they could not in good conscience endorse him, but they always do.
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Many of us in Iowa would not agree with the article and might wonder if his PR firm wrote this article
And we all look to Iowa for leadership and ingenuity. They must be so proud to watch us fly over.
As an Iowan, I have to disagree. He is a typical Republican governor who is working to make his rich backers richer and everyone else poor. As far as sanity, his initiative to improve mental health care in the state cuts funding, closes facilities, and holds the mentally ill legally responsible for their actions.
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