Sen. Thomas Harkin

Official website: http://harkin.senate.gov/
731 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-3254 Fax: 202-224-9369
Contact Tom Harkin via web

Governor Chet Culver said Thursday he's "very confident" the state can balance its budget for Fiscal Year 2009 with no special session but warned that it's "very possible" he'll have to order an across-the-board cut in state government as early as next month for Fiscal Year 2010, which started July 1.

Culver said he'll likely ask the Revenue Estimating Conference to meet early - in August instead of September - so he can make any necessary cuts as early as possible.

"Based on what they tell us about the first quarter of fiscal year 2010, we will have nine months to react," Culver said. "It is very possible that I'll have to do additional cuts, and we're going to take that step as quickly as we know the facts."

When asked if an across-the-board cut was his preferred approach to a budget shortfall, Culver said: "I think that's fair to say. That is certainly a tool that we have. ... The more that we can do early in Fiscal Year 2010, the better. The less pain, if you will, that we'll have to implement in '11."

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour said Thursday in Iowa that he didn't think South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford's disappearance and extramarital affair would have any effect at the polls, downplayed the prospect of a run for president in 2012, and said he thinks Iowa's chances are good to elect a Republican governor next year.

"What happens in these races this year and next year will be what really matter to the party," Barbour said when asked about a 2012 run. "If after that it seems like a reasonable thing, I will consider it. I have no plan to run for president; I have no intention to run for president. But I've been around long enough to say, 'Never say never.' And we'll just see where we are after '10. But I would be very surprised if I turned out to be a candidate for president."

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.