As the Iowa Legislature moves past the first funnel week where proposed bills either receive support and move on or don’t and are no longer discussed for the rest of the session, District 10 State Senator Jake Chapman is excited that one of his bills remains alive for further discussion.

The Iowa Trust Act is a bill that Senator Chapman is working on to better control how the state spends its money.  Right now, he says the state government is permitted to spend 99% of both its revenues and savings on various projects and programs which results in an increasing budget and growth.

His bill proposes looking at increasing wages and salaries of Iowans.

“We don’t believe that government should be growing at a faster rate than what our household incomes are growing.  We shouldn’t be spending more money.”

Chapman points out that historically, household incomes have been growing at a 3.8% rate and describes what his bill would do to help limit their spending in relation to that percentage.

“Our bill would say that we are going to cap our expenditure limitations at half of what that percentage is, so about 1.9%.”

The bill goes further to create a 1% secondary roads growth fund balance which Chapman adds could shift about $80 million to help with the secondary roads projects in the state and give $350 million back to Iowans in income tax reductions over the next five years.

Since the bill is so new, Chapman believes it could gain ground with support from both parties in both chambers and is hopeful that it could be to the full Senate floor for debate later this session.