Culver and Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge took to the road this week with the "Shovel Ready Tour" to promote their $750-million I-JOBS bonding plan. They argued that the plan, combined with federal stimulus money, is a better way to pay for current transportation needs than raising the gas tax.

"It is likely that there will be another discussion about a gas-tax increase in the future," Culver said at the tour's first stop in Des Moines. "But we have a $600-million alternative today that I think is better certainly for the next 24 months, at a time when people are having a tough time paying their mortgage, filling up their gas tank, and buying their groceries."

Culver said the federal stimulus will provide Iowa with $360 million for road improvements, along with the $250 million he has proposed through bonding.

He also said he's open to compromise. "I am willing to meet people halfway, I am not expecting at the end of the day this will be a $750 million plan exactly how we've laid it out," he said.

But a draft proposal of a $700-million bonding plan created by a working group of 10 House and Senate Democrats does not include money for roads and bridges as proposed by Culver, and would be split into two or three bills as opposed to one big package.

Legislators' proposal includes $325 million for flood-recovery projects, $200 million for new public buildings or repairs, high-speed Internet in rural areas, alternative-energy projects, and rail projects, and $175 million for already scheduled infrastructure projects such as those at the Iowa Veterans Home and correctional facilities.

Representative Doris Kelley (D-Waterloo), a member of the working group on the issue, said lawmakers still feel that roads should be funded with the gas tax and the road fund, not bonding backed solely by gambling revenue as proposed by Culver.

"We feel strongly that any road construction should come out of the fund that is set aside and constitutionally protected for that," Kelley said. "And if there's bonding, we feel like it should come from that area."

Kelley said Democrats want any money from bonding to focus on future flood prevention, disaster rebuilding, long-term job creation, and housing. They also want to leverage as much as they can from federal stimulus money so it lasts more than two years.

"The big thing is long-term job creation," Kelley said. "If we can leverage and actually create more jobs by bringing in more dollars to the state, we can put people back to work and we can keep people working. That's our goal here: jobs. We are trying to do what's right."

Republicans remained adamantly opposed to any bonding plan. Senate Minority Leader Paul McKinley (R-Chariton) said the bonding plans proposed by Culver and Democratic legislators.

"We now have dueling bonding proposals all put forward by Democrats," McKinley said. "They're competing to see which one can spend more money and put more money on to the state's credit card. Both proposals obligate generations of Iowans for decades to come with debt because for the last two years, the governor and legislative Democrats haven't been able to keep their spending, their craving under control, and these proposals highlight that addiction to spending."