Back when Jim Edgar was governor, reporters covering his annual budget speech would always approach Senate President Pate Philip as he descended from the House Speaker's podium after the address to ask about his fellow Republican's proposals. Eventually, or even right away, we'd hear an emphatic "No!" from Pate and then we'd pronounce a good chunk of the budget dead on arrival.

Times were simpler back then than they were last week after Governor Pat Quinn finished his latest budget address. Quinn's proposal "benefited" from the lack of any major specifics on the big issues of the day: the exploding costs of Medicaid and pensions. The only things left to attack were program cuts and facility closures - and Republicans who did so risked being labeled as false budget hawks. Then there's the phony complaint that spending was actually rising. (Overall operating expenditures are falling, but total state spending is going up mainly because pension payments are rising by about a billion dollars next fiscal year.)

Iowa lawmakers have once again crushed a proposal to expand the state's 1978 bottle bill.

A panel of lawmakers on February 22 heard testimony on House Study Bill 652, which would expand Iowa's beverage-container-control law - the anti-litter law more commonly known as the "bottle bill," - to include water bottles and sports drinks.

But the bill's floor manager made clear that the legislation isn't going anywhere this year.

Living in a representative democratic republic such as ours means that each person has the right to stand outside the halls of government and express his or her opinion on matters of state without fear of arrest. That's what the First Amendment is all about.

It gives every American the right to "petition the government for a redress of grievances." It ensures, as Adam Newton and Ronald K.L. Collins report for the Five Freedoms Project, "that our leaders hear, even if they don't listen to, the electorate. Though public officials may be indifferent, contrary, or silent participants in democratic discourse, at least the First Amendment commands their audience."

As Newton and Collins elaborate: "'Petitioning' has come to signify any nonviolent, legal means of encouraging or disapproving government action, whether directed to the judicial, executive, or legislative branch. Lobbying, letter-writing, e-mail campaigns, testifying before tribunals, filing lawsuits, supporting referenda, collecting signatures for ballot initiatives, peaceful protests, and picketing: All public articulation of issues, complaints, and interests designed to spur government action qualifies under the petition clause, even if the activities partake of other First Amendment freedoms."

Unfortunately, through a series of carefully crafted legislative steps, our government officials - both elected and appointed - have managed to disembowel this fundamental freedom, rendering it with little more meaning than the right to file a lawsuit against government officials. In the process, government officials have succeeded in insulating themselves from their constituents, making it increasingly difficult for average Americans to make themselves seen or heard by those who most need to hear what "we the people" have to say.

??The gap between the promises Iowa has made for public employees' retirement benefits and the money set aside to pay for them has grown to $5.7 billion - a 1,643-percent increase over 11 years, State Auditor David Vaudt said Monday.

"We had just a $327-million liability at the end of 2000. That has now grown to $5.7 billion, and that's equal almost to one year's general-fund budget," Vaudt said. "We're going to need substantial resources in the future to improve the funded status of this particular plan."

A report last year by State Budget Solutions, a national not-for-profit advocating for fundamental reform of state budgets, pegs Iowa's unfunded liability as even larger - $21.3 billion as of last March.