Approval of the $790-billion economic-stimulus bill in Congress and a signature by President Obama will set the stage for the Iowa legislature to establish its budget targets and determine how much will still need to be cut, Democratic leaders said Thursday.
"We believe it will, in fact, provide some flexibility for state budgets and that will need to be taken into account before we make final judgments on our budget," said Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal (D-Council Bluffs). "All of us knew from the start that that was a moving target. None of us made any kind of judgments and now, once we get those numbers from the feds, we can start to make those judgments."
