Iowa Journal #216

							                     Iowa Journal #216
              Resuscitating the Iowa Economy
           Original Air Date: February 12, 2009
                  Iowa Public Television

Paul Yeager: How can Iowa protect itself from the economic toll that is
afflicting the rest of the country? Can that effort position the state better
for the future? Those are the issues we'll take up tonight along with a look
behind the headlines, next.

Funding for The Iowa Journal has been provided by Friends, the Iowa Public
Television Foundation, generations of families and friends who feel passionate
about Iowa Public Television programs. And by MidAmerican Energy Company,
helping to harness renewable sources of electricity through their investment in
wind power. Information is available at midamericanenergy.com. MidAmerican
Energy ... obsessively, relentlessly at your service.

From river to river, border to border this is The Iowa Journal.   Here is Paul
Yeager.

Paul Yeager: Hello and welcome to The Iowa Journal. The nation's economy
continues to dominate the attention of Americans. Rising unemployment,
declining home prices and depleted investment accounts have darkened the public
mood. There was considerable activity in Washington this week to address the
flagging economy. Iowa too has been attempting to marshal its resources to keep
the economy in positive motion. We'll talk in more detail about the efforts but
first we're going to turn to David Pitt of the Associated Press. David, first
of all we want to talk about Ellen Gordon. She was in the Vilsack
administration helping run things for a while and now it looks like she is
trying or possibly one of the final two for a federal job to head FEMA. Tell us
a little bit of background on her and what her chances are of getting this
position.

David Pitt: We had an AP report, a Washington report on Tuesday that Ellen
Gordon was one of the finalists for the position. She has a 20 year record of
emergency management. She spent a lot of years here in Iowa. She saw us
through the 1993 flooding and through a number of natural disasters and then she
was appointed to spearhead the state's efforts after the terrorist attacks on
September 11th to kind of put together the plan for the state and really become
its homeland security manager for the state of Iowa. So, she has significant
experience and she has also worked on a multi-state level to try to bring a
consortium of different states together to kind of coordinate their efforts so
she is known by governors outside of Iowa, she's known by people on the national
level.

Paul Yeager: Someone with experience for that position which hasn't always been
the case in times past. Let's move on to another discussion topic on the
federal level and this is about the federal stimulus update. We're going to
talk about it in depth tonight. There are new developments today. What are
some of those?

David Pitt: Well, the developments are that it is moving forward. It looks like
it may be voted on in the house maybe tomorrow and then in the senate on either
Friday or Saturday. It kind of depends on how they get it through. But there
was a little bit of a dispute today, earlier today over how education spending
is allocated and how the states handle it, how much control the governors have
over the money that is being allocated to build schools and those kinds of
things but it was resolved and the White House became a little alarmed for a
while and sent someone over to the Capitol to kind of try to get the dispute
kind of under control and they did. So, it looks like it's done and it looks as
if neither democrats nor republicans are totally happy with it.

Paul Yeager: Which sometimes means it's a good thing. That's the way we always
talk about that. The stock market today was back down just a little bit,
yesterday it did go back up but it's been a roller coaster again. Is that all
due to the discussion about this stimulus?

David Pitt: Well, primarily on Tuesday after the Treasury Secretary announced
kind of the latest round of funding to try to get the whole situation in the
economy under control it wasn't very well received it appears at least by people
on Wall Street. The Dow went down almost 400 points on Tuesday and bounced back
a little bit yesterday, 50 points or so, and then today it looked like it was
down maybe a couple hundred points again. So, I think overall the impression is
that there's some concern over what the federal government is doing is going to
be enough and whether it's going to be effective in the right ways.

Paul Yeager: Hard to tell yet if there's going to be winners or losers when it
comes to Iowa and how this federal stimulus money is going to go?

David Pitt: Yeah, until we see the final bill it looks like there are some
winners and I think there's some concerns too. Wind energy, for instance, there
seems to be some tax credits for constructing additional wind turbines in the
state, it has become a significant industry in Iowa, Iowa is now the second
state in the nation as far as wind energy production and we have a number of
companies that have moved here to build wind turbines. And so there could be
some impact if those tax credits go through. I know Senator Grassley was a bit
concerned about the state Medicaid formula seeming to think that Iowa didn't get
its fair share there and he was kind of lobbying for that. But I think an
amendment he proposed didn't pass.

Paul Yeager: It was part of his speech that he gave on Tuesday in front of the
senate, it was all about Medicaid and continues to move there so we don't know
all of that. The last thing I want to talk about here in the last couple of
seconds is the creation of what is being called a populous caucus. It is 23
democrats chaired by Iowa Congressman Bruce Braley. What exactly are they
trying to address and accomplish?

David Pitt: This is a group of democrats who came together to create this caucus
and their focus is going to be on middle class. They are going to propose tax
cuts, exempt for the middle class, good paying jobs, affordable healthcare, fair
trade, consumer protections and just a number of things that they are bringing
to focus as part of their priorities.

Paul Yeager: All right, David Pitt of the Associated Press thank you for
stopping by tonight on The Iowa Journal. We're going to continue now and move
along as we talk about how more eyes than normal these days are watching the
stock market for some clue to the future. For its part the market has generally
traded downward on light volumes. Investor interest is tepid at best. Economic
numbers remain less than encouraging. And while investors seem to be sitting on
the sidelines the new Obama administration and the democrat controlled Congress
is spending a lot of political capital to develop and enact a two-pronged jump
start to the economy.

The President spent much of the week pushing for quick passage of a stimulus
package. He took his 76% approval rating into republican enclaves that have
been hit hard by the financial crisis.

President Barack Obama: It's not perfect but it is the right size, it is the
right scope, broadly speaking it has the right priorities to create jobs that
will jump start our economy and transform this economy for the 21st century. I
can't tell you with 100% certainty that every single item in this plan will work
exactly as we hoped but what I can tell you is I can say with complete
confidence that endless delay or paralysis in Washington in the face of this
crisis will only bring deepening disaster. I can tell you that doing nothing is
not an option.

For its part the senate did pass its version of a stimulus plan and the measure
was quickly reconciled with the house version by a joint house-senate conference
committee. The end result is a $789 billion package that is more modest than
either chamber had proposed. The measure is likely to be sent to the President
before next week. While Congress wrestled with the stimulus legislation
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was revealing his $2 trillion plan to
resuscitate the nation's banking system. The congressional stimulus package is
intended to inject money directly into the economy via public investments,
presumably those of enduring value. The treasury plan is intended to stabilize
banks and return them to the function of financing consumers and businesses.

Weighing heavily on the banking system and the economy is an enormous amount of
so-called toxic assets like unpaid subprime loans, bundles of such loans sold to
investment banks as collateralized debt obligations and financial instruments
sometimes known as credit default swaps intended to insure against default.
Banks continue to hold onto the bad debt for fear the market will pay nothing
for it.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner: I want to be candid. This strategy will cost
money, it will involve risk and it will take time but as costly as this effort
may be we know that the cost of a complete collapse of our financial system
would be incalculable for families and for businesses and for our nation.

Despite the pledge that the public would be able to track the treasury's efforts
on a Web site coming soon the promise of transparency failed to impress a market
that wanted more details. Tuesday's stock market closed down sharply. Despite
an unemployment rate well under the national level, a state government debt load
that is near the lowest in the nation and a still prospering farm sector Iowa is
not immune from national economic trends. The flow of state tax revenues has
fallen as Iowa's manufacturing, construction and financial sectors have suffered
downturns. State agencies are scrambling to finish the current fiscal year in
the black and lawmakers are slicing next year's budget to ensure it will balance
in 2010. The democrat controlled legislature is likely to approve Governor
Culver's $700 million Rebuild Iowa initiative. Proponents say the effort,
financed through bonds backed by gambling revenues, will jump start the state's
economy by building a list of durable public assets.

Paul Yeager: In many ways Iowa is attempting to do for itself what the federal
government is trying to do for the nation. The question is can a state
independently recharge its own economy without being swallowed by the larger
woes of the nation and its beleaguered financial system? For some answers we
have with us tonight Thomas Hart, he is with the Iowa Department of Economic
Development. Also with us on the program tonight is David Swenson, he is an
economist at Iowa State University. And also on the program tonight is Tom
Stanberry, CEO and President of West Bank, he's also chairman of the Iowa
Bankers Association for this year. Tom Hart, I want to start with you a little
bit, it was less than a month ago you had your inbox, your mailbox was pretty
full, about 5000 projects came to you for shovel ready projects. It was a way
for Iowa to get ahead of the game so what type of projects were submitted?

Thomas Hart: All over the board, Paul. What happened is the governor and
lieutenant governor sat down with a number of us last fall and said both McCain
and Obama have called for a stimulus package, we feel confident that there is
going to be something, let's not wait until the ink is dry on the legislation,
let's figure out what kind of projects there are out there in Iowa at this
point. So, he wrote a letter to counties and cities and schools and community
colleges, councils of governments and said, tell us what you have shovel ready.
We're looking for things that are ready to go within six months and can be built
within two years. And at this point it appears we have about 5000, nearly 5000
projects that have come back. They are all over from utilities, drinking water,
sewer, storm sewer, sanitary sewer, recreation facilities, school projects. We
have divided them into about 30 different categories and a tremendous
opportunity for investment in Iowa.

Paul Yeager: So, will a priority be put in some of the criteria so points four
and five will be the things that we look to do first? Or what are some of
those? You named a couple of criteria but what are some of the others?

Thomas Hart: I think the first criteria is you need them to be ready and you
need them to be able to be completed in a fairly short timeframe. That is what
the governor and lieutenant governor asked for in the letter. I think other
criteria that will probably be worked out between the governor's office and the
legislature in the coming weeks are how many jobs are created with a project
both construction and maybe ongoing jobs? Is there sustainability elements to
the projects? Can you make better what you're doing now by doing this project?
And then I think ultimately tied in with the jobs will be some kind of
leveraging, how much are you leveraging. But all of that is to be negotiated
out in the next number of weeks.

Paul Yeager: A lot of things to sit through for a little bit. Thank you very
much. I want to move to the other Tom at the table, Tom Stanberry with the Iowa
Bankers Association and also West Bank. Your bank did take in $36 million in
federal stimulus money and so did many other banks. Your bank was in a healthy
state when you got it. Tell me the health of the state's banks right now.

Tom Stanberry: Iowa's banks are very healthy right now. The fourth quarter call
reports are now out and consolidated numbers show that approximately 94% of the
banks in the state made a profit last year which puts us very near the top of
the states nationwide. The average capital in the state is over 10% which is
very healthy. On a year-over-year basis Iowa banks added about $2 billion in
loans from December 31, 2007 to December 31, 2008. So, lending was strong,
capital remains strong and profitability remains strong. Profitability was down
from prior years but it was still a year where most of the banks in the state
made money.

Paul Yeager: Talk about some of the things that you are lending money in whether
it's your bank specifically but what are those projects? Are they all retail?
Are they all residential? Commercial? What are some of the ways you're
investing that money?

Tom Stanberry: Consumer lending still continues to be fairly steady with the
drop in interest rates, of course, refinancing of home mortgages has boomed over
the last 60 days, rates have gone up again and that slowed down. On the
commercial and industrial area we continue to lend for projects, either
expansion of existing plans, some acquisitions, very few acquisitions at this
point and just normal day-to-day lines of credit. Agricultural lending has
slowed but is still near an all-time high. So, I think really all sectors of
the economy from a bank standpoint we continue to lend to.

Paul Yeager: Now, you said from year-to-year the banks have improved but from
year-to-year have the projects that you've been investing in change? A year ago
was it different projects?

Tom Stanberry: A year ago it was certainly different. If you go back two years
in the metropolitan communities around the state a high percentage of lending
was for commercial real estate development. Today in most urban communities
virtually zero lending is being done on commercial real estate development,
particularly on a speculative basis. There are still some projects that are
being developed for specific tenants but not speculative projects. So, that
area of lending has slowed down almost to a halt. At the same time our
commercial lending, industrial lending, consumer lending has picked up. One big
change that has occurred in the last six months is the result of the exit of a
number of non-bank lenders, finance companies owned by automobile manufacturers,
mortgage banks that were heavy in the mortgage business and that has pushed a
lot of consumers back to commercial banks. So, the auto lending business which
was almost non-existent in banks is picking back up, mortgage business which
again had moved largely to the mortgage banking sector is picking back up.

Paul Yeager: Those are interesting points. So, the professor here has been
taking notes. Do you hear anything, Dave, that is encouraging that Iowa has
turned things around or is turning things around from what you've just heard?

David Swenson: No, I don't think Iowa's economy is turning itself around. The
economy in Iowa has a ways to go before it weathers out this recession. We're
just still learning how it is affecting the average citizen, the average
business and the state overall. In the most recent months our unemployment has
picked up, we're starting to worry about layoffs in our manufacturing sectors,
we're starting to see some of the ripple effects of some of those layoffs and so
we're bracing for a little bit more bad news down the road. Iowa is in better
shape than the rest of the nation. We haven't gotten ourselves in the kind of
trouble that the rest of the nation found itself, it's not whether they caused
it or not, but that they found themselves in. We've had lower unemployment
rates. We haven't had a rapid rise in our unemployment rates. We haven't had
the raid of housing foreclosures or some of the speculative behaviors that had
to collapse in the housing market. So, on average our economy looks much better
-- as a matter of fact the entire Midwestern and the plains area, not Midwestern
but more towards the plains areas looks a little bit better than most of the
rest of the United States. So, the peaks and the valleys, right now we didn't
have the peak during the boom times and we're not suffering some of the
consequences of that peak.

Paul Yeager: Which has been kind of the way Iowa has been. I think we talked
about it before Christmas when we had that conversation, kind of clean some of
the toxic things, let us fall a little bit and sweep it out of there. When you
hear discussions of commercial lending is up coupled with a stimulus does that
help push things up at all?

David Swenson: It remains to be seen just how much of what was passed or is
going to be passed is truly stimulus. The portion of it that is considered
stimulus is the portion that purchases new infrastructure or purchases new
durable public assets so that's not very much of this entire $798 billion bill.
There's $292 billion in tax cuts and then the rest of it is safety net spending
for a variety of things. So, the amount that is going to be spent on
infrastructure and energy projects is actually quite small. So, how much of
that is going to stimulate the economy certainly remains to be seen.

Paul Yeager: That's the federal shoe but what if the state shoe falls and we
have no idea really what that's going to look like but could that maybe assist
the infrastructure spending?

David Swenson: The governor's proposal like that to try to get things moving in
the state's economy by bonding, borrowing money, however we pay for it, but
bonding and borrowing money to improve on the state's critical infrastructure,
roads, bridges, schools and then all of the projects that Tom talked about as
well, that very well could help the economy weather this downturn by stimulating
jobs in the construction sectors and in the supplying sectors and helping to
stabilize the economy at a time when everything is moving in the other
direction.

Paul Yeager: Tom Stanberry, would you put money up on some of these projects
that are being talked about?

Tom Stanberry: Well, I think some of the projects that Tom mentioned if they are
projects that can be constructed in that time period, they are ready projects to
go and we're matching assets and liabilities. I think the key to the governor's
proposal to use $700 million of bonding capacity is match assets and
liabilities. Let's not engage in long-term financing for some short-term life
projects. I think banks would be involved in a lot of that financing.

Paul Yeager: So do you think the bonding plan is a good idea?

Tom Stanberry: It remains to be seen. I think you have to flush out some of the
details, we have to look across, we have to look at what can the gaming industry
sustain in an economy like this. The gaming industry is obviously not recession
proof, we've seen that in some of the numbers that have come in from nationwide
gambling. But that is a strong source of revenue. If the cost of this program
actually produces sustainable projects -- I was encouraged when Tom said we're
looking for sustainable projects. That to me means a project that has a useful
life consistent with the liability we're taking on.

Paul Yeager: You're looking for more than just a simple sewer project but a much
larger project.

Tom Stanberry: I think we would be looking at sewer projects. I think if you
look at the infrastructure of the state of Iowa sewer and water are two very
critical needs that we have in the state so yes because those have long useful
lives.

Paul Yeager: Tom Hart, what do you think of that?

Thomas Hart: Well, again, they're looking at long-term improvement so invest
this money and you'll have something greater at the end of that and I think all
of that is to be negotiated out in the next number of weeks or months but I
think that is a critical criteria. The other thing is, you know, the ink isn't
dry yet on the federal package and I think we're all looking at what are the
elements of the federal package. And this is a puzzle and it is pieces of the
puzzle that fit together. So, what can be helpful to the federal package? How
can these work together in, again, long-term goals to benefit Iowa and benefit
Iowa in the long-term?

Paul Yeager: What other outside forces on that puzzle and making up some of
those puzzle pieces are we looking at?

Thomas Hart: Well, certainly the disaster relief money for eastern Iowa is also
a part of that. So, there are a lot of elements that are at play here in trying
to get a program that will best serve the whole state of Iowa.

Paul Yeager: And Cedar Rapids and Iowa City and Oakville have long been talking
about they need money now in addition to the stimulus but if we don't turn that
area, specifically Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, around the state is probably going
to be sputtering for a little while.

Thomas Hart: But one of the things that the governor and lieutenant governor
have said, we don't want to just rebuild, we want to do it better, we want this
to be better than it was. And so that is the whole element of sustainability
and the greenness that they're looking for in projects.

Paul Yeager: David, you've talked about weatherizing and retrofitting some
public building. That would be a way on a front to make them sustainable and
try to cut expenses.

David Swenson: It certainly would. Anything that you can do to make government
more efficient, to more effectively provide public goods and services, again,
whether it's just roads that work right, whether it's wastewater treatment
systems that are effective and efficient as well as weatherizing buildings, the
green stuff that they talk about. All of those things they do two things. One,
they make government more efficient, they reduce our carbon footprint, they put
people to work and they allow basically a better quality of life down the road.

Paul Yeager: I know you don't know what the 5000 projects look like but if you
could pick maybe five projects ideally that would be best to jump start the
state where would you see the best five would be?

David Swenson: I would be so boring, I would be so boring. I come from the
school that believes governments should do what governments to best which is
roads, bridges, sewers, water, all those basics, schools, basic infrastructure.
A lot of people like to talk about bold ideas and initiatives and thinking
outside the box. I want my public leaders to think inside the box and do what
they do best right now.

Paul Yeager: I'm going to ask you the same question here in the final couple of
minutes.

Tom Stanberry: My answer is going to sound pretty similar. I would look at
infrastructure. I think you have to look at roads, bridges, waters, park
systems, you have to build back the infrastructure of the state and that's where
I would spend the money.

Paul Yeager: What about some of your rural members that are in the banking
association. You have some in Sioux Center, some in the northwest part of the
state, a little more biotech, a little more advanced thinking. Is that an
encouraged area for a region that would work to put money into there?

Tom Stanberry: I think the state could certainly put seed money there but if
those projects actually are viable projects that will work private capital will
come into that area at some point. The state might put seed money in to get it
started and then let private capital show up. But, again, I look at a project -
- if I'm looking at a $700 million project for the state of Iowa I would make
sure that the state has replaced its infrastructure, has done something for its
citizens, clean water, good sewer system and improve our parks, all the things
that make Iowa a great state.

Paul Yeager: David, the things they're talking about, can that in the long-term
make a big difference?

David Swenson: It makes a big difference in the overall quality of life in a
state, it undergirds your capacity to grow, your value of your community is a
function of the public assets plus the private assets and that they're not too
expensive to maintain so there's that elegant balance. So, having the right
balance matters but not having enough of critical assets weighs against you
terribly.

Paul Yeager: Tom Hart, I'll give you 30 final seconds here, timetable. Is this
something that is going to come state wise before the end of the session you
think to get the green light to move forward?

Thomas Hart: Oh, absolutely. The governor called for the $700 million in his
State of the State Address. There are discussions going on now between the
legislature, legislative leaders and the governor to put a package together.
So, it's a priority of this session.

Paul Yeager: Very good. Tom Hart with the Iowa Department of Economic
Development, thank you for stopping by, Tom. And also Tom Stanberry, chairman
and CEO of West Bank in West Des Moines and also chairman of the Iowa Bankers
Association, thank you. And David Swenson of Iowa State University, an
economist up there, thank you gentlemen for our discussion. Imagine that, we're
out of time. We're going to have to continue this again. We know this is not
done so join us again for the next Iowa Journal where we're going to revisit
Iowa's continued emergence as a new center for the arts as well as the
entertainment scene. Until then, I'm Paul Yeager. Have a good night.

Funding for The Iowa Journal has been provided by Friends, the Iowa Public
Television Foundation, generations of families and friends who feel passionate
about Iowa Public Television programs. And by MidAmerican Energy Company,
helping to harness renewable sources of electricity through their investment in
wind power. Information is available at midamericanenergy.com. MidAmerican
Energy ... obsessively, relentlessly at your service.