FERTILIZER PLANT: Branstad Defends Incentives
Gov. Terry Branstad is defending the $100 million in state incentives for a Lee County fertilizer plant.
Egypt’s Orascom Construction announced plans to build a $1.4-billion plant in a rural area, last week. Once the plant is on-line it’ll employee more than 150 permanent employees.
It’s expected to create 2,000 construction-related jobs.
The governor says Iowa needs to provide competitive tax breaks until the legislature changes the state’s tax structure. He says Iowa was competing with Illinois for the plant.
“Illinois is the loser and Iowa is the winner. That’s the point. Illinois is the loser. And they’re the loser but it’s not just because of the incentives. They’re the loser because they’ve mismanaged their state’s resources for too long,” says Branstad.
The governor says Illinois provided a better tax break deal than Iowa but the company decided to build in Iowa since it’s more financially stable than Illinois.
