The States: New Way to Spell Nebraska

• Share

(2 of 2)

Tiemann established a new state department of economic development to lure industry, asked for more than $5,000,000 to establish a new research center, signed into law the state's first minimum-wage law ($1 an hour). He separated the state's penal and mental-health facilities, which had previously been lumped under a single administrator, hiring a penologist to head one division, a psychiatrist the other. At $30,000 a year, the psychiatrist is earning $12,000 more than the Governor, but Tiemann has not hesitated to hire good men at salaries exceeding his own. He moved to cut the state's 23,000-man payroll by 10%, not to save money but to take the extra funds "and give raises to the people who are doing the work." He has called for an increase of nearly 50% in spending for higher education, estimates that overall state spending will double to $100 million a year by the time his four-year term ends. His new tax measures call for a 2½% sales tax, a personal income tax that will fluctuate according to the state's spending needs, and a corporate profits tax that will come to 20% of the income tax rate.

Pour It On. As a result of what the Omaha World-Herald calls Tiemann's "pour it on" campaign, several Nebraska newspapers have run a cartoon showing an insomniac elephant sitting up in bed and muttering, perplexed: "A Republican? Raising taxes? Spending?" Tiemann is well aware of the impact his proposals are having. "People tell me I will not get re-elected after all this," he says. "They say that I don't sound like a conservative Republican at all—but I don't consider myself to be anything but a conservative. What I'm trying to do in Nebraska is to make an investment in ourselves, and that's in the best conservative tradition."