Don’t expect a lot of federal monetary support was a frequently heard refrain during the Greater Des Moines Partnership’s annual lobbying trip to Washington, D.C., a few weeks ago. But Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie came prepared. As congressional leaders explained that the budget would be tight this year, he took out his mighty pen, pulled down the glossy federal spending chart tucked inside, and pointed to where the money was.

“The message we got was not encouraging regarding all the things we think Iowa needs,” Cownie said. “I suggested with my little pen whether I was talking to a senator from Iowa or a senator from Massachusetts that we need to think about our future generations. I think if I was allowed to singularly have the say-so in the budget, I would find money that would meet the needs of people in Iowa and not send government into a further deficit spending spiral.”

Cownie is part of a growing non-partisan organization called Iowans for Sensible Priorities. Started in February of this year (after a brief campaign in 1999), the group has attracted 38 community and business leaders and approximately 27 political leaders to its campaign. “The goal,” said Peggy Huppert, director of ISP, “is to have 200 business leaders and elected officials by the time of the caucuses, and we’re well on our way.”

ISP, and its parent organization, Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, believe that by reducing what the Pentagon spends on outdated, unnecessary Cold War weapons systems by 15 percent, the federal government could better meet the nation’s social needs, including health care, education and environment protection. The 15 percent, $60 billion a year, is only a small portion of the Pentagon’s $442 billion budget, but would mean, if proportioned by population, that Iowa would receive $350 million more annually.

Huppert said Ben Cohen, co-founder of the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream empire started Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities when he and his business partner, Jerry Greenfield, started to receive thousands of applications asking their foundation for money, including applications from government programs such as schools and hospitals.

ISP (and a similar organization in New Hampshire) formed as a way to reach national political leaders.

“We decided that we can’t compete inside the Beltway, on Capitol Hill,” said Huppert. “We can’t compete with money with the defense industry.”

Its strategy is to attract Iowa business and political leaders, who will be the representatives talking with national candidates when they visit the state. It also is trying to show a base of citizen support for its agenda, which could mean more votes to candidates who support the group’s position. So far ISP has approached the campaign with simple messages and by word-of-mouth.

Although ISP hopes to make federal spending an issue in the 2008 campaign, it realizes that it may take until 2012 to bring real change to Washington.

Business leaders top priority

Warren Langley, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, former president of the Pacific Stock Exchange and a member of Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities board of directors, visited Iowa in late June, using his reputation as a former business leader to encourage local leaders to speak out. He had lunch with approximately 20 people in Des Moines and visited cities in Northeast Iowa to talk about ISP.

“It’s really hard for someone actively running a business to stand up and be for or against anything,” he said. “If they’re for it, they’re either going to make 49 or 51 percent of their customers mad. They get conflicted between their personal beliefs and values and their role as a senior business person, and I don’t think this serves us well as society.”

Langley sees the issues ISP raises as a business problem that should be addressed by business leaders.

“We’re looking at things as business people and saying this doesn’t make sense,” he said. “As every business person has to say, ‘We have limited resources; what’s the best way to use them.’ Our basic position is that these things are not adding any value. We’ve got to cut them and then what do we do with those resources.”

After being actively involved in protesting the Iraq war, which gave him his “15 minutes of fame,” including a spot on Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” Langley decided he wanted to use his reputation as a business leader and military veteran to further expand an organization. He especially became interested in Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities when his grandson was born.

“I starting thinking less about how many years I’m going to be around and what the world will like then, and started thinking more about how I want the world to be a good place for him to grow up in.” he said.

G. David Hurd, retired CEO of Principal Financial Group Inc., was one of the first business leaders to jump on board.

Even as head of a large corporation, Hurd found little problem in expressing his opinions. Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, he and Fred Weitz, president of Essex Meadows Inc., created Business for Peace, which attracted 130 business leaders who were against the idea of threatening war with nuclear weapons, he said.

ISP spoke to his knowledge as a businessperson.

“I think the fundamental idea is business leaders understand financial matters,” he said. “They understand budgeting. They understand paying your bills and what happens if you don’t. These are elements that support the idea of working with business leaders.”

Yet in his efforts to speak with leaders about ISP, he said, “I run into the situation where people are a little concerned about making public their endorsement as to whether that might somehow interfere with the running of their own organization or somehow customers might not like that.”

However, a public endorsement is exactly what ISP would like. When a leader joins, the group doesn’t ask for money, but rather the ability to use the leader’s name, occupation and title publicly. “A commitment to the idea,” said Huppert, “is really what we’re looking for.”

Business and community leaders who have joined ISP include Fred Weitz; J. Barry Griswell, CEO of Principal Financial Group; Jim Hubbell, chairman of Hubbell Realty Co.; and Mike Simonson, president of Simonson & Associates Architects LLC.

Outside the corporate sphere

Supporting ISP’s ideas is easy for state and local government officials, because they must balance their budgets, which is becoming harder with higher gas prices and less federal money. Already Gov. Tom Vilsack, Sen. Tom Harken, and several state legislators have jumped on board.

“I find it all over the state of Iowa,” said Cownie. “Mayors from all parts of Iowa are working very hard to meet the expectations of their constituents. And they’re expected to do it with less and less federal money and are expected to maintain programs that in the past were fully financed by federal dollars.”

But getting national leaders to address the issues has been a bigger task.

“Elected officials loathe to endorse something they’re afraid might be used against them,” Huppert said. “This is going to be an important election and very close in a lot of ways.”

Cownie said that when he pulled out his pen while on his visit to Washington, D.C., Congressman Leonard Boswell did the same. Already 40 congressional leaders have openly supported the Common Sense Budget Act, introduced on March 8 by Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a California Democrat, which proposes enacting ISPs ideas.

To encourage more support for the bill, ISP is trying to show national leaders that the legislation is supported not only by local leaders but also by most voters.

In ISP’s recently conducted poll, respondents were asked to choose whether they would support Candidate A, who favored the current budget, or Candidate B, who favored putting 15 percent of the Pentagon budget into social priorities. “Fifty-eight percent of respondents said Candidate B,” Huppert said, and the numbers were higher for women and 18- to 29-year-olds.

Still, many Iowans are hesitant to become actively involved, in part because they believe this may be a controversial and partisan issue, Huppert and Langley said.

“If you want to make change, said Langley, “you have to speak out against the people who are currently in charge, so business leaders might be viewed as a bunch of lefty progressives because they’re speaking out against the current administration.”

Yet, Huppert, Langley and Hurd believe that this is an issue that won’t die soon. They compare it to movements such as the women’s rights movement, which took an idea on the fringes and made it an accepted part of American society that eventually fueled legislative change.

“I think you have to work on these very difficult issues even though you can’t say to yourself sometime later this year we’ll have it done,” Hurd said. “You have to work on the basis that this could be for the long haul.”