Des Moines – As a call-in guest on WHO-1040 News Radio’s “Simon Conway Show” Thursday [5/10/12], Steve King told listeners that if they are worried about the IRS, they have another option: A Swiss Bank account.

Responding to Conway’s disdainful comments regarding Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann’s stint as a Swiss citizen, King replied, “Swiss are fine people, neutral, good place to send money if you are worried about the IRS.”

King’s comment could be taken in good humor if it wasn’t already well known that the Congressman despises the IRS and has a track record of making hostile comments about the government agency.

In 2010, Rep. Steve King told a crowd at the annual CPAC event that he could “empathize” with the suicide bomber who had attacked an IRS office in Austin, and encouraged attendees at the conservative event to “implode” other IRS offices, according to a witness. In a video he admits to having been audited by the IRS and confirms that he has wanted to abolish the “intrusive” agency for years.

That Congressman King thinks it’s appropriate to dodge taxes and not pay his fair share is almost as disturbing as cracking jokes about bombing a building. Making matters worse, as King is encouraging the wealthy to hide their assets offshore, he’s also voted to raise taxes on working families and supports a national 23 percent sales tax, which would force middle class families to pay more while letting the wealthiest Americans off the hook.That’s not working for Iowa — or America.

Its appalling that Iowans and members of the media have come to expect this sort of behavior from Steve King.

Meanwhile, Switzerland has been a hot topic among Republicans lately. In April, Mitt Romney disclosed that he had kept assets in a Swiss bank account; a fact he initially previously failed to report on disclosure forms.

As reported by the LA Times in February 2012:

“A review by the Los Angeles Times/Tribune Washington Bureau last week found that at least 23 funds and partnerships listed in the 2010 tax returns of Romney and his wife did not show up or were not listed in the same fashion on Romney’s most recent financial disclosure, including 11 based in low-tax foreign countries such as Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg.”

Iowa voters should believe Steve King when he tells them that he doesn’t support reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) because his record [Roll Call 139, 3/28/12] says so.

• In 2005, he introduced an amendment to block re-authorization of VAWA because he claimed the legislation showed “hostility” toward men and interfered “in the relationship of marriage.”
• In 2012, as 61 senators have co-sponsored a re-authorization that would further improve the law’s effectiveness and meet the changing needs of victims, King remains an outspoken critic of renewing the law which has added provisions that will extend protections to gays, lesbians, transgendered people, Native Americans and battered immigrant women.

When Steve King says he opposes the proposed Woman’s Option to Raise Kids (WORK) Act, Iowa voters should take him at his word.  Frankly, his out -of-touch rhetoric is all the proof you need.

• Encouraged by a recent bipartisan agreement that stay-at-home moms should be considered just as hard working as anyone in the workforce, Democrats proposed introducing legislation that would allow mothers with children ages 3 and under to stay at home with their children and continue receiving benefits. The bill would apply to mothers on welfare as well. On this one, Steve King promptly jumped from his previous message that “raising children is the most precious and valuable work that gets done in America,” to likening it to choosing whether or not to “wash your car.”

But if Steve King tells them, “I don’t have any corporate contributions into my campaign,” as he did during a town hall meeting on April 6 in Jefferson, IA, they should NOT believe him because he is lying.

In fact, to date, Congressman Steve King has received over $100,000 in corporate PAC contributions to his Fourth District campaign against his Democratic opponent, Christie Vilsack.

This is, of course, not the first time Steve King has mislead his constituents in Iowa. Steve King has been caught misleading voters on several occasions. It merely demonstrates again how far out of touch he is with the people he was elected to represent.

“In order for Iowans to get the most from our representatives, it requires a base level of transparency about their principles, priorities, and vision to improve Iowa,” said Chairwoman Sue Dvorsky.  “Steve King’s latest attempt to deceive voters shows that he doesn’t understand that. Or he doesn’t care. Or both.”

King’s effort to misrepresent himself to voters on something so obviously untrue is not wholly the issue here. The larger issue is that he is unwilling to be forthright regarding his campaign donors which, in effect, prevent Iowans from properly discerning whether or not there are fundamental conflicts of interest that could cloud his judgment when he is making important decisions on their behalf.

Last week was a big one for those who follow Steve King’s on-again, off-again relationship with reality. In terms of the sheer number of topics he touched on that have absolutely nothing to do with jobs, the economy, education, or, in most cases, Iowa, last week may have set a new record high.

But, unfortunately, because we are talking about tax dollars funding a Congressman’s decade long crusade which continues to jeopardize the health and economic security of Iowans, particularly those in the Fourth District, the truth is that last week was a new low – providing several more examples of why Steve King is Not Working for Iowa.

See the list below for five of the latest examples of Congressman King showing Iowan’s how tone-deaf he is to their concerns, and, meanwhile, how committed he is to putting an irresponsible agenda ahead of the Iowans he represents.

1) At a recent Town Hall in Charles City, IA, Steve King opined on the birthplace of President Obama (again).

2) Kingcare : As seen on The Colbert Report, Congressman Claims Some Americans Don’t Use ‘A Dollar Worth Of Health Care’.

3) Rep. Steve King Proposes A Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Approach To Gays… In The Workplace.

4) Rep. Steve King Becomes Uneasy while Discussing Grover Norquist’s Anti-Tax Pledge in Rural Western Iowa.

5) 1) Going Head-to-Head with Vegetarians: King Brags Of Forcing ‘Anti-Meat Crowd’ To ‘Confess’ Their ‘Agenda’ Under Oath.

Des Moines – Steve King rarely lets a week go by without making headlines for his out of control rhetoric or some abysmal vote that jeopardizes the health and economic security of Iowans. But because this is campaign season, you can expect those moments to come even more frequently.

This week, while appearing on the Family Research Council’s webcast “On Trial: Freedom vs. Government Healthcare,” the inflammatory rhetoric bar was raised to impossibly new heights, with the 4^th District representative describing the Affordable Care Act as a “malignant tumor,” and warned that Health Care Reform will “Nationalize our Soul.” He also told the host of the program that the government intends to “take over our skin and everything inside it.”

Aside from the awful choice of words, on so many levels, if Congressman King were to actually read the Affordable Care Act, he would realize that it, in fact, seeks to help prevent malignant tumors.

Under the Affordable Care Act, health insurance companies are required to pay for preventive screenings, such as mammograms, as a part of their health insurance policies. These screenings allow doctors to find diseases early, intervene and save lives.

The bill also prevents insurance companies from denying coverage or dropping coverage due to pre-existing conditions. This means that cancer patients and survivors don’t have to worry about not having coverage to help them pay for treatment that can extend their life and even lead to being cancer free.

“Why Congressman King finds these policies to be bad for Iowa remains a mystery,” said Chairwoman Sue Dvorsky. “Instead of continuing to spew vitriol, he should be working every day to ensure that every Iowan is able to receive the preventive care that could save their life.”

As if all of that weren’t enough, at a Tea Party rally on February 27, King stood in front of the U.S. Supreme Court and shouted, “Keep you law off my body!”

He just doesn’t get it.

If you’re keeping score at home: this latest comparison knocked his February 9 statement at the CPAC dinner, where he compared Capitol janitors to Stasi troops (and attacked energy efficient shower heads.), out of the top spot.

Taking the stage at CPAC today, Steve King outlined his priorities. Unfortunately, he failed to mention any ideas for creating jobs, strengthening the middle class, supporting education, or protecting the environment. Instead, he chose to spend his time comparing Capitol janitors to Stasi troops, and attacking energy efficient shower heads.

Here’s reaction from news outlets across the country to King’s latest:

Johns Stanton, Roll Call (@bigjohnrc): Steve king just called janitors in the capitol nancy pelosi’s “stasi troops” for using energy efficient lightbulbs #cpac

Sam Stein, Huffington Post (@samsteinhp): Steve King says his interns would come back “in tears” when they couldn’t find a regular Edison light bulb. #weirdoffice

Alex Koppelman, NewYorker.com (@AlexKoppelman): At CPAC, Steve King just compared janitors who work for Congress to the East German secret police. No, seriously.

The Hill: King compared the Capitol Hill janitors who replaced the lightbulbs in his office with lower-energy bulbs to the East German communist secret police, describing them as “Nancy [Pelosi]‘s stasi troops,” and complained of a water-saving showerhead in his shower.

“I drilled it out and now my 12 minute shower is now a three-minute shower and I have nine minutes every day to beat up on the liberals,” he said to strong cheers and laughs from the highly partisan crowd.

Huffington Post: “I would screw them out and send the interns out to get me some of those good Edison lightbulbs,” he said, the crowd cheering. “And those interns would come back sometimes empty-handed in tears, because they couldn’t come up with a regular Edison light-bulb.”

He said he finally decided it was “cruel and inhumane” to send the interns on that task, so he went to find “black-market” lightbulbs himself. He then was faced with a decision: buy a recyclable bag, which he at first said no to, or pay more.

“Whenever I need to put a lightbulb in the lamp, I reach into this green back and I screw it in there and I smile,” he said. “A little bit of my liberty back, a little bit of my freedom back.”

Des Moines Register: King, a Republican congressman from Western Iowa, railed against “leftists that are deconstructing America on a daily basis” – with rules about calories in Happy Meals, how deep you can dig a moat around a sand castle, where you can toss footballs on the beach, showerheads, flush toilets and lightbulbs.