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Unless the senate steps in and imposes order, Congress is on track to cleave the coalition that has supported the farm bill and permanently weaken the crop safety net. The Big, Bad Bill passed the House by one vote in the dead of night, and was passed over to the Senate. It will gut spending on nutrition and conservation programs while beefing up commodity producer protections and tax credits that prop up the agrochemical complex.
Congress has been unable to pass a farm bill under Republican control. The Big Bad Bill that cuts taxes and increases deficits tries to make some of it up at the expense of food stamps and important conservation programs. It will set the parameters for the farm bill debate, such that it is.
Punishing poor people and children may be found in good form in some quarters. It will make farmers look bad if it is perceived that they benefit at the expense of food programs in cities. This has always been the foundation of strong support for ag commodity programs. The Farm Bureau and ethanol lobby like what they see. A growing number of people will come to resent relatively wealthy ag operators getting subsidies when school children get the lean end. It’s a terrible look for Iowa, so of course our congressman, Republican Randy Feenstra of Hull, supported dismantling nutrition programs.
If this bill becomes law, it will be a marker for when support for farmers fell off a cliff.
Politics goes in cycles. Eventually the Farm Bureau’s party loses its position, and all of agriculture suffers the backlash.
Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, both Republicans, could have an influence. Many Republicans like Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson think the House bill spends too much, as does Rand Paul of Kentucky. They promise to hold it up. A lot can happen in that interim. Ernst had better be a part of the solution if she is indeed a champion of agriculture. They need to hold together the urban and rural coalitions that cobble together a food policy.
If they fail to rise to the defense of nutrition programs, eventually the people will resent production agriculture and rip up the safety net. Maybe that should happen, but it will be tremendously disruptive to the insurance industry, the chemical industry and banks. They are playing with fire.
FEENSTRA ALSO SUPPORTED more closed rural nursing homes and hospitals by trying to snuff out Medicaid. Our health care providers depend on Medicaid for their survival. The Big Bad Bill will cut Medicaid funding by at least $625 billion over 10 years in order to preserve tax cuts for the wealthiest.
It’s a huge lift to Democrats struggling to climb out of the grave, this Big Bad Bill, for the 2026 midterm elections. Bond markets are jittery, putting upward pressure on home mortgage rates. Consumer confidence is eroding. People don’t like what they see. Rural people depend on food stamps and Medicaid. Republicans are about to be reminded if they steam straight ahead.
It seems almost unbelievable that the City of Storm Lake cannot produce a monthly income statement for King’s Pointe Resort. Believe it. The city repeatedly has shown its lack of command over finances. It is written in our cracked streets and failed water system. It is expressed in yet another legal bill for April, this one $4,400, for a lawsuit filed because the city and county lost track of millions of dollars in tax funds.
City Hall doesn’t seem to care that there has been no P&L over the last 11 months. Yes, there has been a change in management of the resort. Yes, the city has a brand new finance director who is swamped. Still, we should know if the resort is sinking or sailing. Unfortunately we suspect the former. Otherwise the city would be able to tell us something.
The resort was profitable. Now it is unknown. It is the responsibility of the city administration to keep the public apprised of the situation. We are in the dark, and that usually hides bad news.
Gov. Kim Reynolds acknowledged last week on public television’s “Iowa Press” program that she will not accomplish one of her longstanding goals: eliminating the state income tax. Reynolds said she will devote her efforts in her final legislative session — she is not running for re-election in 2026 — to property tax reform.
Good luck with that. A lame-duck governor may find it difficult to convince her Republican caucus to dive into property taxes when her neck is not on the line. Republicans had huge majorities this year and could not pull off their top goal, putting a check on rapidly rising local property taxes. It demonstrates what a weak leader Reynolds is.
Republicans will have to do something to get taxpayers off their backs. Local incompetence can take the sole rap for only so long. Legislators will have to take a stab at it but they might not be willing to undertake real reform in an election year. All the choices are bad: steal from schools, raise sales taxes, fire the park rangers and delay the maintenance, you know the routine.
They will find a pig and paint it in lipstick, confident we are too stupid to scrape away the patina. Our property taxes will continue to rise because of the previous cuts to income taxes that were driven by Reynolds. That she gave up on eliminating the income tax indicates that we are heading into a fiscal mess just as a new governor is seated. This year, the legislature overspent available revenues by $900 million. It will get worse, and eventually the savings accounts will be drained. Reynolds will be long gone, and we will still wonder about property tax reform.
The folks who run Split Ticket, an election data analysis shop, sketched out three scenarios for the November 2026 midterm elections. None of them involve Republicans retaining their thin grip on the House majority. This comports with the historical record: the party in power almost always loses ground in the midterms.
They sketch three election results: “Neutral,” which puts Democrats in control 221-214; “Ripple,” D-229 R-206; and “Wave,” D-236 R-199. In the Neutral scenario Democrats would flip Iowa’s first district, held by Rep. Marionette Miller Meeks. In the Ripple and Wave scenarios, Democrats would win the third district seat held by Rep. Zach Nunn of Bondurant. The losing party always marvels at the ability of Miller Meeks to win a district that includes Iowa City.
Split Ticket partners Harrison Lavelle and Leon Sit wrote in the Washington Post that voter enthusiasm among Democrats and low-turnout voters populating the GOP rolls tints the election blue. The headline said that a “blue wave is building.” That may be. Iowans are loathe to upset an incumbent, but it does happen. Sen. Joni Ernst is expected to defend her seat, and there will be an open race for governor that could juice turnout among Republicans. The third congressional district includes the Des Moines metro area and a whole bunch of rural counties. Nunn won by three percentage points in the 2024 election as an incumbent.
It is most likely that the House will turn over to Democratic control. But by how much? Current polling suggests President Trump is dragging down his party’s prospects. The authors say it only gets worse after the first 100 days in office. Trade and tariffs are zig and zag. House members were just forced to slash Medicaid spending that will not settle well in Iowa, where rural hospitals have developed a bad cough.
Democratic leadership is targeting the first, second and third districts. Divisions have developed in the Iowa Republican Party over property rights. The conditions are right for a wave, except that Miller Meeks and Nunn are incumbent in a state that has been trending hard right for a decade. It remains to be seen whether Democrats have the organizational capacity to capitalize on the chaos the MAGA brand is creating.
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