Who is willing to fight for a proper Iowa?

It sure smells like Gov. Kim Reynolds is cooking up something behind closed doors that will gut local government to make up for her bad fiscal decisions.

The governor reportedly warned local business leaders and politicians in veiled conversations that big changes will have to be made to get property tax increases under control.

“School funding is about 40 percent to 45 percent of the tax bill,” Reynolds said following a closed briefing in Dubuque, according to the Cedar Rapids Gazette. “So when you combine that with just trying to think about delivering services differently, it’s a hard task, but we’re determined to get something done.”

Our schools already are sliding from first to middling or worse.

Our streets are a shambles. Towns can’t afford a swimming pool anymore, when they could in 1970. New fire trucks are tremendously expensive. Storm Lake trimmed its two community service officers from the police department.

Reynolds and Republican legislative leaders ignored all that in a long pursuit of eliminating the state income tax.

That has forced up property taxes because local politicians like to talk about being conservative but spend money — our money — like Donald Trump or the Kennedys.

The governor’s efficiency task force met in secret so you cannot know what the real plans are. Reynolds cannot justify herself to the general public, so she is trying to peddle her destruction of public education in tete-a-tete meetings in Dubuque and Dallas County with rich people or politicians chained to the machine.

Reynolds will not be around to take the heat for burning down the kitchen. She is not running for re-election. Republican legislative leaders like House Speaker Pat Grassley will be toting her water bucket. Crazy that Iowa set on the same course as Kansas in trying to destroy K-12 schools, which resulted in Gov. Sam Brownback getting jayhawked. A Democrat replaced him.

Iowa legislators passed the private-school voucher plan knowing that we could not afford it. They pursued the income tax cuts by lying that they would not hurt education. Local officials blame Reynolds and the legislature for repeated double-digit increases in property tax bills. They neglect to mention their own participation in the fraud.

The front outfits for Wall Street like the Iowa Taxpayers Association and the Farm Bureau commanded the state to reduce income taxes. Reynolds says it is so they can reinvest in their communities. Does that mean that corporations will cough up $100 million to replace our dilapidated city wells and distribution system that they drank dry?

Hilarious.

Rural health care is shutting down in places like Newton, where babies are not delivered, because of low reimbursement rates. Twenty years ago we had nursing homes in small towns so the elderly could be near families. Reynolds closed them with her Medicaid reform, again trying to save taxes for her friends in West Des Moines.

Falling test scores. Deteriorating rural communities. Health care access denied.

How long will we put up with rich people meeting in secret to tell us peasants how it is going to be? This Iowa rot has been festering for decades, mainly with the right wing whipping on your back. Bulldoze Pomeroy. Close the school in Early. Stop funding water tests in rivers. Watch your water bill ballon while corporate hogs suck it up. Watch your property taxes rise while you get less. If grandma can’t get a care bed, figure it out on your own. It is the New Iowa Agenda.

Someone asked me last week what I would advise young people.

The word is fight, fight, fight for Iowa. Where you can afford a swimming pool and care center in Newell, what was a wealthy Danish farming enclave. Where you don’t sock the poor working family with most of the cost of finding water for agribusiness conglomerates. Where you at least collect the data so you know what poison is in the river — even if you intend to do nothing about it. Where public business is done in public before the fleecing gets institutionalized. Where a woman in Newton or Keokuk can at least have a baby. That’s what we are talking about.

It’s worth fighting for. It’s worth losing so long as you put up the fight.