Letter to the Editor: Submitted by Karen Pratte

To the Editor:
Iowans are good people with common sense and compassion who care about one another. They value their public schools which are the hub of rural communities. They want to drink clean water and they want a government which works for them.

When Iowans voted, did they ask for their public schools to be starved and weakened?

Did they want to make it harder for the hungry to be fed?

Did they ask for  books to be banned and the teaching of Black and Native American history suppressed?

Did they want facts about Iowa’s dirty, polluted water to be hidden and ignored?

Did they want the governor, who favors corporations and wealthy donors,  to have more power?

Did they ask for waste, fraud and abuse of public money to be concealed?

The Iowans I know would answer “no” to each of these questions.

But, that’s exactly what Governor Reynolds, Rep. Anne Osmundson, Senator Mike Klimesh and their fellow hard-right MAGA Republicans delivered.

Now, nearly a billion dollars of the public’s money goes to parents sending their children to private schools (vouchers) instead of adequately funding public schools thanks to Reynolds, Osmundson, Klimesh and the Republicans. While food pantries minister to record numbers, hungry children, elderly and disabled Iowans will face barriers making it harder to receive food assistance thanks to Reynolds, Osmundson, Klimesh and Republicans. Books and history considered “divisive” are now banned and if mistakenly taught, your child’s teacher and school librarian will be punished and fined thanks to Reynolds, Osmundson, Klimesh and the Republicans.

Osmundson, Klimesh and the Republicans defunded the monitoring sensors of streams and rivers to prevent evidence of Iowa’s extremely polluted waters. They failed to pass any legislation to clean up Iowa’s water. The Republicans, including Reynolds, Osmundson and Klimesh, restructured the state government giving more control to Governor Reynolds while taking away subpoena power from the State Auditor so malfeasance of public money cannot be investigated.

Didn’t ask for all this?  When you vote for Republicans today, that’s exactly what you get.  Sadly, this extremist, hard-right MAGA Republican Party is no longer the party of Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan and Iowa Governor Robert Ray.

Karen Pratte
Waterville