Letter to the Editor: Submitted by Dick and Betty Dinan

To the Editor:

Do you remember one year ago, in September of 2025, when we wrote a letter of concern about eight of our services being threatened? Our letter listed those eight services and the threat of losing them. They are:

1. No cancer research; 2. No Social Security; 3. No disaster relief; 4. No clean energy; 5. No free lunch; 6. No Medicare; 7. No Medicaid; 8. No SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).

Now, in only one year’s time, we Iowans are suffering because six of those eight services are already reduced or taken away, not only here in Iowa, but across the country. We asked the question last year, “Are our Iowa legislators in Washington D.C. representing us or are they supporting the efforts to get rid of these services?”

We then gave the following phone number, 888-754-9086, to call your Iowa Senators and Representatives who were voted in to represent us. Tell them to be strong enough to do what is right for us. And we can check their voting histories, and we can vote them out, if they are not representing us.

Now, it is time for all of us to vote in 30-plus days; we must vote in legislators who are honest, and willing to speak up for us and fight for us, as we are already suffering from the loss of six (we still have our Medicare and Social Security) of our services, much less our rights, and ultimately our democracy.

We still ask, “How can we stand by and let our kids, grandkids and great-grandkids suffer if we don’t do something now?” Vote, go to the candidate forums, debates, listen and learn. Who is for you, and who is being intimidated and has followed those in corruption and already taken our six services away? Hoping if we vote, we can still change things.

Dick and Betty Dinan
Elkader