Letter to the Editor: Submitted by Ann Klees

To the Editor:

What do you do when you are in a hole over your head? You stop digging! Iowa is in a big hole. We are failing in education - ranking 13th in the country, economic growth, population growth, healthcare and OBGYN (obstetrics and gynecology) doctors. Our water quality is abysmal and our cancer growth rate is the highest in the country.

We have the worst Governor in the country and the whole state government is controlled by one party. They have been in control for ten years, and how’s your economic health? Can you afford your drugs, or to see a doctor? How much do you spend on gas and groceries? How about rent or home ownership?

And then there’s your rights. Can you decide about your own body? Who you are? Who has access to your personal data? Our state’s voter rolls have been turned over to the federal administration, and who knows who has access to our personal information, including our social security numbers.

So stop digging, do your research, see who you have supported in the past and how they have supported you! 

Then, let’s start filling that hole back up. Support potential leaders who have shown up for the working people, not the big money donors. See which potential leaders are not taking PAC money, who are being funded by grassroots, small individual donors like you.

The legislators in our statehouse have not been helping the small guy, and some of the other state office holders have also failed Iowa. We need a new path forward, one that strengthens our economy, cleans up our water, returns us to the top in education and gets the private, for-profit Medicaid system back into well-run state hands.

This requires a change from some of you, take a good, hard look at who you have supported in the past, and how your life is affected by that choice. Take a good, hard look at those pursuing each office and decide who is really on your side. Then take that step and let’s turn Iowa around, back to a state we can be proud of.

Ann Klees
Waterville