It’s Friday, July 4, 2025.
|
🗣️ It’s Friday: Cool off on your day off with some hot takes.
“One Big Beautiful Bill” takes: The House passed the Senate version of President Donald Trump’s budget bill yesterday, what the Economic Policy Institute calls a “staggering upward redistribution of income,” and Trump is expected to sign it.
-
“Everywhere I go, I hear from Iowans about how sky-high medical costs are already breaking their banks,” said Rob Sand, running for Iowa governor. “Despite that, today, those who are supposed to represent us in Congress voted to kick over 100,000 Iowans off their health insurance and threaten already-endangered rural hospitals—all to cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires.”
-
“Iowa’s rural hospitals and nursing homes, many already teetering on the brink, may be forced to close their doors for good,” said Iowa Senate Democratic Leader Janice Weiner. “Additionally, estimates show that more than 113,000 Iowans would lose access to the health insurance on which they rely, thanks to this disastrous legislation. As if the cost of living wasn’t high enough already, this bill will cut access to food assistance, increase household energy costs, and make it harder for Iowans to afford college.”
- “My opponent is well aware of the threat that she is posing to Iowa families, 100,000 of whom will have their health care ripped away as a result of this vote—solely to send a tax giveaway to billionaire political donors,” said Christina Bohannan, running against US Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks.
-
“Everywhere I go, Iowans are scared about losing health care access,” said Iowa Rep. Jennifer Konfrst, running against US Rep. Zach Nunn. “We know what happens when a community loses their hospital. When I met with providers at Clive Behavioral Health, they told me 60% of their patients are on Medicaid. When I met with the hospital administrator at Montgomery County Memorial Hospital in Red Oak, they told me how hard it would be to keep their doors open without Medicaid.”
- “This is a bad bill that will make life more expensive for hardworking Iowans and their families,” said Iowa Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott, also running against Nunn. “And Zach Nunn voted for it. Instead of making life more affordable for Iowans, he’s working with Republican politicians in Washington to give billionaires a tax cut. It’s wrong, and it’s why Iowans need new leadership.”
-
“Rural hospitals already operate on thin margins, and these Medicaid cuts will exacerbate their already strained financial situations,” the Iowa Hospital Association said. “Cuts of this magnitude will force hospitals to make tough decisions about reducing services or closing altogether. Medicaid cuts to Iowa’s hospitals affect not only Iowans who rely on Medicaid for their health coverage, but also all Iowans who require hospital care.”
US Rep. Ashley Hinson, who voted for it, said “nearly 80 million Americans voted for this commonsense, conservative agenda.”
- “Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, the historic One Big Beautiful Bill will soon be the law of the land,” Hinson said.
What do you think? Reply to this email and tell me. (BTW, I’m off next week, and will return to your inboxes then!)
|
|
|
|
Several times during our interview, Anesa Kajtazovic’s voice breaks.
More than 30 years later, the memories of fleeing her childhood home—the sound of gunfire, packing her life into a backpack, and leaving her grandparents and beloved dog Bobi behind—still feel emotionally raw.
That’s why it took the former Iowa legislator so long to write her experiences down in the first place.
“It was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done professionally, and in a way personally,” Kajtazovic said. “I’ve never, ever talked about it. It’s something we don’t ever talk about in the house. When you are given a second chance at life, I think you become so busy trying to survive … you don’t stop and think about what happened. You just keep moving forward.”
Read more of my interview with her here.
Bonus Positively Iowa:
🏡 A group of local high schoolers built a two-car garage, remodeled two bathrooms and re-shingled the roof of a Marion home as part of a special program that fixes up houses in the city’s older neighborhoods;
🐢 Fifty-six threatened Blanding’s turtle hatchlings, native to Iowa, were released into the wild after being raised at Blank Park Zoo (and here’s more information about Iowa’s native turtles);
🦅 An osprey rescued from a roadway in West Des Moines turns out to be a 19-year-old who helped bring back Iowa’s osprey population.
|
|
|
Readers are invited to add to the conversation by emailing responses@iowastartingline.com. Please include your first name and last initial. You may also want to include your city, but that’s up to you.
|
On Job Corps shutting down in Ottumwa:
-
“Your comments today about the Trump admin closing down Job Corps is a prime example of the lie underlying all of his and his cronies’—and that includes his former best bud, Musk—that what they were doing was rooting out ‘inefficiencies.’
By any measure, programs such as Job Corps and subsidized preschool and nutritional programs for children have been an overwhelming success … Together with the horrific and racist approach to immigrants of all kinds—save white Africans, of course—this administration keeps revealing its ugly white nationalist program every day.
Trump campaigned on a promise to ‘remove the thugs from our streets.’ It seems to me that he is the one who has put armed and masked thugs on our streets in the ugly persons of ICE agents, to which your lead story refers.” ~Greg C.
On the West Liberty young man detained by ICE:
-
“If Pascual has been here for 13 years, why didn’t he become a U.S. citizen?” ~Kenneth W.
(NOTE: Regarding the timeline, I have corrected my story; Pascual came here at age 13, not age 7. He was, however, abiding by his immigration check-ins.)
-
“This is unfortunate. If the information you provide is correct, Pascual should not be held in detention. Where I disagree with the media coverage of the Immigration crisis is how they point the finger at Trump for the problem. You said 47% of the detainees have no criminal transgressions in their background, which means 53% do. We need to deport the criminals. I don’t have firsthand knowledge of what the deportation process involves but I imagine it’s harder to sort out the immigrants who should go after they establish themselves here, than it was to let thousands of them run across the border each day as the Biden Administration did.” ~John J.
(NOTE: Illegal immigration began declining during Biden’s final year in office, per Politifact.)
- “I have heard they [ICE] have been in Ames.” ~Mike K.
Newsletter feedback:
- “Congrats on your new nephew. A great reason for new hope!” ~Nancy H.
-
“Is there any way you can obtain and SHARE the numbers of NEW hires by companies in Iowa (to counteract all the ‘sad layoff’ news).” ~Clare L. (NOTE: There are several Iowa business publications that do this, with the staff to do so!)
Iowa authors win prizes:
-
“Clutier-based independent historian Bill R. Douglas has won the Benjamin Shambaugh Certificate of Merit for his book, The People Are Kind: A Religious History of Iowa. The award is given annually by the State Historical Society of Iowa.
The winner of the Benjamin Shambaugh Award, Eric Zimmer, also has a Tama County connection, with his book Red Earth Nation: A History of the Meskwaki Settlement.” ~Bill D.
Time for solutions, not gaslighting:
-
“If you tell a teenager to clean their room and they respond with a sarcastic tone—’How do you clean a bedroom?’—well, everyone knows how to clean a bedroom. The same applies to climate change. When someone asks, ‘How do you solve climate change?’, we know how to solve climate change. We just need to do it.” ~John C., Brooklyn, Iowa
|
|
|
Would you recommend this newsletter to your friends and family?
|
|
|
You are receiving this email because you opted in via our website.
Iowa Starting Line
c/o Courier Newsroom
101 Avenue of the Americas
8th and 9th Floors
New York, NY 10013
|
|
|
|
