The Fundamental Dishonesty of Iowa’s U.S. House Delegation
- What their campaign speeches would have sounded like in 2024 if they told the truth when they last asked Iowans to vote for them
Even the name of the “Big Beautiful Bill,” as the reconciliation bill passed by the US. House on Thursday is called, is a lie.
But all four Iowans in the U.S. House voted for it.
That is the actual formal name of the budget reconciliation bill House Republicans coughed up late last week. All four Iowans have said repeatedly in the past that they would support and protect many of the things slashed in the bill, but never the less, voted to cut them deeply Thursday.
All four voted to cut Medicaid, Medicare and a host of other programs without consulting their constituents, and asking them to weigh in, and while supporting a process that deliberately rushed the legislation through the House with no opportunity for public review and discussion.
Despite each having several staffers whose full time job is specifically to help the member of Congress communicate with their Iowa constituents, none of the four Iowans in Congress explained to their constituents what the legislation actually does before they voted for it.
The bill literally was passed in the dark of night, a strategy deliberately designed to keep Americans from knowing what was in it and weighing in on it before it could be passed.
The process, the vote and the bill deserve to live in infamy.
Each Iowa House member should have to spend the rest of their careers explaining and defending the bill, their vote for it, and the “dark of night” process used to rush it through the House.
Remember their names: Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-1st IA); Reps. Ashley Hinson (R-2nd-IA); Zach Nunn (R-3rd Iowa ); and Randy Feenstra (R-4th IA).
None of them campaigned on their support for the mayhem and destruction this bill will cause in the lives of Iowans and other Americans. Rather, most either suggested such cuts could be avoided or were not be needed. None said they would support such policies.
But they did. Every one of the four Iowans voted for this mess.
The formal name for the bill, seriously, is “The Big Beautiful Bill.” That name is a lie. It should have been called “The Big Stinking Mess Bill.”
There is nothing beautiful about a bill that will:
Add $2.4 trillion to the national debt over 10 years, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the ultimate authority for Congress on what the financial impact will be on proposed or pending legislation; The national debt, which the four Iowans constantly harp about when Democrats control either the Congress or the White House, now stands at nearly $36 trillion.
All four Iowas voted to add $2.4 trillion to that debt without a peep.
Slash $1 trillion from safety net programs over ten years that help feed hungry kids and others who lack access to basic food supplies, again, according to the nonpartisan CBO;
Force $500 BILLION in cuts to Medicare over ten years; Miller-Meeks, Hinson, Nunn, and Feenstra voted for the largest cut to Medicare in history when they voted “aye” on this legislation.
Strip Medicaid coverage from 8.7 million poor and old people who need medical care over the next decade; Nearly 80 million Americans are covered by Medicaid, with 860,000 of them Iowans.
Miller-Meeks, Hinson, Nunn and Feenstra voted for the largest cut to Medicaid in history when they voted for this bill.
NOTE: Rural hospitals, like Iowa’s 83 critical access hospitals, 214 rural health care clinics, 59 federally qualified health centers, Iowa’s 402 skilled nursing homes all disproportionately depend on Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement for the care they deliver. They are already financially stressed and would be hard hit by cuts made by the legislation for which Miller-Meeks, Hinson, Nunn and Feenstra voted.
The CBO also estimates that an additional 7.6 million more Americans would lose their health insurance because of this legislation over the next 10 years. If you turn out to be one of them, be sure to thank Miller-Meeks, Hinson, Nunn and Feenstra. The bill passed by a margin of 1 vote, so literally you couldn’t have done it - lost your health insurance - without them.
Cuts $267 billion over 10 years from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) which used to be called the Food Stamp Program. It provides financial help to poor people and families to buy food, something you might think people who claim to be people of faith and “pro-life” would support.
As a major food growing state, Iowa gets hit by this, too. The people who are helped by this program are customers of Iowa farmers and other food producing states. The Food Stamp Program, now known as SNAP, was created to help feed starving Americans, many of them kids, but it was also created to expand domestic farm product markets for American farmers.
Miller-Meeks, Hinson, Nunn and Feenstra just voted to shrink domestic farm product markets by $267 billion over 10 years. It’s hard to see how that helps Iowa farmers, especially as Trump continues - with his tariffs - to disrupt and destroy farm export markets.
All of this to pay for - you knew this was coming, with Republicans writing the bill - $4 trillion more in giant tax breaks and extensions for the super wealthy. This is, again, according to the CBO.
A “Big Beautiful Bill?” Definitely a case that depends on the “eye of the beholder.”
Calling a bill which does all this - and much more just as hideous - is like calling the August 24, 79 CE eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in Italy that wiped out and buried the city of Pompeii a “Big Beautiful Volcanic Ash Dust Up.”
All four members of Iowa’s House congressional delegation voted for this monstrosity.
Not one of them pledged in their most recent campaigns (2024) to vote for these policies or even mentioned that they might. In fact, they and their then presidential nominee, then former President Donald Trump - the most documented liar ever to hold public office in America - pledged to protect Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
I mention Social Security because there are now reports that even Social Security may yet be added to the list of deep cuts needed to pay for the Billionaire’s Tax Cut.
As recently as May 5, Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-1st IA), touting her expertise as a rural physician, told an American Hospital Association audience that she believed cuts to Medicaid could and should be avoided.
On May 22, she voted for the biggest cut to Medicaid in the program’s history.
The vote on this legislation by Iowa’s four House members deserves a special place in the annals of Iowa history. They reveal the fundamental dishonesty of this US House delegation when it comes to casting their votes and communicating honestly with Iowans about those votes.
Without notice or explanation, without an opportunity for voters to know what was in it or to voice their views on this legislation, all four Iowans in the House voted the same and exactly opposite of what they led Iowans to believe their views were during their last campaign, just five months and four weeks ago.
Now they are making themselves scarce as hen’s teeth in forums that allow open, uncontrolled, unfiltered questions, answers and discussions with the general public. This has been going on for months, since the runaway DOGE “kneecappings” of government departments, agencies and employees started early this year.
Democracy depends on honest communication and frequent dialogue between elected representatives and the people they represent.
Iowans are getting neither from this ignominious bunch.
I want to close this column with a quick draft of the kind of speech Iowans would have heard if its House delegation had opted to tell the truth in their 2024 campaigns instead of choosing to mislead.
I think it would have sounded something like this:
It has been an honor to work to advance our highly partisan, and more than a little un-Americn ideology in the U.S. House of Representatives. I ask for your vote to return to Washington, DC to serve Donald Trump for another two years.
If re-elected, I pledge and promise to do the following:
I will vote to add $2.4 trillion to the national debt.
I will vote to cut half a trillion dollars from Medicare.
I will vote to strip 8.7 million Americans - many of them Iowans, and many of them from my district - of their Medicaid coverage, even though it will mean that rural hospitals, already stressed to the breaking point, will be further stressed and that many will be forced to close their doors.
I also pledge to support policies that will force 7.6 million more Americans to lose their health insurance, as well.
Of course, I can’t give a campaign speech in Iowa without mentioning farm issues.
I pledge to continue to forget about the Farm Bill.
I pledge to help President Trump continue to destroy even more farm export markets with high and arbitrary tariffs; by not doing a thing to stop him; and without doing anything to reclaim the responsibility the constitution gives Congress to regulate foreign commerce.
I pledge to cut by $267 billion the amount of money the SNAP program has to feed hungry American kids and families, money they would otherwise be spending for American farm products.
This urgent work will not be easy. But we can not falter. Hungry multi-billionaires are out there who need at least $4 TRILLION in additional tax cuts, and they need Donald Trump and me to get those cuts. That’s why I ask for and need your vote. The multi-billionaires need us, President Trump and me.
WEEKLY OVERDUE FARM BILL TICKER - 603 DAYS: The number of days that have passed since the 2018 Farm Bill expired on September 30, 2023, without Congress passing a new one. (Total days as of Sunday, 05/25/2025).
Two thirds of Iowa’s congressional delegation serves on the U.S. House and Senate Agriculture Committees: Grassley (R-IA) and Ernst (R-IA) in the Senate; Nunn (R-3rd IA) and Feenstra (R-4th IA) in the House.
There is little indication Congress will act any time soon to pass a new Farm Bill, or if it does - given the Trump wrecking ball and the eagerness of Republicans in Congress to follow him in that effort - that it will be helpful to farmers.
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I hope the Democrats find a way to use your list of what the republican talking points would be if they were telling the truth about how they vote in DC. I have no idea how people can be shameless and shameful at the same time, but these clowns have managed to accomplish just that.
Serving your constituents is far down the list of priorities for Iowa's Hate Party delegation. Serving a convicted felon is. By the 2026 elections, they'll count on Iowans to have forgotten this treachery and will spend millions on ads condemning Dems as woke perverts.