Democrats discuss Iowa being ranked No. 1 for areas such as infrastructure, health care, and education.
Iowa Democrats acknowledge that, while they are proud of their state, there is still work to be done in the categories that led to a No. 1 ranking from a February U.S. News & World Report article. The categories included infrastructure, health care, and education.
According to the report, Iowa ranked No. 3 in health care, No. 5 in education, No. 1 in infrastructure, No. 4 in opportunity for life, and No. 9 in quality of life. These top-10 rankings placed Iowa at the top among other states.
Sen. Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, said he doesn’t like to put a lot of thought into rankings. He said Iowa has some of the poorest water quality and most polluted lakes and rivers in the country, and he noted that the last eight years of education funding have been some of the worst the state has seen.
“When you look at it in total, there are several billion dollars’ worth of unmet needs, and I wonder how we rank where we are,” he said.
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The Iowa Senate Republicans recently passed a $1.1 billion tax cut, Bolkcom said, and it will be hard to address the issues in infrastructure, health care, and education with that kind of loss.
Sen. Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids, said that growing up in Iowa, he is proud to be No. 1, but he thinks the state is in serious jeopardy.
“There is no question that there are very damaging things being done right now by the Republican majority,” he said.
Bolkcom and Hogg both noted the mental health crisis that Iowa is in.
“[Gov. Kim] Reynolds closed two mental-health facilities,” Hogg said. “That is a real serious problem.”
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The reality in Iowa is that not everyone has access to affordable health care, he said, and Bolkcom said the state is cutting services that people depend on.
In 2011, Hogg said, former Gov. Terry Branstad launched the Healthiest State Initiative, in which he proposed a plan to make Iowa the healthiest state within five years. Since then, Hogg said, Iowa has not advanced in the rankings.
He is very worried about the tax on education, he said, and funding to the University of Iowa is the lowest it has been since 1997. Senate Republicans are proposing additional cuts, he noted.
The Daily Iowan reported in February that the state Board of Regents is trying to hold to its promise in making a timetable to approve an increase in tuition. The regents will wait until the fiscal 2019 appropriations are decided.
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Hogg said college students in Iowa have a unique opportunity to get involved in politics, because they have opportunities that do not exist in other states. Iowa is first in the country for the caucus, and Iowa students have a chance to change policies that make people rethink the state’s No. 1 ranking, he said.
Riley Lewers, the president of the University of Iowa Democrats who is from the Iowa City area, said she naturally fell into politics upon attending the university. She wasn’t all that surprised to see Iowa ranked in the top 10 for education, she said, but noted that it gives a false sense that everything is fine.