Big business, right-wing group thank Reynolds for tax cuts benefiting the wealthy

More tax cuts, investments in improving access to health care, and focusing on tackling bird flu in Iowa livestock are three areas the governor will likely focus on in the 2025 Iowa Legislative Session.

Iowa business and advocacy groups brought up these issues at a public budget hearing hosted by Gov. Kim Reynolds Wednesday afternoon.

Every year, the governor hosts an annual open forum about the state budget and listens to input from Iowa industries and groups representing business interests about what they want the state to prioritize.

More tax cuts

Starting in January 2025, all Iowans will be taxed 3.8% on their income. Many of the speakers, representing private business owners, thanked the governor for lowering taxes and encouraged her to cut income taxes even more while also lowering other types of taxes, mainly property taxes.

Tyler Raygor with Americans for Prosperity, a right-wing advocacy group founded by the Koch brothers, told Reynolds, “We look forward to working with you and legislative leaders to build on these successes by chipping away at our income tax until that burden is removed completely from the backs of hardworking Iowans.”

Research shows flat tax rates mostly help the wealthy hold on to more money because their taxes are lowered. People who don’t make as much and were in a lower tax bracket may have to pay more. People in the middle will likely see small changes

Raygor and others also said the state should limit the size of the government, what it pays for, and the regulations on businesses.

“You can take to the bank that your priority one and priority two are continued priorities of mine as well,” Reynolds told Raygor. 

Nearly every person mentioned high property taxes as the next issue Reynolds should address, and she agreed.

Health care investment

Outside of tax cuts, people representing hospitals and health care workers thanked the governor for the investments she’s made in rural health care and asked her to continue those programs.  

One of those included Allen Anderson, president and CEO of St. Anthony Regional Hospital in Carroll. The hospital was one of the first rural health care centers to get the Centers of Excellence grant for the pilot program Iowa started in 2021, and has received the grant every year since. 

“Funding has really helped us sustain programs like those postpartum support groups, prenatal classes, advanced trainings and certifications for our birthplace team and to some of the outreach hospitals,” he said.

Others with the Iowa Hospital Association, Mercy ONE, and Iowa Health Care Association asked for more investment in programs that build up the number of providers in the state.

Reynolds agreed with ideas about work-based education and apprenticeships. She said her office planned to look at the requirements for licensing new health care workers.

“I’m always interested in looking at any type of regulatory reforms that we need to put in place, ways to make things easier, to drive people into this workforce,” she said.

Control bird flu

Representatives for the Iowa Cattleman’s Association, the Farm Bureau, and an Ames-based animal vaccine company said they’d like the governor’s office and the legislature to keep paying attention to the spread of diseases like bird flu in Iowa’s livestock population.

Reynolds has issued disaster proclamations for five Iowa counties that have had outbreaks of bird flu in their egg-laying flocks—Sioux, Palo Alto, O’Brien, Sac and Worth—to allow state and local groups to kill their flocks to try containing the virus.

The representatives said they need money to watch the spread of the virus and contain it while also vaccinating livestock.

“Aside from total de-population, which takes a toll on not only the producers but also our rural economies, vaccinating livestock remains the best way to stop that spread of those diseases,” said Kelli Wicks, director of government relations for the Iowa Cattlemen’s Association.

Reynolds said she agrees “wholeheartedly.”