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Blog Posts

💵 America’s Chief Financial Officer Came to Iowa

On July 4, 2025, the largest tax cut in American history was signed into law. The results are already showing up in Iowa: this spring, refunds ran 11% higher and the average Iowa family put just over $3,000 back in their bank account. This week,...

🎡 The Best 11 Days in Iowa

For 11 days every August, the best of Iowa comes together in one place. The livestock barns fill up, the Grandstand lights turn on, and the smell of something fried pulls you halfway across the fairgrounds before you even know what's on the stick....

🏥 Life-Saving Care, Closer to Home

Dialysis is three days a week, for the rest of your life. For eleven people in Wayne County, the nearest open chair is seventy-five miles away. What’s new: Yesterday, we broke ground on a new dialysis center at Wayne County Hospital, doubling it...

🌧️ Finishing the Map

Iowa farmers, families and local leaders make thousands of decisions every year based on the weather. While we can't control when the next flood or drought hits, we can make sure Iowans have the information they need to better prepare for it....

✈️ The Runway to Opportunity

Iowa is one of the best states in the nation to start or grow a business. In the past year, manufacturers like Robinson and Vermeer have invested hundreds of millions in new facilities in the Des Moines metro. At the same time, Iowa has to compete...

🏭 What the Labor Secretary Heard in Iowa

For the crew at Auto-Jet in Clive, overtime pay covers the bills at the end of a long month. For the servers at Whiskey River in Ankeny, tips are the majority of every paycheck. This week, I brought Acting U.S. Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling...

🛣️ Intersection Battle

If you’ve ever driven Highway 141 in Johnston, you know the drill. You pull up to the edge of the highway, wait for a break in high-speed traffic, and then hit the gas, hoping you’ve timed it right.  What's new: We secured $500,000 in Community...

🛑 There’s an App for Copying Congress

Members of Congress should spend their time writing laws, not picking stocks. Yet today you can download an app that automatically copies the stock trades of Representatives into your own investment account. The most-copied portfolio belongs to...

🏥 Training Tomorrow’s Doctors

For years, families across rural Iowa have been asking me the same simple question: How do we get more doctors to stay here?  We do it by giving future physicians the chance to train here, build relationships here, and ultimately put down roots...

🛡️ Fighting Back Against Cyber Attacks in Schools

Back up: Earlier this year, schools in Des Moines, Marshalltown, and two of Iowa's regent universities were caught up in a breach of the Canvas learning platform that hit 9,000 schools worldwide — right as students were preparing for final...

 📊 The Numbers Are In

The Iowans who count on SNAP to put groceries on the table — a senior on a fixed income, a young mom working to make ends meet — are exactly who this program is meant to serve. The numbers USDA just released show Iowa is doing right by them. By the...

✈️ A New Iowa Air Mission

The 132nd Wing in Des Moines once held the best F-16 training record in American history. Then its flying mission was taken away — and the F-16s with it. Zoom in: Iowa's Guardsmen didn't give up — as a Colonel in the Air Force Reserve, I know...

🎡 Before the State Fair Comes 99 County Fairs

Yesterday I stood at the rail of the show ring at the Polk County Fair, watching four of my daughters walk the animals they've helped raise since last summer. Kelly and all six of our kids were there. After a year of early mornings and late nights,...

🌉 Strengthening Iowa’s Farm-to-Market Routes

Iowa is the agricultural hub of America and one of the nation's top manufacturing leaders. That's because hardworking Iowans show up before sunrise, load the truck, and move what Iowa makes to every corner of the country and around the world. But...

💰 A 4x Return for Iowa

Every Iowa family knows what it means to make a dollar count. Growing up around my family's century farm, I learned that waste wasn't an option. If you invested a dollar, you expected more than a dollar back. That's exactly how your tax dollars...

🚜 Putting AI to Work on the Farm

Growing up around my family’s century farm, I learned firsthand that Iowa farmers have always been the first to put new technology to work when it helps them produce more with less, conserve resources, and stay competitive. Today, artificial...

🏀 Iowa Has Her Back

If you were watching on June 24, you saw it. Caitlin Clark took a hard shot to the throat and no one blew the whistle. The league sorted it out afterward — a flagrant foul and a one-game suspension — after Caitlin had already gone down with an...

🏠 How Iowa Got Housing Done

Last summer, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat from neighboring Missouri, made the trip to Des Moines to stand beside me at a Habitat for Humanity build site as we introduced our bipartisan rural housing bill. Today, I’m proud to share that bill is...

🚧 The Road Ringgold County Runs On

Out in Ringgold County, there's no federal highway. County roads like P33 are the highway system: it's how farmers get crops to market, how kids get to school, how deliveries reach Main Street in Diagonal, and how first responders reach families in...

🎡 The Best Part of an Iowa Summer

Every morning before I leave the house for another stop on my 21-county tour or head to Washington to fight for Iowa, one of my kids asks me some version of this question: How many days until the Iowa State Fair?  This morning, the answer was 35. ...