- cross-posted to:
- politics@sh.itjust.works
- cross-posted to:
- politics@sh.itjust.works
edit: Seems to be stopped for now, the white house has recinded the memo, we’ll see what the fallout is from here.
Congressional Democrats response
#Iowa GOP response
Reynolds: worse than nothing
Nunn: nothing
Hinson: nothing
Miller-meeks: nothing
Feenstra: nothing
Grassley: hasn’t made a statement, but he seems to be focusing more on the inspector general firings
Ernst: nothing, most recent statement is about cutting SNAP benefits that came out after the grant and loan freeze
I’m not an expert in federal grant programs in Iowa, obviously it’s bad, but it’s hard to do something about it without a more comprehensive accounting of what exactly it does to us. I will be updating this post sorting by policy area as I find things, please feel free to share what you find.
#Food security
Governor Reynolds has refused to accept federal summer EBT for multiple years now but this did not directly affect food security within the school year. Iowa had 29 million meals provided through the federal free and reduced lunch program in Iowa in the 22-23 school year that’s in jeopardy.
SNAP itself might be more of a grey area since the memo says it doesn’t apply to direct individual benefits (I don’t fully believe that personally). 259k recipients in Iowa in 2024
#Healthcare
supposedly mediciad isn’t going to be affected. one should hope so because there’s 1.5million visits paid for by medicaid in Iowa a year
#Education
13.6% of Iowa school funding came from federal sources in 2021-22
#Disaster preparedness
tba
There’s also an important conversation to be had as to if talking about the specific effects is the best strategy, I’ll be doing it anyway. but we still shouldn’t loose track of how this is all flagrantly unconstitutional and a naked attempt to turn the federal government into a monarchy.