we are
Iowans for Stronger Communities
A 501(c)(4) social welfare organization fighting to improve the lives of working Iowans.
Our organization advocates for policies that will improve the lives of working and retired Iowans, such as:
- Fixing a broken political system
- Protecting workers’ rights
- Ensuring quality and affordable healthcare (including mental health)
- Protecting public education
- Investing in public infrastructure
Our Priorities
Broken Political System
We formed Iowans for Stronger Communities because our two-party system is broken and is not serving the interests of working Iowans. We have seen that politicians in Des Moines have continually failed to address the most pressing concerns of working Iowans – especially in our rural communities.
Partisan interests, large corporations, and their lobbyists have a tight grip on our political system. Our government must serve the interests of working and retired Iowans, and not large corporations and the politicians they support.
Workers Rights
The Legislature’s significant cuts to OSHA have made Iowa workers less safe and have let companies cut corners with no accountability. This has resulted in numerous tragedies at our factories and nursing homes. This is fundamentally wrong – our state government must ensure elderly family members are being treated with dignity and every worker is safe on the job.
In 2017, politicians in Des Moines stripped away collective bargaining rights for over 250,000 public-sector workers in Iowa. Additionally, they significantly cut unemployment benefits for workers in our state. These changes have had extremely harmful impacts on union workers, their families, and non-union members in their communities. We support the restoration and expansion of collective bargaining rights for workers in Iowa.
Public Education
Our politicians have defunded our public education system while providing wealthy corporations with hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks. Iowa used to have the best public education system in the nation, but politicians in Des Moines have systematically cut funding to our public schools while enacting a private school voucher program that will lead to the closure of many of our rural public schools.
We must fully fund our public education system and ensure that every child in our state has access to incredible public schools.
Infrastructure
Our infrastructure is crumbling in Iowa. One of the most basic functions of government is to provide working roads and bridges, to fix potholes, and to ensure that our infrastructure is the best in the country. According to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, Iowa ranks dead last in regard to the quality of our bridges.
Many rural communities have witnessed devastation from natural disasters, including flooding. Our state government estimates that over $300 million in levy infrastructure spending is required to protect vulnerable communities from future flooding. We must use our close to $3 billion surplus in our state government to ensure that our communities recover and are safe from the impact of natural disasters.
Healthcare / Mental Health
Politicians in Des Moines privatized Medicaid in our state, which has increased costs for Iowans while reducing services and benefits, disproportionately hurting rural Iowans and Iowans with disabilities. The privatization of Medicaid has also made it harder for providers to offer in-home caregiving for the elderly and the disabled. As a result of low reimbursement rates for Medicaid from our state government, rural hospitals in Iowa are closing at an alarming rate. Over 175 rural hospitals in Iowa have closed since 2005, creating an access crisis for Iowans who don’t live in big cities/urban areas.
These same politicians in Des Moines have chronically underfunded our mental health care system in our state. We rank in the bottom five states in regard to mental health care spending per capita, and there have been a significant number of mental health care facilities that have closed in the past few years.
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