Op-Ed

Last week, I had the pleasure of welcoming Iowans from Fort Dodge and Webster County to our nation’s capital to discuss opportunities and challenges facing our families, farmers, and businesses. We had an extensive and productive conversation on a wide range of issues from education and agriculture to infrastructure and tax policy.

Every year, April 15 — and March 1 for our producers — marks a dreaded deadline for American families, farmers and small businesses. It’s the day that the federal government extracts as much money as possible from the American people.

Paying taxes is already miserable enough; filing them should not be frustrating, overly complicated and time-consuming. Yet, that remains the case.

Every year, millions of Americans welcome a newborn into the world, care for loved ones who require additional support, or need time to recover from a medical condition themselves. These common, yet challenging, life events often demand more time spent at home, making it difficult to maintain a routine work schedule and, in turn, creating financial uncertainty under already stressful and unpredictable circumstances.

Last year, the Joe Biden administration oversaw the worst rollout of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) in recent memory, leaving families and students in the dark for months about financial assistance for higher education.

This preventable setback caused headaches for parents, frustrations for students, and confusion for community colleges and universities.

As of Thursday February 27^th, more than 166 million chickens and turkeys in the United States have been affected by High Path Avian Influenza (HPAI), a highly contagious and deadly disease that impacts poultry, cattle, and can even spread to humans. In my home state of Iowa alone, approximately 30 million birds have been infected with this virus since 2022 with more than 12 million being in my home county – Sioux County.

American farmers and ranchers undertake incredible responsibilities to feed and fuel our country and the world. They work long hours from sunup to sundown to ensure that our grocery stores and meat counties are fully stocked and we can enjoy nutritious meals. Yet, American agriculture faces a multitude of threats to this core mission. 

Last year, our country witnessed unthinkable tragedies at the hands of illegal immigrants. The murder of Laken Riley – a 22-year-old nursing student – shook our nation to its core and eroded an important sense of security that every American deserves. And to think, this all could have been avoided. 

Fuel costs are a consistent and fluctuating part of any family budget, and Americans with lower and fixed incomes face the largest burden when prices spike. During the summer of 2022, when drivers had serious sticker shock at the gas pump, the average price of gas eclipsed five dollars nationwide, and states with especially restrictive energy policies, like California and New York, registered average gas prices of $6.40 and $4.90, respectively.