(C) Iowa Capital Dispatch
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Reynolds has done what Trump couldn't on taxes — but tariffs are his starting line • Iowa Capital Dispatch [1]
['Dave Nagle', 'Kathie Obradovich', 'Randy Evans', 'Ed Tibbetts', 'More From Author', 'May', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline']
Date: 2025-05-01
It was somewhat of a surprise when our Gov. Kim Reynolds announced that she would not seek reelection in 2026. While her poll numbers have been dropping, most political observers would still wager that her odds of winning another term were much better than ever.
Nonetheless, allowing for a change of mind, it might be appropriate to reflect on the governor’s tenure to date and what I think is a lasting impact on Iowa. To state it succinctly, if the Iowa government and the state itself isn’t the epitome of Trump-Land, we certainly rank in the top 10.
We can write this as we watch the early steps taken by President Donald J. Trump, as he and his supporters take control of the federal government. The president wants to initiate a voucher program for public education. Iowa already has one. He wants to drastically reduce employment at a host of federal departments and agencies. In her reorganization of the state government, the governor transferred the administration of Medicaid program to the private sector.
Trump seeks to revoke labor union negotiated employment contracts. Reynolds requires all unions to recertify by annual election their right to represent their workers. A common trait of hostility to regulation of environmental issues dominates the thinking of both leaders. The similarity between the Trump government and Iowa is almost identical, particularly when we add in the attempt to ban a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions, restrictions on voting rights, and an extremely pro-business approach to governing.
Aside from the difference generated by the dichotomy between strictly state and strictly federal issues, it is hard to see a difference between the two. Except one: The governor of Iowa has accomplished almost all of it; the president of the United States is trying to do the same, but he can’t even talk about it.
The one the president cannot yet obtain is eliminating income tax as a source of government revenue. Reynolds has now cut the Iowa tax down to 3.8% of taxable income. It is a flat-rate tax, not like before when the tax rate was progressive.
What so many national pundits have ignored in pontificating about the president’s proposal is the real reason he pursues it. Given the trade disparity, foreign nations are the ones that should be complaining. Nor is this to rebuild America’s factory and manufacturing base. It is that the tariff revenue will serve as replacement money when he and Congress renew the tax cuts. It will also justify the repeal of all federal income taxes in the future.
The president and the Heritage Foundation are in love with the Gilded Age, the period between roughly 1880 and 1910. It was the period of the super-rich, the Rockefellers, J.P. Morgan, and a host of others. Working conditions for the average person were harsh, with little pay, but the wealthy could not have been better off. Some of these advocates hold that one of the darkest days of the nation was when President William Howard Taft, in 1910, introduced a constitutional amendment, the 16th, that allowed what until then was unconstitutional, a federal income tax. The reason for the anger at Taft was at that time, it was tariffs that generated up to 80% of all government income. President Trump apparently wants those days back.
The president can hardly sell his tariff proposals on the real benefit of high tariffs. Peter Navarro, his primary trade adviser, has been advocating for the proposal by emphasizing how much money tariffs will bring the nation. This month, Navarro claimed it would generate $6 trillion over the next decade. Which would build hundreds of factories. His Commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, slipped momentarily when he admitted what the Project 2025 claimed, that it would indeed replace the income tax. He was quickly shut down.
For it or against it, Trump has a hard sell. One half of his political base, the members of commerce, live more quarterly on profit and loss and cannot tolerate the whiplash the president seems to be inflicting daily upon the markets. The other half, your average income earner, is more concerned about what increases in the market value of goods and services will be imposed upon them.
Bottom line: If you really want to live in Trump-Land and you are here, stay here. If you are not here and want to be here, then simply stand still, click your heels three times, close your eyes, and say, “There is no place like Trump-Land.” You will open them and find yourself in our State Capitol, right outside the governor’s door.
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[1] Url:
https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2025/05/01/reynolds-has-done-what-trump-couldnt-on-taxes-but-tariffs-are-his-starting-line/
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