Iowa was once renowned not only for its beauty but also for its affordability...a place where you could raise a family comfortably and retire with dignity. Now, Retirees wonder if they will be able to keep their homes. Young families struggle to make the math of having kids work. And the rich are richer than ever. We need income-based property tax relief for seniors, much larger tax credits for working-class families (and a host of other support detailed in other sections on this page), and we need to reverse the horrific tax breaks for the rich, which are decimating Iowa's budget.

We've all seen the headlines; Iowa has the fastest rising cancer rate in the country, and every other week another hospital or clinic closes...which is a real problem for the Iowans who can actually still afford healthcare. We should have regulations with teeth and severe consequences, so there are meaningful deterrents for industries that would poison our water, soil, and air; We must de-privatize and expand Medicaid to cover more Iowans; and we must deliver action on cancer-causing radon gas by providing Iowans with tax credits for the detection and mitigation of the deadly gas.

Raising a young family is hard—and it's even harder if you live in Iowa because we lag behind other states in the resources and opportunities we provide. My priorities in combating this include Paid Parental Leave, expanding the HAWKi Program (Medicaid) for All Iowa's Children, and providing Iowa's families with Childcare Assistance as well as Universal Pre-K.

Iowa was once first in the nation in education. Not anymore. Iowa now falls somewhere in the middle of the pack and drops lower every year. We need to fully fund education, and then index the annual funding increase to inflation so it's no longer a political football. We need to pass the Educator Bill of Rights. We need major reform to the misguided Education Savings Accounts (vouchers) to ensure public accountability and fiscal responsibility of The People's money.

Over the past decade, Iowa's workers have seen their protections shredded, and for many working-class families like my own, you work just to pay the bills, and there isn't much left after that. To get us back on the right track, we must restore and strengthen Iowa's unions and collective bargaining rights. We must update minimum wage requirements. We must ensure that individuals with disabilities can fully participate in the workforce without being penalized.

We are only as strong as the communities we live in, so it's vitally important that policies coming out of Des Moines work to strengthen those communities. To this end, it's vital that we stop the state from stealing our counties' revenue to make up for state budgeting shortfalls. Additionally, we must limit state government in local affairs, ensure eminent domain cannot be used for private entities, and penalize large companies and corporations when their low wages force their employees to collect welfare funded by Iowa taxpayers.