What Iowans Are Reading: “Kim Reynolds is So Unpopular, and Zach Lahn Just Endorsed All of It”
DES MOINES – From Cedar Rapids to Storm Lake, longtime political observers are putting Kansas carpetbagger and career political operative Zach Lahn on blast for running to continue Kim Reynolds’ failed legacy.
Lahn has “cast himself as the heir to” Reynolds’ failures, said he’s “grateful” for everything she’s done, and said he believes Reynolds “did the right thing” by landing Iowa with a $1.4 billion budget deficit to fund tax breaks for powerful insiders and special interests. Lahn is apparently “grateful” for the last decade of one-party rule that’s made Iowa the number one state for new cancer growth, the state with the second highest number of farm bankruptcies, and left public schools underfunded.
What Iowans are reading about Zach Lahn running to continue Kim Reynolds’ failed status quo:
Storm Lake Times Pilot’s Art Cullen: An unpopular legacy
- Gov. Kim Reynolds during a GOP fundraiser last week threatened to take her legacy tour to all 99 counties. Rob Sand should pray every night that she follows through. She would like to remind Iowans of a record that made her the least popular governor in the nation for a long time running.
- At the same fundraiser, the man who would succeed Reynolds, Zach Lahn of Belle Plaine and Kansas, sang her praises and celebrated his endorsement from Donald Trump, who rains trouble on farmers and says he loves inflation amid war. Trump is underwater even in Iowa. Affordability is a problem when your health-care deductible is $10,000 and you lost your Obamacare subsidy.
- Sand is a strong candidate with a lot of money who has won a statewide race as auditor. Give him credit. A key reason he leads in the polls is that Kim Reynolds is so unpopular, and Zach Lahn just endorsed all of it. We have put up with 10 years of decline and Lahn would continue it.
- “You passed the largest tax cut for the middle class in the history of our state, and you passed school choice reform,” Lahn said. “That’s the envy of so many states in the nation. We have so much to thank you for, and I thank you.”
- The tax cuts leave us with a billion-dollar annual deficit. The school choice reform gives private school vouchers to wealthy people in West Des Moines. Meanwhile, the Storm Lake School Board just cut $500,000 from the budget, and people are not bashing down the doors of St. Mary’s with their vouchers. Boone is laying off a cadre of teachers.
The Gazette’s Todd Dorman: Zach Lahn’s view from Reynolds’ shoulders isn’t great
- Zach Lahn wants to carry on the legacy of Gov. Kim Reynolds. Brace yourselves.
- Lahn, the Republican nominee for governor, heaped praise on Reynolds, the outgoing Republican governor, at the party’s annual Lincoln Dinner on Friday.
- Lahn says clean water is a top priority. Reynolds ignored the effects of agricultural pollution in Iowa’s rivers, streams and lakes, downplaying the problem. That way, the agricultural interests she serves wouldn’t have to worry about it.
- Lahn says he wants to go after agricultural input monopolies. Reynolds did their bidding.
- Reynolds is the only governor in the last 40 years who did not launch a large-scale effort to improve and transform public schools. Instead she blessed private schools with public bucks.
- End tax credits and incentives for out-of-state and foreign corporations, Lahn contends. Just think how many ribbon cuttings and ground-breakings Branstad and Reynolds would have missed.
- There are echoes of Reynolds in Lahn’s pitch. He’ll crack down on benefits for undocumented immigrants who already are prohibited from receiving them. Lahn would pull teaching licenses from any educator caught indoctrinating kids. Reynolds wishes she had thought of that.
- His clean water plan consists of giving taxpayer money to help farmers control pollution. Been there, done that. The water is still dirty.
- So, Lahn is telling Iowans what they want to hear while carrying the banner of a party that went deaf to their concerns long ago. Reynolds’ legacy lives on.
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