The Storm Lake Times Criticizes Reynolds for Her Continued Attacks on Hubbell to Distract Iowans From Her Dismal Record
Governor Kim Reynolds’ attacks on Fred Hubbell are a desperate attempt to cover up her own dismal record and Iowans are taking note. In a recent editorial, the Storm Lake Times criticized Reynolds for her shocking mismanagement of Iowa’s health care and education systems while completely abandoning accountability for harassment and misuse of taxpayer money in her state government. All while she continues to attack Fred Hubbell with selective facts to construct a narrative that simply is not true.

“While Governor Reynolds cherry picks facts about Fred Hubbell’s business record, Iowans are living the consequences of her horrible mismanagement and misplaced priorities,” said Iowa Democratic Party Spokesperson Tess Seger. “If Governor Reynolds can’t stand behind her own record and the consequences of her first seven years in office, how can Iowans trust her with another four?”

Excerpts from the column below:

STORM LAKE TIMES: A lame attack

“Gov. Reynolds might have a harder time explaining away experiences she would rather forget — like the destruction of the Medicaid delivery system and the resulting chronic budget deficits that chaos engendered. We believe they are more than $100 million per year because of added costs for the private sector to take a profit from Medicaid, a system that gives health care to the working poor and infirm. But the public doesn’t know for certain because the numbers are a secret, and so are the Reynolds Administration negotiations with the insurance companies now running Medicaid for the state.

Or how she let the director of the Iowa Finance Authority run wild with the state credit card booking hotel rooms in Des Moines. And the board didn’t know. And nobody apparently knew that he was sexually harassing women in the IFA office. The governor said she didn’t know until the day she fired him. That the Spencer Younkers store no longer exists would seem to pale in comparison to that ineptness of management.

Gov. Reynolds has quit meeting with the press corps in Des Moines. She is busy trimming roses or buttering the cow at the state fair and is tired of those pesky questions of spending more than we take in. And, why when we are taking in all this money the state cannot help Storm Lake build an early childhood education center. Or why, with the jobless rate at a record low as she likes to boast, appropriations to K-12 schools fall to zero or one percent per year, less than the rate of inflation?

We understand what happened to department stores. First came the mall and then Amazon. And insurance companies: First came deregulation and scale, and then sale.

We get that. We have a harder time understanding why the governor does not want to talk about Medicaid, education appropriations or the Iowa Finance Authority. All have become a shambles under her current watch. This is not something from 25 years ago. And by the way, when you call him a rich boy one should remember that the Hubbells donated Terrace Hill to the state, where Kim Reynolds lives. In our view, he has earned the right to live there. He actually understands insurance, not having had the previous benefit of being the Clark County Recorder. And, as a former executive with a leathery behind — he and his wife were held as hostages at gunpoint — he can smell a rot and find a way to cut it out. That’s what is needed now: The Republican hubris of too much a serving of Terry Branstad, and now a smiling cardboard version with Kim Reynolds blathering on issues that go beyond titles and deeds, is starting to smell.”