Dean Lerner served Iowa as an Assistant Attorney General for sixteen years, Chief Deputy Secretary of State for four years, and about ten years as Deputy Director, then Director of the Department of Inspections & Appeals. He then worked for the CMS Director of the Division of Nursing Homes, and the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa. He is a graduate of Grinnell College and Drake University Law School.
The unimaginable has now become commonplace:
Stripping health care from 56,000 Iowans.
Taking food assistance and safety nets away from Iowa’s children, seniors, and veterans.
Adding $3.3 trillion to the national deficit. And on and on….
The expedited, so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, grossly unpopular, rife with poisonous policy, was celebrated on national television right here in our Des Moines backyard. The mastermind, accompanied by Congressional sycophants, reveled in his success. Scripted, theatrical jubilation ensued, with tributes to a wannabe king, all under the guise of making America great again.
Iowa’s entire Congressional delegation supported the reconciliation bill, after which President Donald Trump ferried all four of the state’s U.S. House members on Air Force One to the fairgrounds charade.
From left: U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matt Whitaker, Zach Nunn, Ashley Hinson, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, and Randy Feenstra watch President Trump on television aboard Air Force One on July 3 (photo first published on Miller-Meeks’ official Facebook page)
“Iowa nice” has betrayed the most vulnerable among us. However our honorable elected officials (Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, Representatives Zach Nunn, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Ashley Hinson, and Randy Feenstra) may attempt to disguise the import of their draconian vote, there is no hiding from the truth. Then again, truth is in short supply these days.
Congressional loyalists live in fear of a MAGA primary. Holdouts quickly lose conviction and conscience as they succumb to threats, intimidation, demands for fealty, and/or White House ceremony. Sometimes, there is a quid pro quo, known and private. Fueled by megalomania, politicians’ thoughtfulness, reason, and allegiance to country morph into falsifications, justifications, subterfuge, and outright lies.
One example is particularly illustrative: Ernst initially dared to withhold support for confirming Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense. Her vote was ultimately secured after a right-wing pressure campaign, but, simply put, she knew better.
The voluminous reconciliation bill includes many devious schemes. While the oft-touted tax breaks (favoring the already wealthy individuals and corporations) become effective immediately, some of the lethal cuts to Medicaid, food assistance programs, and other safety net provisions won’t begin until after the 2026 election. Not at all surprising! Notably, the obscene transfer of wealth, which has been a hallmark of this administration, continues apace.
Another devastating provision of the bill hasn’t received nearly enough attention: it postpones the nursing home minimum staffing standards rule for a decade. Research has indicated the staffing rule would save more than 13,000 lives annually, or 130,000 over ten years. These are preventable deaths!
Delaying the rule was included in the bill under the false pretense of saving taxpayer dollars. In reality, the mostly for-profit nursing home industry should have borne the costs. That industry collects billions while residents’ suffering and dying remain unaddressed.
It was a stark juxtaposition to celebrate the Fourth of July while the MAGA leader pasted his outsized sharpie autograph on yet another assault on the country we once knew. No amount of red, white, and blue merchandising, Bible selling, wrapping oneself in the flag, B-52 flyovers, DOGE “savings,” National Weather Service reductions, FEMA transitions, Education Department eliminations, press freedom dismantling, National Science Foundation removals, USAID obliterations, Justice Department firings, Inspector General dismissals, deportations, scapegoatings, bullying, vilifications, name-calling, lies, hatred, corruption, self-dealing, vindictiveness, insurrectionists’ pardons, appointments of unfit officials, retributions, denials of due process, mocking of the disabled, dangerous signal chat use, Vladimir Putin adoring, demeaning of allies, NATO bashing, tariff warring, Canada/Greenland adding, or grabbing women by their genitals will make America great again.
America’s greatness is founded upon an unwavering oath to the Constitution and the values of compassion, generosity, truthfulness, humility, humanity, and adherence to the rule of law that we “suckers and losers” believe in.
Top photo originally published on Miller-Meeks’ official Facebook page on July 4.