On Wednesday June 25, Linn County Supervisor Sami Sheets spoke at a gathering of about 40 people sponsored by Voices United of Rural Linn County. Sheets grew up in Cedar Rapids but finished college out east. He was motivated to come back to make positive difference here.

Sheets said the tax cuts in the Tax Reconciliation Bill currently before the US Senate would give big benefits to the wealthiest individuals and corporations. Those benefits will be greater than those given to teachers and nurses, for example.

The Bill also includes steep cuts to programs like Snap and Medicaid that provide food assistance and medical care to low-income individuals and families. Analysis of the Bill by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities showed that those in the highest 1% will be better off than they are now by 3.3% but those in the lowest 20% will be worse off by .5%.

Locally, cuts to health care and food assistance will be extremely challenging. At a recent panel a representative of the Eastern Iowa Health Clinic noted that 70% of their patients are covered by Medicaid. Estimates are that 80,000-100,00 Iowans could lose health care if the Bill is passed. A representative of the food program at HACAP on the panel noted that their resources are already stretched thin and they don’t know how they will cope with increased demand if federal food benefits are cut even further. Sheets noted that if the federal government steps down in its assistance to those in need of healthcare and food, Linn County will somehow need to step it up.

Sheets said that government is broken when those with higher incomes get more and those with lower incomes get less. Young people will pay for years to come if things don’t change. Sheets urged us all to contact Senators Grassley and Ernst to oppose to the Tax Reconciliation Bill (which many Republicans call the Big Beautiful Bill).

The next Voices United event will be July 9 at Whitey’s in Lisbon when a German woman will talk about her experiences working with Ukrainian refugees.