With just over a week left in the 2024 legislative session, there’s a lot of work left to be done.

At a time when lawmakers should be working together and putting the priorities of Iowans first, there’s been more politics and infighting amongst the Governor and GOP legislative leaders. Iowans still have lots of questions and are wondering how more than $8 billion of their tax dollars will be spent.

Right now, the House and Senate are $82 million apart on the state budget, and it’s unclear what the differences are because the House hasn’t shared many budget details. The Senate seems to be just a bit further along on the budget but some of the biggest line items – worth hundreds of millions – remain undecided.

Given how other big decisions have been made this session, Iowans have a right to be skeptical about how things will turn out in the closing days of session. As we saw with the contentious debate over AEAs and public education, the deals crafted behind closed doors to appease political insiders left Iowans completely out of the discussion, without much time to even talk to their own lawmakers.

Frankly, secret deals rushed through before they fall apart usually lead to big mistakes that impact real lives. Just that happened again this week when Republican leaders finally admitted they made a $60+ million mistake in the AEA bill they rushed through. Rep. Sharon Steckman, one of our leaders in education and a retired teacher, pointed out the error during debate, but it was ignored and GOP leaders cut off discussion and rushed to a vote.

The costly provision was likely added to pick up a key vote in the Iowa House but no one is sure if it will actually be fixed. The only certainty here is the final result: a kid who needs special education or mental health services sometime in the next two years is not going to get them.

The second big issue out there that Republicans say needs to be addressed is taxes. After a decade of underfunding public schools and the Governor stockpiling federal dollars targeted to help Iowans, Republicans have talked a lot about taxes but no one has seen many details yet.

Over the last decade, special interests and the wealthy have received billions in tax breaks from the Governor while everyday Iowans received pennies. The last income tax bill passed left out 500,000 Iowans who also have bills to pay and families to feed. Another tax change pushed through last year has city and county officials furious this year because it slashes scarce resources for local police, fire, and parks.

Like the AEA debacle of last week, these tax changes were mostly pushed through without much vetting or giving Iowans enough time to understand the full impact in the years ahead. It’s a scenario Iowans don’t really want repeated.

I’ll be blunt – Iowa Democrats aren’t opposed to tax cuts. We’ve already proposed a plan to extend the sales tax holiday to two weeks in August when kids are heading back to school, and we’re ready to discuss ways to make tax cuts fair for everyone. We are keeping a close eye out for real property tax relief for seniors on a fixed income and the 500,000+ Iowans who haven’t received a dime in the GOP tax cuts over the last decade. In most cases, the overall tax burden for many of those folks has actually gone up because of a huge property tax cut for corporations that shifted the burden to homeowners instead.

There’s no question too many Iowans still struggle to make ends meet today. Their paychecks simply aren’t keeping up with the rising costs of healthcare, food, childcare, and utility bills. A whopping 43 percent of Iowa kids now qualify for free and reduced price lunches- which is a signal the wages of so many families just aren’t keeping up. The system is rigged against them.

As the session comes to end, Iowa Democrats will be watching closely for big tax or budget changes that do little or make life even more difficult for the Iowans struggling to make ends meet. We’re on the lookout for more policies that sound good in headlines but actually make life harder for thousands of Iowans. It simply cannot just be another deal crafted behind closed doors where the special interests and wealthy reap most of the rewards.

Iowans have been on the losing end of these deals for far too long.

The only way to fix it is finally putting people over politics.

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State Representative Jennifer Konfrst of Windsor Heights serves the 32nd District in the Iowa House and is the

Iowa House Democratic Leader.