To the editor:

During his State of the Union message, President Biden delivered a positive and uplifting message to the American people. He praised the courage and tenacity of the Ukrainian people and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Biden criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin for his indiscriminate bombing and killing of innocent Ukrainian civilians including children and other non-combatants.

Biden laid out a plan to strengthen the American workforce, to return jobs to the United States and taking pride in made in America.

Gov. Kim Reynolds provided the Republican response. She reminded me not of a leader whom I could be proud, but rather Gov. Sarah Palin. Gov. Reynolds praised her regressive and unfair flat tax which is good for Iowa’s wealthiest people and a giveaway to corporations. She cited her ”investment” in Iowa schools which is a joke. Public schools are being short-changed at 2.5 percent funding increase and whatever she prefers to call it, she further cut funding for public schools by delivering vouchers to private schools. She failed to mention that Iowa teachers and librarians are threatened with jail by the Republican legislation to ban and burn books.

She bragged about her handling of COVID, but her record is hardly anything to brag about. She failed to take the pandemic seriously. She placed workers in unsafe situations and kept kids and teachers at school unprotected. She tried to ban mask mandates, blocked local control by preventing Iowa mayors from protecting residents and went out of her way to prematurely end federal unemployment checks, hurting the very people the plan tried to help.

Our governor did not represent the Iowa Nice our state is known for. Frankly, she was embarrassing, much like Gov. Sarah Palin, not the governor revered by most Iowans – Robert Ray. But than Kim Reynolds is no Bob Ray.

Daryl Beall

Fort Dodge