Proud of Iowa House accomplishments

I have spent the last two years working hard for the people of Iowa, and I'm proud of the things we accomplished. From education to taxes, we kept Iowa moving forward, and I am committed to doing the same in the upcoming legislative session.

As a teacher in the North Linn Community School District and a member of the education committee, I worked to invest in education. For the first time ever, we froze tuition at public universities, not for one year but for two. We worked with community colleges toward closing our skills gap and getting people into higher-paying jobs. We invested in privates colleges by increasing the Iowa Tuition Grant and raised the cap on how much each student can receive.

We invested in our environment and put millions toward a nutrient reduction strategy that gives farmers the tools they need to protect our waters. Iowa farmers in my area are planting grass waterways, putting in contour buffer strips and terracing.

I was part of the committee that passed a historic bipartisan tax relief bill. We saw property tax relief for all classifications of property, including a 10 percent rollback on commercial and industrial property and limited assessment growth from 4 to 3 percent on agriculture and residential properties.

As Marine Corps veteran and a member of the Veterans Affairs Committee, I pushed for expansion of benefits. We exempted military pensions and military survivor benefits from state income taxes. We worked to connect skills veterans learn in the service with occupational board standards and college credits to place veterans on a fast track to occupations and education.

In the last few years, we have abandoned Washington ways and committed to some core principles: We will not spend more than the state takes in. We will not use one-time money to pay for ongoing expenses. We will not intentionally underfund entitlement programs to balance the state's budget, and we will return unused tax dollars.

By following these principles, we turned a $900 million budget shortfall into a positive ending balance of $740 million.

I have always worked to leave things better than I found them, and I believe I have done that. However, there is more we can do, and I would ask for the opportunity to keep working for the people of House District 95.

' Quentin Stanerson is a Republican candidate for Iowa House, District 95. Comments: stanersonforstatehouse@gmail.com