Fact Checker Podcast

Cedar Rapids is once again fighting against Iowa lawmakers’ attempts to regulate or ban the use of automated traffic enforcement cameras. Have the devices reduced collisions in the city?

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, selected by the GOP to deliver the Republican Party’s response to President Joe Biden’s first State of the Union Tuesday, scored a mix of A’s, B’s, C’s and D’s.

In a Feb. 15 news release, Sen. Joni Ernst criticized a federal harm reduction program, which would provide $30 million in grants funded by the American Rescue Plan to increase access to services and support to reduce drug overdoses and other public health challenges associated with drug use.

Gov. Kim Reynolds said earlier this month that state data has show an increase in “incidental” COVID-19 among hospitalized patients in Iowa in recent weeks when compared to hospitalizations rates in 2020. Incidental refers to patients who arrive at the hospital for other reasons, but test positive for the virus as part of routine screening.

We fact check the Iowa Senate Democrats tweet: “@KimReynoldsIA is proposing a budget cut to the already underfunded Iowa State Patrol. Kim Reynolds and Iowa Republicans are literally the only ones proposing to defund the police.”

As state lawmakers consider tax cuts, an Iowa senator claims, “Data has long shown the states with low or no income tax grow more quickly than states with high, punitive tax rates.” Academic consensus is less certain.