Former President Herbert Hoover argued that governments have the instincts of a vegetable — that is, “they keep spreading and growing.” Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) echoed Hoover when she stated that “like any large organization, government is marked by bureaucracy’s natural tendency to grow. If that growth isn’t constantly checked and rechanneled toward its core function, it quickly takes on a life of its own.”
This is why Reynolds has made reform of government a priority during her time in office. Fiscal conservatism is not just pro-growth tax reform, but even more importantly it must include limiting spending and reducing the size of government.
Fiscal policy has been a significant part of Reynolds’s agenda: “We reduced taxes—saving Iowans more than $24 billion over 10 years. No more tax on retirement income. No inheritance tax. And starting this month [January 2025], Iowans get to keep even more of the money they earn, with a 3.8 percent flat tax — a far cry from the 8.98 percent of six years ago,” said Reynolds. Iowa’s corporate tax rate, once the highest in the nation at 12 percent, has been reduced to 7.1 percent and will continue to decrease until it reaches a flat 5.5 percent.
Not only will Iowa have eliminated the progressive income tax, but it will also have reduced the top tax rate by almost 60 percent.
These reforms are grounded in common-sense budgeting ideas, which have prioritized spending control and government efficiency. These efforts have not only ensured budget stability with surpluses, full reserve accounts, and a Taxpayer Relief Fund with a $3.6 billion balance, but they have also enabled responsible tax reductions.
During her Condition of the State address, Reynolds launched Iowa’s DOGE task force, modeled after her efforts to reform state government. “I like to say that we were doing DOGE before DOGE was a thing…,” she said.
Prior to forming the DOGE taskforce, Reynolds was able to get two major state government reform laws passed.
“When we started our alignment work in 2022, state operations hadn’t been reviewed in forty years — and it showed,” she said. “Layers of bureaucracy had accumulated over decades, expanding government beyond its core function, keeping us from working effectively as one team, and hampering our service to Iowans. We were too big, too fractured, and too inefficient.”
