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A local elected official in Iowa is criticizing state lawmakers after they blocked cities and counties from testing direct cash payments to residents, claiming local governments are being handcuffed by state-level "ideological wars."
Mandi Remington, a Democratic county supervisor in Johnson County, Iowa, told Fox News Digital that she wanted to test whether giving cash to low-income residents could serve as a feasible poverty-alleviation policy. However, the effort was shut down before it could launch.
"We are supposedly a home rule state, but that's not what it seems like in practice," Remington said in an interview with Fox News Digital. "I live in a blue dot in a red state and, essentially, anything that we try to do in these pockets that is not being done in other parts of the state automatically gets pushed back against."
Remington’s comments follow an op-ed she wrote arguing that guaranteed income programs "help everyday Iowans." She noted that the Johnson County Board of Supervisors attempted to bring a guaranteed income initiative to their community, championed by Supervisor V Fixmer-Oraiz.
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Republicans have pushed back against cash-handout initiatives across the country. (Ozan Kose/AFP via Getty Images)
The local push was inspired by similar pilots across the country, including the UpLift trial in central Iowa, which provided 110 families with $500 per month for two years. Remington argued the policy would build on successes seen in other jurisdictions.
Those plans were derailed when Iowa Republicans passed legislation prohibiting local governments from creating or maintaining guaranteed income programs. Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed House File 2319 into law on May 1, 2024. Proponents of the ban, including GOP lawmakers, argued that government cash handouts undermine the American work ethic, subsidize low wages, and foster government dependency.
"There's no room for doing research. There's no room for evaluating evidence. There's no interest in even hearing about evidence that has been found in other places," Remington told Fox News Digital. "I have not been present on the universal income matter specifically at the Capitol, but I have testified in legislative hearings here and watched as legislators didn't even pretend to listen to the people speaking to them. Because in their minds, whether they want to call it socialist or leftist or whatever term they throw at it, they have just lumped it into a certain ideological category because of where it's coming from."
Iowa State Capitol in Des Moines (Getty Images)
In her published letter, Remington argued that restricting local control hurts working families.
"Unfortunately, some of our state leaders are more interested in controlling local government and waging ideological wars than they are in passing policies that help everyday Iowans," Remington wrote. "The state’s ban on guaranteed income isn’t good policy, and it doesn’t help hard-working Iowans get by. It’s simply obstructionism without evidence. Seven Republican legislators understood this and joined Democrats in voting against the ban."
Gov. Reynolds' office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Iowa is far from the only state where Republicans have pushed back against cash-handout initiatives.
GOP lawmakers across the country have raised legal, budgetary, and philosophical concerns regarding guaranteed basic income. In Michigan, House Republicans demanded a rigorous inspection of a taxpayer-funded cash assistance program for new mothers, questioning its benefits and scrutinizing how millions in public funds were spent.
In Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Harris County — home to Houston — over its guaranteed income program, leading the Texas Supreme Court to freeze the trial. Meanwhile, in Arizona, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a Republican-led bill that would have prohibited local governments from enacting guaranteed income programs.
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House Republicans in Michigan challenged a cash assistance program for new mothers. (Getty Images)
Progressive groups have pushed back against state-level restrictions. Adriane Brown, Senior Communications Director for the Economic Security Project (ESP) — an advocacy organization founded in 2016 to promote direct cash transfer policies — defended the trials.
"It doesn’t serve anyone to ban guaranteed income. Mandi Remington’s letter speaks to the precarity — emotional, financial and otherwise — of leaving an abusive relationship," Brown told Fox News Digital. "Thankfully, there are several guaranteed income pilots across the country building on what we know about cash’s ability to offer survivors stability during these difficult transitions."
The ESP helped create over 100 guaranteed income pilots across the U.S.
"In the case of Iowa specifically, thankfully, not all lawmakers fell along partisan lines," Brown added. "If elected officials’ end goal is truly to make sure families are safe and secure, then guaranteed income pilots should be allowed to exist. Lawmakers who voted to ban guaranteed income amid a cost-of-living crisis are out of touch and do not care about families."
Beyond political opposition, many guaranteed income programs face an impending funding cliff. Dozens of cities launched cash-transfer pilots using federal pandemic relief funds from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Under federal rules, ARPA allocations had to be legally obligated by the end of 2024 and fully spent by December 31, 2026.
As federal relief funds dry up, local leaders are scrambling to find alternative funding streams. While Cook County, Illinois — the second-largest county in the nation — moved to set up ongoing municipal funding for guaranteed income following its initial 2022 pilot, most local jurisdictions lack the budget to sustain direct cash transfers without private philanthropy or federal aid.
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"The UpLift program was able to find a way to sustain itself through non-government money," Remington told Fox News Digital. "Unfortunately, we are also now in a position where all of our nonprofit agencies and mutual aid organizations are in their own financial crises as well. So funding in general has become a problem across the board for government, private citizens, and community agencies."
