Christina Bohannan wants voters in Iowa’s First District to believe she’s the candidate looking out for seniors, farmers, and working families. Her voting record would like a word.
In 2022, Iowa passed the largest tax cut in state history. The law ended state income taxes on retirement income for Iowans 55 and older, along with certain disabled taxpayers and qualifying surviving spouses, and put the state on a path to lower income tax rates for everyone. Bohannan voted no.
“Bohannan claims she wants to protect Social Security and Medicare, expand Medicare benefits, and allow Iowans to buy into Medicare before 65. Based on her record, that sounds like a lie to me,” said Denise, a voter from Muscatine.
When the tax cut came back for Bohannan didn’t vote no. She didn’t vote at all. It was a curious case of legislative laryngitis, since that same day she had no trouble pressing the green button on HF 2443, HF 2468, and HF 825. She showed up for everything except your retirement check.
This wasn’t a one-time thing. In 2021, Bohannan voted against phasing out Iowa’s inheritance tax, the death tax that hits families trying to pass a farm to the next generation. Nothing says “I’m here for rural Iowa” like making the family farm pay one last toll on the way out.
Now she wants to take that act to Washington.
Bohannan has made clear she would have opposed the Working Families Tax Cut, the law that kept the 2017 tax cuts from expiring and spared Americans the largest tax increase since World War II. That law gave seniors a new $6,000 deduction and kept the federal death tax exemption from being cut in half, which matters to the thousands of family farms in IA-01.
Her explanation? “We have to overhaul our tax system,” she told a Democrat forum. Given her record, voters don’t need a lot of imagination to guess which direction that overhaul goes.
Rick Heller of Iowa County tols Iowa Field Report “You worked your whole life. You saved for retirement. Iowa finally stopped taxing your retirement income. Christina Bohannan voted against it.”
Bohannan is running as the protector of Iowa retirees. When she actually had the chance to leave more money in their pockets, she voted no once and didn’t vote at all the second time. Voters in the First District are allowed to notice the difference between a campaign slogan and a voting record.
