Iowa Politics with Jeff Stein -- Mon. Aug. 10, 2026

No August vacation here.

I'm Jeff Stein with Today's Iowa Politics Report.

The U.S.

Senate went home early Saturday morning and won't be back until after Labor Day.

That's a four-week break.

Most of us, if we have time off, have to stay late for days before getting our work done ahead of time.

Not Congress.

Many of you don't get time off at all because you're working to feed and fuel the world, and farming does not lend itself to vacations scheduled on a calendar.

Congress obviously is different.

And because of that, there is no progress on a five-year farm bill, one of which has not been passed since 2018, and it was even behind schedule then.

This farm bill should have been passed three years ago.

but was not.

The U.S.

lost more than 156,000 farms between 2017 and 2025.

That's according to 2026 U.S.

Census data.

From 2024 to 2025 alone, farm bankruptcy filings jumped by 46 percent, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.

But apparently that's not good enough.

Some in the Senate this past week held up the bill because states would have to contribute to what we used to call food stamps.

That was part of other legislation passed a year ago.

Apparently those folks don't realize that without proper support for farmers, there won't be food for the folks to buy with food stamps or snap cards or whatever they use these days.

Discouraging does not begin to address this failure.

It's the best example, though, of why both parties are not doing very much to serve citizens these days.

And that's the Iowa Politics Report for Monday, August 10.

On Twitter, Instagram, Gitter, Threads and Truth Social at Iowa Politics.

I'm Jeff Stein on News Talk 1540, KXEL.