Joni Ernst visits Washington

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst met with Rotarians at the Washington YMCA Thursday afternoon, stop 91 of her 99-county tour.

“I don’t think we realize how many extraordinary people exist in our own communities until we stop and really listen to them,” Ernst said. “This is my eighth year of doing the 99-county tour, and every stop I make, I’m still learning more about my communities, and it just helps be a better official in Washington, D.C.”

During the hourlong lunch and discussion, the congresswoman covered a handful of issues, including student debt, the Inflation Reduction Act, Trump, and immigration.

“It’s pretty typical,” Ernst said. “Immigration, inflation, fuel costs … It’s pretty similar, county to county, the things people are worried about.”

Top-level issues include child care, inflation, student loans

Ernst opened with a rundown of her county tour so far.

“We’ve done a lot of day care stops, because one of the issues that we’re finding at the federal level and the state level is that there is a lack of child care across the United States, especially states like Iowa that are largely part rural,” she said.

Ernst said inflation was another concern she’d heard a lot about, criticizing the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

“If you look at the average nationwide, folks are spending about $800 more every month on the same goods that they purchased a year ago,” she said. “We saw the Inflation Reduction Act that passed before we left D.C., I did not support it. The CBO (Congressional Budger Office) says it will have very minimal impact on inflation, and when it does hopefully, ever bring inflation down, it’s still many years out.”

In a follow-up interview, Ernst said the legislation would raise the burden on working people.

“It’s going to raise taxes on Americans at a really difficult time,” she said. “If there was a way that they could have proposed this in the future and not raised taxes, it would have been better, but that’s not going to happen.”

The Senator also brought up student loans in her overview of issues. She said loan forgiveness devalued the service of veterans.

“They paid the federal government through their service,” she said. “They want to forgive student loans, and my thought is, ‘OK, we’re having a hard time meeting our recruitment numbers, we’re about 40,000 short in the U.S. They want their student loans forgiven, let’s get them a new GI bill, let’s get them into the service,’ … I’m being a little bit facetious, but you can see that we have those that find ways to get to college and pay for it.”

Ernst does not directly condemn Trump

Gary Murphy, an area resident who attended the event, said he wanted to see more Republican push back against former President Donald Trump, in light of ongoing investigations related to Jan. 6, alleged secret documents found at Mar-a-Lago, and alleged election interference by those close to the former chief executive.

“All the things that he did, I feel nobody pays attention to that,” Murphy said. “I don’t consider that a good role model, and yet I still feel that many of you, and your particular party and otherwise, still protect him … I feel that’s very unfair, not just to us but to young people growing up in the future.”

Ernst, a Republican, declined to criticize Trump himself, but said civility seemed to be getting worse across the political spectrum.

“I don’t really care who that example is, we all should live a certain example, and if you’re not living up to that, shame on you,” she said. “I know that the office of the president is one thing, and a public citizen is another, but when you’re behaving badly, you’re behaving badly. So why don’t we all just take a step back and treat each other better?”

Ernst blames Biden for “poisoned well” on immigration

Immigration proved another point of contention at the meeting.

The Republican Senator many in her party could no longer compromise on the topic, calling for increased border security as a prerequisite.

“Basically, the well has been poisoned,” Ernst said, in agreement with rhetoric from Sen. Chuck Grassley on the same issue. “Anyone that would have been on board with making immigration reforms … they are so angry and upset about having an open border, that they’ve said, ‘You’ve got to do something on the border first.’”

Ernst said the Biden administration was exacerbating the issue.

“We continue to encourage them,” she said. “that’s basically what President Biden had said, was, ‘Come to the United States, we’ll give you a job,’ and we have 2 million this year.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com