What? A town hall? If you were driving along Highway 16 on the east side of Spring Valley between 10–11 on the morning of Saturday the 25th of January, you’d have passed right by the Honorable U.S. Representative Jim Hagedorn’s taxpayer funded tow hall meeting. You wouldn’t have seen a sign directing you nor welcoming you in. You wouldn’t have found any obvious signs at the front of the building to suggest that just inside the door stood your U.S. Representative, taking questions from a fishbowl with a total of maybe 30 people in attendance (only 15-20 of whom were from Fillmore County). It felt a bit as though our Representative wanted a town hall without wanting many people in attendance.
As mysterious as these circumstances are to me, the town hall itself was even more bizarre. Firstly, for the hour that was designated for the town hall, the first half-hour was a monologue. Don’t get me wrong, I fully expect some monologue or update from the Capitol, but the time it took before any questions were gotten to was disheartening to say the least. After all, I had a question I very much wanted to ask, and this was the best chance, because a town hall is the type of event where our U.S. Representative is supposed to get feedback/questions from locals.
One major point that stuck out for me at the town hall was brought about by a woman asking about SNAP and the real possibility of children getting kicked off hot lunch at school. Rep. Hagedorn said, “People have problems financially, we get that. We don’t want anyone to starve, we don’t want anybody to live in the cold. We do everything we can. But we also want to be fair to the taxpayers to make that happen.” The woman replied, “But children cannot work.” Seemingly not understanding her point, Rep. Hagedorn responded with, “Children aren’t required to work, ma’am. They’re exempt.” Again, totally missing the point that it’s the children who would suffer if their parents can’t afford to pay for school lunch. The woman wasn’t satisfied with his answer and said, “But they’re going to get kicked off hot lunch.” Then came the really odd moment, in my perspective, about the whole exchange. Rep. Hagedorn stated next, “So, like I said, there are very generous people in this district. The Hormel Corporation went in and paid for the hot lunch, the back moneys that were owed in Austin and several other cities where they had operations.”
Let’s think about this for a moment. Representative Hagedorn acknowledges here that people in our district cannot always afford school lunches; that there are shortfalls. I followed up with a question to him, “But why should they have to be the ones to help people?” His dismissive response was “People should fend for themselves.”
Food insecurity is a real issue in Fillmore County and across the first Congressional District. But in this conversation with our U.S. Representative, we were talking about food insecurity of children in school. That. Should. Not. Happen. How do you feel about it?
I spoke with Representative Hagedorn after the meeting. It was cordial. I shook his hand and thanked him for coming. But I did have to ask about his comments about Hormel. “If Hormel, a private company, has to assist in helping pay off money owed for children’s school lunch accounts, doesn’t that mean there’s a shortfall, and that more funding is needed, not less?” He responded with, “There are a thousand reasons why people don’t pay their bills.” Really? What is he thinking? That we in Fillmore County don’t prioritize our children? Or that if we legitimately have a thousand reasons not to pay bills, his answer is to cut our children’s lunch accounts? If the latter, cutting this critical social safety net will exacerbate the problem and directly punish children. I’m genuinely flabbergasted.
A parting thought: there are more split ticket voters in Fillmore County than the 1,300 votes Hagedorn won by in the entire First Congressional District. I expected more from my U.S. Representative. I did not expect him to seemingly defend children’s hunger in school. I wonder, now: What would Dan Feehan do?
Cheers.
Jeffrey Erding says
Aaron, my goodness, sorry I touched such a sensitive nerve! I did read Karen Reisner’s article. She always does her best to put Republicans and Conservatives in the poorest possible light, just as you did to Mr. Hagedorn.. It’s amusing to read as you try to cloak your antagonism as if you are a great seeker of truth when we all know you’re a strong advocate for more and bigger government and socialist policies.
There are 2 policies to solve neglected children in America;
1) A return to strong traditional families.
2) Good paying jobs and people with a good work ethic to fill them. Conservative Republicans and Donald Trump are working hard to implement those policies with some success, which is causing much angst among left wingers.
All your bloviating about inequality is just that. Inequality of opportunity is caused by the misguided welfare state policies of the left wing politicians you support.( like Dan Feehan,)
I have a very good understanding of where Dan Feehan is on the key issues as I spoke with him personally at the trade union retirees luncheon he attended in Rochester. His positions are exactly as I represented, whether you or he want to admit it or not. Passing red flag laws, Universal background checks designed to create a gun owner data base, outlawing commonly owned firearms, gun confiscation schemes, and magazine restrictions are all actions to gut and repeal the 2nd amendment. Period.
You are an articulate and intelligent person with the same big problem as the Democrat party you support; your ideas and policies always fail miserably. Always, every time, everywhere they have ever been tried.
I challenge you to name one city in America, or one state, where Democrats have been in charge for 40 years and affairs are well managed. Name me one country in the world where Socialist are in power and successful. Bet you can’t.
Aaron Bishop says
Greetings Jeff,
I’ll wait to respond to you until you’ve addressed all my points (as I do for you). If you’d like to see the video of the whole interaction which proves my points, let me know. You have my email address.
Cheers!
Jeffrey Erding says
Aaron, I know Mr. Hagedorn and he is certainly not the ogre you have represented him as. I was not able to attend the town hall but it seems out of character for him to say hungry school children should fend for themselves. Are you sure you have not put a negative spun on this? Tsk tsk. Fake news.
Regarding the School Lunch situation, I believe that is a federal program which provides free or reduced lunch to students from qualifying low income families. A parent need only apply at the school once a year. My understanding is that no child who qualifies is ever turned away, which leads me to suspect the program is not underfunded. Rather, it appears the real problem is parents who, for reasons I won’t try to explain, do not fill out the application. That is not the fault of taxpayers, government, or Mr. Hagedorn.
If I’m mistaken about how the program works, someone with a more correct understanding please advise. Thank you.
As far as what Mr. Feehan would do, I would offer this; nothing. The program is there, funded by federal taxes. What is he going to do about people who won’t be bothered to apply for the help needed to provide meals to their children? Fill it out for them?
But he would do things we should all consider.
1) He would vote for sanctuary status for Minnesota.
2) He would vote in favor of unlimited abortion including the murder of 3rd trimester full term babies.
3) He would support government controlled healthcare, throwing millions of hard working citizens off their excellent, hard earned insurance programs.
4) He would support repeal of the 2nd amendment, depriving law abiding citizens of the means to defend their families and property.
Voters should take a good look at Democrat controlled cities like Chicago, L.A., Detroit, Baltimore, San Francisco, etc. if you want to see what Dan Feehan would do. If you like broken families, rampant crime, billions of dollars of debts and underfunded public sector pension plans, billions of taxpayer dollars squandered on illegal aliens who cut the line to enter America unlawfully, ever higher taxes on everything, and policies that demand “equal outcomes” rather than ” equal opportunity”, by all means, you should vote for people like Dan Feehan.
Aaron Bishop says
Greetings Jeff,
There’s a lot to address here, and I’ll do my best to do so in the order you wrote it. Firstly, I am intrigued about the wording you used. You say I represented Hagedorn as an “ogre”. Your word. What I hear is that you believe IF this representation were true, Rep. Hagedorn would indeed appear “ogre-ish”. Naturally, your argument goes, ‘P1. This representation of Hagedorn is that of an ogre. P2. You misrepresented Rep. Hagedorn. C. Therefore, Rep. is misrepresented as an ogre.’ That’s how your logic follows.
Conversely, ‘P1. This representation, as seen by Jeff Erding, of Hagedorn is that of an ogre. P2. The representation is word for word true and is an accurate depiction of what happened at the townhall. C. Jeff Erding sees the word for word true and accurate depiction of what Rep. Hagedorn said, and calls that depiction “ogre”.
In other words, if I did not misrepresent or put a negative spin on this, you’re calling Rep. Hagedorn an ogre. Again, your word to describe the Representative if he were truly as I depicted in my original article.
As you say, you were not there to attend the townhall, and claim that this is not Rep. Hagedorn’s character to say hungry children should fend for themselves. I take away several things from this. You think what I wrote depicts Rep. Hagedorn as basically telling children to fend for themselves. You’ll note that I did not quote him as saying “children should fend for themselves”. He said, “people should fend for themselves”. But you and I both drew a similar conclusion to his statement. This quotation is corroborated by the Fillmore County Journal’s own source at the meeting, Karen Reisner, who wrote about the event which you can find here: http://fillmorecountyjournal.com/hagedorn-town-hall/
Am I sure I didn’t put a negative spin on this? This tells me that YOU view this exchange as negative, particularly as it pertains to the nature/character of Rep. Hagedorn. Again, you dismiss it (since you conveniently were not there and would assume I have no way to verify this is how the conversation went) as “fake news”, virtually calling me a liar. You appear to have judged me without the prerequisite information, as you certainly don’t find me to be a credible source. Which is fine. I am glad you are skeptical. I am glad that you feel my depiction of the Rep. is that of an “ogre” or with a “negative spin.” More on this later.
You state that you believe the federal program provides free or reduced lunch to students from qualifying low-income families. “The USDA advises schools that they are not obligated to provide meals to children who forget their lunch money,” says Diane Pratt Heavener, spokesperson at the School Nutrition Association. “There’s very little guidance on the books about how schools should respond, and in the absence of any guidance, many schools struggle to come to a consensus on how to respond when unpaid meal charges balloon out of control.”
You and I can both agree that some parents are not always the most responsible, particularly when it comes to the welfare of their children. However, do you believe the state or Federal government should ensure/guarantee (as you seem to believe they do) food for children at school, even if the parents neglect to pay the bill? I do. I believe the children should not be punished, and there’s plenty of evidence showing that hungry children underperform in school. This gets to the other comment Rep. Hagedorn made to me personally. “There are a thousand reasons why people don’t pay their bills.” Again, as I said in the article this tells me that either 1. Rep. Hagedorn believes that Filmore County residents, who aren’t paying school bills, do not prioritize their children, or 2. Rep. Hagedorn believes that Filmore County residents who aren’t paying school bills, CAN’T financially prioritize their children. Which is why I said in the article “If the latter, cutting this critical social safety net will exacerbate the problem and directly punish children.” Again, think about this, Jeff. You say it is your “understanding is that no child who qualifies is ever turned away, which leads me to suspect the program is not underfunded.” The rub here, is that your premise is incorrect. There are children who would qualify, but if their parents are at fault for not being wealthy or lack the time/energy/memory to sign up however often is required, then those children who would qualify still may not get meals.
Additionally, this conversation with Rep. Hagedorn came about with the discussion of him supporting the President’s agenda to adjust SNAP policies, particularly their relations with TANF programs. This seems odd to me because states should have better knowledge of the cost of living in their own states better than the Fed. Government would. So, the reduction of individuals eligible for SNAP due to the adjustment with the relationship with TANF will have the potential to kick up to a half million children from SNAP, which guaranteed them free lunch due to their automatic eligibility. Perhaps you feel society should be different, Mr. Erding, but I believe in a future where children aren’t subject to hunger at school. You say it’s not the fault of the taxpayers why some children could go hungry in schools. I’d say it should be our responsibility that they get fed in school.
As for what Dan Feehan would do, there are corrections in the program that could be made, which I have illustrated above. Will he? Perhaps we’ll find out.
As for the rest of your list of concerns, Dan Feehan would likely support as you said for number 1, but isn’t that up to the state legislature (which he is not running for)?
For number 2. I imagine he would ensure that a human cannot use another human to save another human (human autonomy is what Roe v. Wade guaranteed, not abortion). In other words, you support Roe v. Wade if you prefer not to have your body used by someone else, against your will, to save someone else who you don’t know. And you really should recognize most on the left are both pro-life and pro-choice.
As for 3. He is in favor (from what I’ve heard) of universal healthcare, yes. That doesn’t mean it would happen. Clearly not all on the left are in favor of it either, so let’s not jump to too many conclusions.
As for 4. you are either purposefully misrepresenting his position or are just plain ignorant of his position. If you’d like, you and I can meet/call him and he can give you a straight denial of your unsupported claim. At least “Thou shalt not lie” can then hopefully prevent you from stating such things in the future. Additionally, there will never be enough support on the left for a repeal of the 2nd Amendment. And you’ll hear my voice with yours if ever it came to anything close to being a thought of a consideration. Your unrealistic statements not only provide others with great insight about your lack of knowledge on his stances, but also your fear of something that will not come to pass. And if you don’t truly fear it, and know he will never vote to repeal the 2nd Amendment, then you are clearly seen as a liar. So, take more care of your words.
As for my words, which you seem to think are “fake news”. There is video of the entire exchange. Would you like to see it? Again, you called my representation of him an “ogre”. The video captures word for word (trust me, I replayed it over and over again until I got it right) not only his words, but his voice, and his facial expressions when he said them. For your own credibility, if you care about it at all, please don’t insinuate I am lying or twisting words or putting a negative spin on something. I am a scientist. The facts matter to me. The truth matters to me. If they matter to you, let me know.
One final misconstruing statement you made was about “equal opportunity” vs “equal outcomes”. I’m all for equal opportunity. The question is *when* are people given the “opportunity” for “equal opportunity”? Are all the opportunities the same for someone born from a well-off family versus a financially/emotionally/physically/socially struggling one? No. What about after high school? Are *all* post-high school opportunities equal if the parents of said graduating high schooler are poor or well-off? What does “equal opportunity” mean to you? I’m one for equal opportunity. You and I just don’t seem to agree on what “equal” means.
Cheers.
TRUMP 2024 says
There are free school lunches for children, parents are to lazy to fill out the form that’s been available as long as I can remember. As far as the snap program or food stamps goes, I retired from a federal prison the inmates would tell me how they would buy drugs with food stamps for every two dollars tax payer dollars = one dollar in drugs. I was also angry about not knowing about the town hall I am a supporter of him.
Aaron Bishop says
Greetings TRUMP 2024,
I too am perplexed about the lack of announcement of the event. I can’t take anything away from it other than he didn’t want people to know about it. I am open to other interpretations, of course, but that’s what I’ve got.
Drug addictions are a terrible plight, and anyone from any political background can agree (hopefully) that children are among the first casualties in such terrible circumstances. One can hope that they can be cared for by others if their parents are unable to care for them.
Cheers