It seems that my adopted home state of Iowa is developing a reputation for people saying and doing dumb things. I don’t think we have quite reached “Florida man” status yet, but we are well on our way to becoming the Florida of the north. And unfortunately, another new entry was just logged into our permanent record.
On May 30th Senator Joni Ernst held a town hall meeting in nearly Parkersburg. She was asked about the proposed cuts to SNAP and Medicaid and was told (correctly I might add) that people will die if the cuts are put into law. Her response? “We are all going to die”.
As you might imagine, this answer was not well received. And her sarcastic “apology” the next day- stating that she “Assumed everyone in that auditorium understood” that we are all going to die and added a joke about fairy tales for good measure.
I have a good friend who served with Ernst in the National Guard. I’m told she was a well respected commander who was good at her job. So, it appears that she is not, in fact a complete idiot. Which honestly, I would prefer over the alternative – that she knows these cuts hurt people but just doesn’t care.
As an Iowan, I’m getting really tired of the worst of us being the ones on television. Maybe Iowa is more like Florida than we want to admit.