T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa) speaks during a town hall meeting at Dejardin Hall on the campus of Marshalltown Community College on Thursday.

U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa) covered a wide range of topics during a town hall meeting held on the campus of Marshalltown Community College (MCC) on Thursday, but she kept returning to one overarching message. For most American families, life under President Joe Biden is less affordable than it used to be, and something needs to change.

After she was introduced by Iowa Valley Community College District (IVCCD) Director of Governmental Affairs Cindy Schulte, Hinson spoke for approximately 20 minutes before taking questions from the audience of around 30 attendees.

During her initial remarks, the congresswoman addressed inflation, government spending, the southern border and childcare access among a host of other hot button issues.

“It is not working for working families here in Iowa, and we know that. I’m hearing that all the time. The spending is out of control,” Hinson said of policies favored by Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “We are dealing with the record high prices in our economy as a result of the spending plan… I don’t know what that sounds like to you, but it sounds like bad math to me. That’s what we continue to see coming out of the Democrats in charge in Washington, D.C., right now.”

Hinson, who was first elected in 2020, said she has introduced 21 bills during her first term in office, with most of them aimed at reducing regulations, increasing ethanol production, curtailing the powers of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), stopping the flow of illegal drugs from the southern border, improving mental health services for veterans and expanding access to childcare.

Still, according to Hinson, her concerns about the skyrocketing prices of everything from food to gasoline have fallen on deaf ears among Democratic legislators and the White House.

“The bottom line is that everything in life is less affordable right now under this administration,” she said. “I want to make sure that your life is more affordable, that your paychecks go further and that we’re investing in smart priorities and being respectful to taxpayers… We need to turn off the spending spigot and start being respectful to taxpayers.”

The first audience question came from Marshall County GOP Chairman Reed Riskedahl, who asked Hinson how voters would know that Republicans will actually fight for change if they regain the House and Senate in November. From there, she fielded an inquiry about the Keystone XL pipeline and a proposed CO2 pipeline in Iowa, and Matthew Burt, who farms near Marshalltown, asked Hinson to continue to fight for biofuels and stand against the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule when she returns to Washington.

“We can farm smarter and still be good to our environment,” Hinson said. “You know what’s best for your land. You’re managing the land in a responsible way. Farmers are the ultimate environmentalists. I firmly believe that, and it does you no good to have land you can’t farm.”

The conversation then shifted to foreign affairs as Marshall County Treasurer Jarret Heil referenced former President Ronald Reagan’s “peace through strength” mantra during the Cold War and wondered if it had fallen by the wayside under the current president.

“I think there are ways where we need to be proactive. I don’t think soft diplomacy will work here,” Hinson said. “Clearly, it didn’t work with Russia. I think we should’ve put sanctions on them long before we did, and it might’ve been a greater deterrent.”

Another attendee, Sheila Beach, who took the microphone after a question from Darren Young of Ferguson about election integrity and energy independence, got emotional as she described her feeling that the Biden presidency has “gone so bad so fast.” She recalled Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt dividing Eastern Europe with the former Soviet leader Josef Stalin and wondered if history was repeating itself with the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Beach also expressed concern about “wokeness” and indoctrination in schools.

Hinson then recounted a recent trip to Israel and her visit to a Holocaust memorial the day before the Russian government, and she said she was proud to have been sanctioned by the Russian government.

“History is very recent for Israel, and it’s very recent for us. And I think we forget how quickly that can happen and how quickly those alliances can form,” Hinson said. “I think we have a new axis of evil in Russia, Iran and China… We’re standing up to a crazy dictator who is truly committing war crimes.”

Another question concerned skyrocketing fertilizer prices for farmers, and Marshall County Board of Supervisors Chairman Dave Thompson referenced a recent wave of drug arrests in Marshalltown before asking about additional federal grants to fund joint law enforcement operations like the Mid-Iowa Drug Task Force well into the future.

“This is a problem that is in our backyard, and we are seeing the result of a lack of enforcement at the border,” Hinson said. “We need to stop this surge at the southern border so people can do their job there and actually defend and hold these bad guys accountable and stop the drugs and stop these dangerous people before they get into our country, but what we’ve seen is, again, a blind eye turned toward that… The cartels are clearly winning.”

The final two questions came from Paul Hermanson of Marshalltown, who shared concern that the country is being run by unelected bureaucrats, and Allen Burt, Matthew Burt’s father, who inquired about potential changes to tax policies on inheritance, specifically in regard to farming operations.

After about an hour, Hinson hit the road and headed to her next meeting. After the 2022 election, her congressional district will no longer include Marshall County.

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Contact Robert Maharry

at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.