Your Ad About Hungry Children and Iowa Farmers — I Have Questions

I am one of your constituents, and I have been watching your recent advertisements with growing concern. You are running ads suggesting you support hungry children and Iowa farmers. As someone who lives in your district and pays attention to your actual voting record, I need to ask you directly: how do you justify that claim? Before your vote, 16 million American children were receiving food assistance through SNAP. One in six Iowa kids was already going hungry. These were not statistics — these were children in our communities, in our schools, in our neighborhoods. Then you cast the deciding vote — by a margin of just ONE vote — for the largest cut to food assistance in American history. That single vote will eliminate 9.5 billion meals a year from families who have no other option. A mother with one child will see her food assistance drop from $536 a month to $292 a month. That is $4.87 a day to feed her family. You voted for that. You also sat on the Agriculture Committee that wrote these cuts. You did not simply vote yes on someone else’s bill — you helped design it. That is why your own constituents and the Iowa Hunger Coalition have tied your name directly to the harm this legislation will cause. As for Iowa farmers — your ad claims you support them. But your vote gutted Food for Peace, the $2 billion federal program that purchased Iowa-grown crops every single year. Grain markets collapsed immediately after. Elevators told farmers they would no longer accept their grain. One Iowa orchard had planted 1,500 new trees to meet anticipated federal demand, only to have the program canceled with zero warning right before bloom season. Iowa farmers lost $11.3 million overnight — and that number grows every year. And when the consequences of your vote began showing up in the data, your administration canceled the 30-year Household Food Security Survey — the very tool used to measure hunger in America. You did not end hunger, Congressman. You just stopped counting it. So I am asking you directly, as your constituent: How many hungry children are needed to make America great? How many bankrupt Iowa farmers have to lose everything before your vision of greatness is achieved? And how do you look your constituents in the eye and run ads praising programs that you personally voted to destroy? I respectfully demand a response. The families and farmers of your district deserve one.