Fourth Congressional District: Renee Hoagenson
Party: Democratic
Age: 52
Place of residence: Columbia
Education: Bachelor’s in English from University of Missouri
Occupation: Former business owner, now full-time candidate
Political experience: None
Opponent: U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler
What is the biggest issue facing the Fourth Congressional District?
The number one issue I get asked about is health care. People are very concerned about health care and they should be.
Our costs of health care are outrageous and they’ve been increasing exponentially the last several years. We have so many people who literally can’t afford to fill their medication and eat or pay their rent while our Congress is letting pharmaceutical companies profiteer off of the backs and lives of the American people. It’s morally reprehensible.
Trump administration tariffs led to changes in demand for American farm exports. Do you think the administration handled the situation appropriately?
No, absolutely not. I think that the tariffs are a very bad idea for Missouri’s farmers, I think it’s very bad for Missouri’s economy and will have rippling effects through our economy for years to come.
We’re not going to be able to replace China as a customer for our exports. They’re investing in infrastructure in Brazil as we speak as a result of these tariffs. So this is going to leave a real deficit in our economy and our exports. China is our number one export customer and soybeans is our number one crop. One out of three acres of soybeans planted in Missouri went to China.
It’s going to be about a 20 to 33 percent loss to this market, and you’re talking about a market that was already really struggling. Our commodity prices are the same as they were in the ’80s. Our costs of farming are 10 times as high. So we’re not going to be able to sustain this and my fear is that it will shut down our family farmers first. Certainly our farmers who are renting, they call those “Cash Cowboys,” they’re going to be the first ones that are shut down. And as we shut down more family farmers and more legacy farms, who’s going to buy them up? Agribusiness, for pennies on the dollar, as we go forward.
And so it’s the opposite direction that we need to be going in Missouri farming. We need to be helping our family farmers to grow, not shut them down and squash them out.
Has the Affordable Care Act helped the average American?
Yes, and I think they would tell you that as well. I mean, there’s definitely problems with the Affordable Care Act – the income shelf is a problem, the point at which your costs for insurance increase quite a bit that’s really not commensurate with your wages – and the ACA was never designed to be the endpoint.
So the ACA has things about it that are good. It has provided pre-existing protections that are important and certainly important to the vast majority of Americans. Of course now this Congress wants to get rid of pre-existing protections, including my opponent, the sitting congresswoman. She votes to cut Medicare and pre-existing condition protections. We need to make sure that the folks that do have pre-existing conditions – which again is most Americans – can get health care. It doesn’t make sense that they would be able to sell you insurance but only for the things that you don’t actually need insurance for.
Have federal income tax cuts helped the average American?
No, not at all. In fact, it’s actually going to hurt our economy quite a bit in the next few years.
It will cause our federal budget to go into a tailspin because the only thing we’ll be able to afford will be debt service on the debt, and that is nothing but fiscally irresponsible.
Are we doing enough to address climate change?
We’re not doing enough to address climate change. We need to take climate change very seriously to ensure that we continue to be able to inhabit this planet.
