LUVERNE, MN (KELO) — From federal funding cuts to tariffs, we are hearing from U.S. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
KELOLAND’s Tyler Louder caught up with Senator Majority Leader John Thune Wednesday in Box Elder, but we also caught up with two U.S. Senators in southwest Minnesota.
Minnesota Democratic Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith helped secure $2.6 million in federal funding for a new day care in Luverne. Smith is worried that federal cuts could hamper projects like this one in the future.
Senator Thune shares his thoughts on tariffs, DOGE, and public concerns
“In the bill that was passed on a partisan basis by Republicans in the last couple of weeks, none of these Congressionally Designated Funding projects were included, so a lot of projects aren’t going to happen. Great examples of local projects like Kids Rock! won’t happen,” Smith said.
Klobuchar and Smith are on the Senate committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry with Republican Senator John Thune. Whether it’s funding cuts or tariffs, both Klobuchar and Smith are concerned about farmers.
“The Department of Agriculture is about farmers. It is about ranchers, but it’s also about economic development in these communities. There are all kinds of threats to the ag funding right now,” Klobuchar said.
“I’ve spent the last couple of days in southwestern Minnesota, and the issue of tariffs has been uppermost on people’s minds. In farm country, farmers are very worried about losing their access to markets that they have spent decades building,” Smith said.
But, Smith hopes that she can work together with other lawmakers to come up with solutions.
“I hope that going forward, we can maintain this bipartisan work of funding local projects like this because the best ideas are always going to come from the people on the ground who know best what their communities need,” Smith said.
Smith also shared her thoughts on the potential cuts to Medicaid. She says it could threaten some people’s ability to pay for care at nursing homes and rural hospitals.
