Iowa US Senator Joni Ernst was in Oskaloosa Saturday (2/29) as she began her annual 99 County Tour of the state.  Ernst spoke to several business owners and heard about their concerns.

“Health insurance, quality affordable health insurance for even part-time employees.  They struggle with that.  Child care and the availability of quality child care.  Paid family leave. Paid time off for new moms or dads. And then the challenge that they have when you have big box stores or Amazon type institutions out there, when they’re trying to be a good Main Street business and provide services for the local community.”

Ernst also talked to reporters about the coronavirus and questioning by Democrats over how the Trump administration is handling the situation.  Ernst is backing the President’s actions.

“The President did the right thing by immediately locking down travel and instituting travel bans to those affected areas and quarantining individuals as they were traveling from those areas.  So that was the smart thing to do and I think because he took such immediate action, we are seeing fewer cases in the United States than they are seeing in Italy and in some of these other countries that are now rapidly being exposed.”