FILE - In this combination of June 10, 2018, file photos are candidates in Minnesota's 1st District Congressional race in the November 2018 election from left, Republican Jim Hagedorn and Democrat Dan Feehan before a parade in Waterville, Minn. Feehan says he's running again for Congress in southern Minnesota after narrowly losing to Republican Hagedorn last year. Hagedorn edged Feehan by about a half-percentage point for the seat Tim Walz left for his successful run for governor. (AP Photo/Jim Mone, File)

NEW ULM — Minnesota’s First District Rep. Jim Hagedorn visited New Ulm Thursday to meet with community leaders across the district and rally for small businesses.

Hagedorn said he planned to visit with downtown businesses, many of whom took advantage of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The congressman supported the program that helps businesses retain employees and believes further coronavirus appropriate packages would come through Congress.

With the latest appropriation, the congressman wants to assist livestock farmers, especially hog operators. The closing of restaurants hurt livestock producers economically. Later hog plants would be hit by the virus exacerbating an already bad situation.

Hagedorn said he put together two bills to mitigate the losses for independent pork providers. The first bill is associated with the loss of euthanizing hogs. The second bill is to help with the cost of selling into a depressed market.

“We’re working with our Senate colleagues to make sure that is in the next coronavirus bill,” he said.

Under the PPP, Hagedorn said $135 billion is still left over and there is a debate in Congress on whether other businesses, like restaurants and the hospitality industry, need further assistance.

“Unless we want to see massive bankruptcy, we better step up,” he said. Hagedorn also wants to see more employee incentives for people to return to work instead of remaining on unemployment.

“I am very cognizant our country is in a very difficult financial position,” Hagedorn said. His concern was, the money spent because of the coronavirus was being borrowed, increasing the country’s debt.

“We need to be careful about how we spend it. As much as I want to help people, we need to be careful of our debt.”

The congressman is also concerned with keeping rural hospitals operating. He said a group of 35 members of Congress has written U.S. Health and Human Service Secretary Alex Azar requesting some money from the CARES Act goes to rural hospitals.

“It’s not just Rochester with Mayo Clinic, it’s all these incredible institutes across the district,” Hagedorn said. He cited New Ulm Medical Center as one of the top employers with some of the best jobs in addition to providing high-quality medical care.

Recently, Minnesota has been debating the health risks or reopening businesses and schools. On the subject of wearing masks, Hagedorn’s said “if Gov. [Tim] Walz is going to have a mandate for masks in Minnesota, he is going to have to show the science behind that.” He described Walz’s decisions related to coronavirus as arbitrary, such as the decision to leave big box stores open, but keep small businesses closed.

On sending kids back to school, Hagedorn repeated the need to “follow the science.”

The congressman said the coronavirus does not affect those under 18 in a monumental way, and he believes there were ways to protect the teachers and others working in schools.

“There is a lot of societal hurts when kids don’t go back to school,” he said. He believes some kids needed the oversight, but kids at home also prevent parents from going back to work full-time or spend money on childcare.

Access to childcare is a crisis in Minnesota outside of the pandemic. Hagedorn said there is a need for childcare and the state needs to revisit the regulations across the board.

On the federal level, he supported giving more childcare providers more access to capital. Hagedorn said he partnered with Minnesota Rep. Pete Stauber on a bill to enable the Small Business Administration to provide low-cost loans to childcare providers. Also, he supported the concept of people deducting childcare costs on federal taxes or providing businesses with incentives to open employee childcare.

“We need to increase the access to childcare to keep costs down and enable people to use money more efficiently to procure the services.”

On recent calls to reform law enforcement, Hagedorn said he opposed a recent bill pushed by House Democrats because the bill would make it too difficult for anyone to be a police officer because of the cost and liability.

Hagedorn supported an alternative reform bill that enabled the police departments to make changes on whether to ban chokeholds.

Hagedorn stated his strong respect and support for police, calling them the thin line between chaos and orderly society.

Hagedorn said police were sitting ducks in big cities “run by liberal Democrats” because police were not allowed to do their jobs.

“When they do arrest people for doing the wrong thing, the prosecutors are letting them out of jail and not charging them,” he said. “What is going on in those big cities we don’t want in southern Minnesota.

Hagedorn was asked how elections should be carried out during a pandemic. He supports Minnesota’s current voting provisions including no-excuse absentee ballots and early voting. He said these provisions combine with traditional polling place voting should be enough. He was against expanding voting beyond these options citing concerns over potential voter fraud.

Asked about bounties offered by Russia on U.S. soldiers, Hagedorn countered by asking why his election opponent Dan Feehan supported the Iran deal. He said Iranians also killed U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Hagedorn also expressed doubts the bounty stories were true because soldiers on the ground were not taking them seriously.

“President Trump and people like myself are trying to get the troops out of Afghanistan,” he said. “Let’s get them out of there so there can’t be bounties on them. We want to protect our troops around the world, and one of the best ways to do that is to get them out of a war that should have ended 15 years ago.”