(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Congresswoman Ashley Hinson says the Biden Administration needs to focus on the supply chain issues that have ships backed up waiting to unload and businesses not getting what they need. Hinson, a Republican from Marion, says she saw issues first hand during a tour of Oak Street Manufacturing in Monticello Monday. “They told me they had to raise their prices more this year than in the last 25 years combined — that’s because the cost of the materials they use has skyrocketed,” Hinson says. “And then on top of that, the supply chain bottleneck has seriously impacted their operations. You talk about a cost differential here — they told me they typically spend about four thousand dollars on a shipping container — last month they spent 29-thousand-500 dollars.”

The company makes furniture primarily for restaurants. Hinson says the extra federal unemployment payments are one of the issues. “We paid people to stay home for far too long and that obviously has had ripple effects. And so when you see proposals coming out of Democrats in Congress like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to continue those unemployment benefits — I can tell you that’s the fastest way to continue to have these supply problems long-term,” according to Hinson. She says forcing workers to get vaccinated is also an issue. “Vaccine mandates are torpedoing the workforce as well. All of these things I think are problematic in terms of policy coming out of the administration. I think getting those barriers out of the way is step one,” she says.

Hinson says the administration is spending too much time trying to pass the multi-trillion-dollar reconciliation package. “The Biden Administration is not focused on fixing that supply chain, they seem more focused on spending money right now. So, we need to work together on this and work all the way up and down the chain, state, federal, and local to make sure we are fixing this problem,” Hinson says.

Hinson made her comments during her weekly conference call with reporters.