'This suicide problem didn’t exist until we got largesse from the government,' Young said. Young: Gov't handouts cause suicide

Rep. Don Young is not backing down from his controversial comments about suicide, criticizing some of the students at Wasilla High School who challenged him and saying that Alaska’s high suicide rate is largely due to government “largesse.”

The Alaska Republican, speaking at a senior center on Wednesday, linked a rise in suicides in the state with government dependence.


“This suicide problem didn’t exist until we got largesse from the government,” Young said at Alaska’s Mat-Su Senior Center, according to audio obtained by the campaign of his Democratic challenger, Forrest Dunbar.

“When people had to work and had to provide and had to keep warm by putting participation in cutting the wood and catching the fish and killing the animals, we didn’t have the suicide problem,” Young continued. “It comes from the largesse of saying you’re not worth anything but you’re going to get something for nothing.”

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Later in the clip, Young added: “I’m not going to coddle anybody. We have a society today that coddles people.”

The congressman also cited his experience as a former schoolteacher in saying that some of the students at Wasilla High School who spoke out during his speech at the assembly on Tuesday were being “disrespectful.”

“I’m very upset with the school system that would take the side of individuals that are being disrespectful to their fellow students,” he said.

In response to the clip, Dunbar said he is “angered” by his opponent’s comments and that it is clear that Young has not learned from his previous remarks on suicide.

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“This has gone past the point of bizarre. In the last two days I have gone from shocked, to saddened, to angered,” Dunbar said in a statement. “If Don Young honestly believes that the suicide crisis in Alaska is because of public assistance programs, and he also believes that Wasilla High administrators were ‘coddling’ students dealing with the death of a classmate, then he is completely out of touch,”

“After his remarks today it is clear Don Young will not change,” he continued.

The release of the audiotape came just minutes after a Young spokesman emailed POLITICO to say that the congressman “regrets” if he caused any harm.

“Congressman Young extends his condolences to the student’s family and the Wasilla High School community,” spokesman Matthew Shuckerow said. “He regrets that his comments caused additional pain during this difficult time.”

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In the statement, Shuckerow said Young was “serious and forthright” in his discussion of suicide. He also noted that the congressman mentioned many things that he thought were the main factors leading to suicide, like lack of support systems and substance abuse — without mentioning government dependence. The statement made no mention of Young’s speech at the senior center.

Alaska has the highest per capita suicide rate in the U.S.

Young has come under fire for comments he made about suicide at a high school assembly on Tuesday. At Wasilla High School — where a student had committed suicide the previous week — the congressman blamed suicide on poor support from family and friends.

“When I heard ‘a lack of support from family’ and I heard ‘a lack of support from friends,’ I felt the oxygen go out of the room, but I gasped as well. It just isn’t true in these situations. It’s just such a hurtful thing to say,” the school’s principal said.

After a friend of the student spoke out during Young’s speech, the congressman responded, according the Alaska Dispatch News: “Well, what, do you just go to the doctor and get diagnosed with suicide?”

According to school officials, Young also used profanity on several occasions and told a story about getting drunk in Paris.

In his speech on Wednesday, Young again appeared to suggest that lack of support remains a major driver in suicide attempts. “I’m an old-school teacher — you do not interrupt,” he said at the senior center, in response to the student who had spoken out. “And that he had the gall to say suicide is a disease. It is not a disease. It is an illness. A lot of times that illness should be recognized by a support group. And it should be supported by the teachers that recognize this person has an illness.”

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