A Visit at the Congressional 1st District Office
On Tuesday, Feb 25, Mary O’Shields and Mike Breton visited with Elijah Snow, the Field Representative of our congressman, Rick Crawford. The session lasted an hour and differing views were shared and noted. He took a full page of notes regarding our concerns.
Mike led off by reminding Elijah that Trump does NOT have a mandate to destroy our system. He pointed out that 75 million people didn’t vote for him and that Crawford should keep that in mind and not just rubber stamp everything Trump tries to do.
Topics covered the need to support Ukraine, which Snow says Crawford does, but has voted NO on some funding requests that didn’t go to military needs alluding to corruption in the Ukraine system. He acknowledges that Putin is a dictator who started the war.
Mike urged support for DEI programs which are needed to fully inform the upcoming generations and to represent our diverse country. He next pleaded for support for anti-gun violence measures like Red Flag laws, and Mary added her support for a ban on automatic assault weapons. Other topics touched on were his need to support voter registration and voting protections (The John R. Lewis act) and thoughtful immigration policies. When asked why Crawford voted against certifying the election of Joe Biden, Snow said that Crawford didn’t like that the voting rules had changed (due to Covid, the addition of drop-off boxes and mail-in ballots) to favor Biden. We agreed to disagree with that stance.
Mary was down to specifics as she recounted the harm tariffs will have on Arkansans quoting figures for millions of dollars gained by our exports and imports chiefly from Canada and Mexico. Arkansas imports approximately 171 million dollars in Canadian goods every year. The highest imports include 23 million dollars in canola oil, 21 million dollars in pork products, and 17 million in baked goods. Now Canada has declared a moratorium on the purchase of American goods. Arkansas exports to Canada total 217 million dollars per year. That includes 94 million dollars in rice, 38 million dollars in chicken products, 26 million dollars in pet food, 35 million dollars in meat products, and 24 million dollars in fertilized chicken eggs, although that number has probably dropped in view of the avian flu.
She followed that with her nurse’s perspective on the likely reduction in folks getting early treatment if Medicaid is reduced. The GOP passed their budget on February 25 (probably during the time we were meeting with Elijah) which will increase the national deficit by 5 trillion dollars. The budget includes Medicaid cuts that will impact 254,000 Arkansans. This expanded out to real financial stress for rural hospitals when they lose the clients that no longer can have their treatment paid by Medicaid. Once some rural hospitals close down, people who need care will have even less options for timely treatment. This often results in later hospitalizations or more extensive care than if they had sought care earlier in their disease process. Hospitals historically have passed their uncompensated care costs on to their insured patients, resulting in higher health care costs for everyone.
On the topic of town halls he said that due to disruption and failure of basic courtesy Crawford finds it more productive to come to town and visit with people with power, business, political, or nonprofits and get input and learn of local needs that way. Snow said that in the last year Crawford has been on at least 11 trips to the State.
As we left Mary handed him one of our business cards and Mike suggested that next time Crawford was in Mtn Home and wanted to speak with political leaders that he keep us in mind.
