Rep. Craig hosts town hall in Fischbach's 7th District

Yahoo

26-04-2025

Apr. 25---- Democrat and 2nd District U.S. Rep. Angie Craig hosted a town hall meeting Thursday night in Willmar, part of U.S. Rep. Michelle Fischbach's district, with roughly 100 people in attendance.
Constituents of the 7th District have been calling for Fischbach to host a town hall for a little more than two months.
According to
from Fischbach's office, she hosted a telephone town hall with 14,000 people tuned in.
She has not conducted any in-person town halls in her sprawling western Minnesota district that stretches from Canada almost to the Iowa border.
"I'm going to listen to your questions to give you some answers to the best of my ability, because Michelle Fischbach won't show up and bring your concerns back to Washington," Craig said.
Craig had town halls this week in four cities located in Minnesota congressional districts represented by Republicans.
Craig's suburban and southeast Minnesota district includes Scott, Dakota and Le as well as portions of Washington and Rice counties.
She noted that her district is one of the most evenly divided congressional districts in the nation, comprising 49% Republican voters and 51% Democratic voters, and said that she has held 72 town halls in her district in the six years she has been in Congress.
"I got a whole bunch of Republicans who always show up at my town halls to give me hell, and I welcome them," Craig said. "Now they've shown up so many times I know some of their names, and I always make a point to talk to them after because, at the end of the day, I still believe that most of us have more in common than separates us in this nation."
Craig addressed questions on issues that are important to those in the 7th District, including the passage of a farm bill and proposed cuts to Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Social Security.
She also discussed Republicans in Congress being fearful of standing up to what is happening in the executive branch.
Craig noted that she was ranked in the top 3% of all bipartisan members of Congress in the last session, stating, "I fundamentally believe if an administration is doing something right, I'm going to cross the aisle and I'm going to work with them. But, if an administration is doing something wrong for my community, for my state, for my country, I also feel an intense responsibility to stand up and speak out and say something."
She explained that one of the reasons she is conducting the town halls is because she's "sick and tired" of her Republican colleagues privately complaining about what the Trump administration is doing and then standing idly by and saying nothing about it publicly.
"That is not leadership in our country. ... I know they're running scared from the president," she said.
Craig noted that Elon Musk has promised to spend his money during the primaries trying to defeat any Republicans who have spoken out against the Department of Government Efficiency and the current administration's actions.
Musk is a "special government employee" who has led the DOGE initiative created by executive order.
"(Those Republicans) want to keep their jobs. ... If you're not willing to risk your job for what you know is right, then you shouldn't be in the job in the damn first place," Craig said.
Minnesota's Congressional District 7 has 165,342 people on Medicaid, the health care program for people with limited income, and 67,000 utilize SNAP, according to Craig, who noted that able-bodied people have to work 20 hours per week to receive benefits from the SNAP, which was formerly known as food stamps.
Seventy percent of the people on SNAP are those who are disabled or are seniors, veterans or children, she added.
If the Trump administration does not extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits, Craig said that 20,000 people in Congressional District 7 will either lose their health insurance or see a 40% increase in their health insurance costs.
Craig is the ranking Democrat member of the House Agriculture Committee, which is responsible for the farm bill. SNAP benefits are tied to the farm bill and the committee has been asked to make $230 billion in cuts to those benefits.
"I'm hoping that they are not serious about cutting $230 billion from SNAP. I've been clear to Republicans and to my chairman that it is going to be very, very difficult to get a farm bill across the finish line if they come in and decimate SNAP," Craig said.
Craig said the proposed SNAP cuts would decimate the ag economy, hitting the entire supply chain and not just farm income.
"(Think about) the grocers and the clerks who put the food on the shelves, the truck drivers who drive it to the grocery stores," she said. "If you take $230 billion out of our food supply chain, not only are you taking food away from hungry veterans and seniors in our country and children in our country, you're also hurting family farms."
Congress has also instructed the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicaid spending, to find $880 billion in spending cuts. That figure cannot be reached without cutting Medicaid, according to Democrats and
"Gutting Medicaid would increase health care costs for every single American and it would put a lot of people at risk of losing their coverage altogether," Craig said.
She explained that these cuts are being made to give a tax break to the top 1% of the wealthiest people in the country and these cuts would actually add $14 trillion to the federal debt over the next 10 years.
"To listen to my colleagues talk about fiscal responsibility and waste, fraud and abuse — if you want to talk about those things, let's talk about it, let's have a conversation," Craig said.
Craig encouraged those in attendance Thursday to continue to call their representatives, noting that each member of Congress receives detailed reports of who is contacting them and the issues about which they are concerned.