Representative Vicky Hartzler (r) held a series of town halls on Wednesday in Missouri's 4th Congressional District. We attended the afternoon town halls in Clinton and Warrensburg. There were dissenting views and push back at both town halls, but the one in Warrensburg was by far the more raucous. People showed up.
This exchange (with a number of constituents) took place relatively early in the one hour town hall:
....Voice: Is Social Security in that two point two trillion?
Representative Hartzler: Uh, that’s a good question. I’ll have to check on that. I think it is. [crosstalk] Anyway, no.
Voice: I don’t think so. You said [inaudible] our tax money by April fifteenth.
Representative Hartzler: Anyway. Well [crosstalk], yeah…
Voice: Taxes are April fifteenth [crosstalk]. Social Security’s not a tax, right. But it is our money. So, where’s that flow in the flow?
Representative Hartzler: It is part of the revenue that’s in there. So, I may have misspoke as far as April fifteenth. But, anyway, you can see we got a deficit. That’s the bottom line, bottom line.
We have a debt crisis. It’s fourteen point three trillion dollars now. Uh, it’s a non-partisan or, problem in that we had Republican Congresses, we’ve had Democratic Congresses for years that have spent more money than has come in. And so, that’s where we’re at today. It’s taken us a while to get there, but, uh, we gotta little spending problem here and there’s at least two areas of concern with that. Having that much debt is hurting jobs. I talk to a lot of small business owners and they’ll say this uncertainty, they’re not sure what’s going to happen, uh, if there’s gonna be a huge influx, uh, in the stock market that’s gonna hurt them. Whether there’s, you know, not gonna be able to get credit. Just having this much debt is causing them to not hire people. We need that. So, that’s a [crosstalk] concern. [crosstalk] Well...[crosstalk] There’s a lot of…
Voice: It’s not uncertainty about the economy, it’s a lack of con [crosstalk], consumer demand. [crosstalk] [voice: “Yeah.”][applause][voice: “Yeah, all right.”]
Voice: Consumer demand is lacking because people do not have jobs. They don’t have the money to [crosstalk]...
Voice: People don’t have money.
Representative Hartzler: Okay, let me [crosstalk]...
Voice: You all were supposed to [inaudible] [crosstalk]on jobs when you came in office. [voice: “Yeah.”]
Representative Hartzler: Wait, wait, wait [crosstalk] just a minute.
Voice: Jobs!
Voice: That’s what you said.
Voice: You said you were jobs, you didn’t [crosstalk] say anything about fighting the President.
Representative Hartzler: All right [crosstalk]. Listen, listen [crosstalk]…
Voice: When, when you ran your campaign [crosstalk] the only thing we heard was jobs, jobs, jobs [crosstalk], jobs, jobs. [crosstalk] You get into office and the only thing we hear out of you now is abortion [inaudible].
Voice: We were gonna fix it, that’s what you said.
Voice: You said you were a teabagger and that you were gonna fight the President. Why?
Voice: Quiet down and listen.
Voice: [crosstalk] ...farm subsidies.
Representative Hartzler: Uh, we are gonna have [crosstalk][inaudible] conversation and then there’ll be time for any of the comments. But I’m gonna say this, we’re gonna have a respectful town hall here [crosstalk] [voice: “You don’t like (inaudible)”] and we’re gonna listen. I want you to have lis, respect everybody. Listen. And then I’m gonna listen to you. [voice: “You’re not doing a very good job”] And that’s the way this town hall’s gonna be run. If you don’t feel comfortable with that you’re welcome to not participate. But I want to hear your ideas and [crosstalk]... [multiple voices, some inaudible]
Voice: Well then good, then let’s begin. [crosstalk] Then let’s begin, let’s begin.
Voice: Let’s let her talk first.
Voice: [crosstalk]...our ideas.
Voice: Who owns our debt? [crosstalk]
Representative Hartzler: We have forty-seven percent [crosstalk] of our foreign debt [crosstalk] is caused, held by the [inaudible]. Okay.
Voice: She’s our representative in Congress [crosstalk] isn’t she?
Voice: And she’ll let you talk in a minute.
Representative Hartzler: Shh. All right....
There's plenty more of that.