Dingell, Camilleri hold Downriver town hall as residents express fear, frustration

 

By SUE SUCHYTA

Sunday Times Newspapers

Amid rising concerns, U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-6th District) and state Sen. Darrin Camilleri (D-4th District) held a Downriver town hall meeting April 14 at the Brownstown Event Center.

Dingell addressed a wide range of issues, ranging from Social Security concerns to medical research cuts, and answered questions from constituents.

She said she did not vote for the federal budget that passed last week.

“No Democrat voted for the budget in the House of Representatives,” Dingell said. “The president said we will not cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, but I’m going to tell you that the budget that they passed last week requires $880 billion in cuts out of Medicaid in the Energy and Commerce committee, and we cannot do that.”

She said that while she recognizes the need to eliminate waste and fraud, efforts should start at the Pentagon.

Dingell said she is also upset about the tax cuts for billionaires.

“They are doing these kinds of cuts – they want to cut billionaires’ taxes – which is going to take away from revenue, which is why we are looking at some of the cuts we need to do,” she said. “But when the president says he will not touch Social Security, when you close a thousand offices, when you tell seniors you cannot call offices or get help on a telephone line, when the acting director of Social Security says he is going to shut the agency down, and when the Secretary of Commerce says that seniors can afford not to have their Social Security check for a month, you are touching Social Security.”

Dingell said the seniors she works with live check to check to pay for food, medicine and housing.

“So, don’t tell me you’re not touching Social Security,” she said. “I promise you I am going to do everything I can to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and tell you what’s happening.”

Dingell said that tariffs are a tool when used appropriately.

“But when you take a meat axe and just take it across the board, alienating countries that are allies for decades and say we are just going to impose tariffs, you are increasing the costs for all consumers and making enemies out of our friends,” she said. “That is not a strategic use of tariffs.”

 

Dingell said a strategic use of tariffs would be against China’s electric vehicle production, where the government is subsidizing the production of electric vehicles, using slave labor and manipulating their currency while trying to destroy the U.S. industry so they can come in and take it over.

“I’ll be damned if we are ever going to let them do that, and that’s an appropriate use of the tariff,” she said. “You put a tariff on a company that’s cheating like this and trying to hurt our industry, not on Canada, which is our friend.”

Dingell said she wants to protect the domestic auto industry and keep it strong.

She said she is proud of the bipartisan infrastructure law that has allowed her to get the lead out of every water pipe in America.

Dingell said she is not going to stop fighting to get the McLouth site cleaned up, and to protect the Great Lakes.

She said she is not going to let the country lose its progress at being at the forefront of technology to produce electric vehicles.

“The domestic auto industry put the world on wheels, and I am going to make sure we stay at the forefront of the world,” Dingell said.

Camilleri spoke next, reiterating how deeply he cares about the state’s schools, and the importance of investing resources with the students who need it the most.

He said they are going to keep a close eye on the potential cuts that come out of Washington, D.C., especially with the Department of Education closing.

“Those decisions in Washington, D.C. impact all of us at the state, because if I don’t have resources from the federal government to spend on the school meals program, we are not going to be able to fully fund that program,” Camilleri said. “And that’s scary, because that program has benefitted directly hundreds of thousands of students here in Michigan.”

He said providing the free breakfast and lunch for all students removed the stigma for the students most in need.

“We are going to make sure that they get a breakfast and a lunch and we are going to ensure that they are healthy and fed so that they can learn,” Camilleri said. “That is the number one priority.”

 

He said he will not allow any cuts to education in Michigan, and there are people in Lansing who have proposed cutting the education budget, and said the state House has proposed a budget that would cut $5 billion in funding for schools.

Camilleri said that investing in the state’s roads cannot be done by cutting health care.

As the floor opened to constituent questions, Dingell replied to residents on a variety of topics.

She expressed concern about the cuts to medical research grants.

“NIH has just literally paused almost all grants, and that’s research that is being done on Alzheimer’s, cancer, diabetes, rare disease, and we need to be investing,” Dingell said.

She said important research at the Veterans Administration hospitals on burn pits and mental health, and at the University of Michigan have been put on hold.

“We need to continue this research,” Dingell said. “We need to be working together to fix so many health care issues, and I promise you I am never going to stop fighting to ensure that future generations are taken care of.”

She said the 1 percent cannot enact change, and that it has to be pursued “by the collective ‘we.’”

“The courts are the first that we need to be in, and we’ve been winning, but now we’re seeing the executive branch not listening to what the courts are finding,” Dingell said. “So, are we in a constitutional crisis? Perhaps.”

She said people need to “legislate, educate, advocate and communicate.”

“I know something about President Trump: he doesn’t like low approval ratings,” Dingell said. “So, people have to make their voices loud and clear and make sure he knows.”

She said she listens to people at the union halls, the veteran halls and the farmers markets, and she listens to people, and she knows that people are mad and angry.

“They are worried about a whole lot of stuff,” Dingell said. “Democrats have to do a lot better job of listening instead of lecturing, because votes have consequences.”

She said people have to fight and work together, push back and they can’t give up.

“We have to give people hope and believe in democracy,” she said. “I’ve got to believe that our democracy is going to win in the end, but we can’t be silent.

“What is democracy? Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of press and due process.”