The GOP lead onslaught on medicaid and medicare, along with budget cuts to all services across the board from the VA to education, and the massive layoffs of public sector workers, has proven to be so unpopular that Speaker Mike Johnosn has told his party to skip town hall meetings due to the outrage of their constituents. This directive was backed up by the RNC’s national committee.
The official party line is that a small cabal of paid professional protestors are orchestrating mass public outrage.
Brian Fitzpatrick , GOP house of representatives member from PA 1st District, is no exception. Fitzpatrick has refused to hold any sort of public meetings or town halls with his constituents. Echoing the party line,Fizpatrick has called members of the Bucks county community who dare to raise their thoughts to a person who, in theory, is supposed to represent them in Congress, as “paid troublemakers” backed by mysterious and unspecified “dark money groups.”
Fitzpatrick’s facebook account shows that meetings with certain community members and organizations are taking place, but are private events not open to the public. The last town hall event open to the public that Fitzpatrick held was in august of 2017.
Fitzpatrick’s offices appear to follow the same strategy of limited to no engagement with the public. One reddit post on R/BucksCountyPA titled Brian Fitzpatrick’s Office Hanging Up on Constituents Asking About Medicaid shed light on experiences any who call the office of Fitzpatrick are likely to relate to writing:
“Has anybody else had this happen? Both me and my dad called Brian Fitzpatrick’s office to ask about the Medicaid cuts that the Republicans in the House of Representatives voted for and as soon as we brought it up they hung up on us. 3 of my younger underage siblings are on Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) funded by Medicaid and we are just terrified that they’ll be kicked off the program and be left without any healthcare. My dad’s job doesn’t offer health insurance, he’s been uninsured for years. Why isn’t Fitzpatrick’s office answering questions about this?
The guy on the other side sounded young and irritated to even be answering my call. Inexperienced and inattentive staffer?”
While I was unable to locate any of the shadowy agents that Fizpatrick claims are responsible for the display of anger at the Republicans or track down the source of “dark money”, I was able to find and speak with veterans who have been negatively impacted by the world’s richest man Elon Musk’s crusade against working people.
“I’m a Navy veteran (PN3, USN, 1991-2001).” Rich Gardner told People’s World. “Are the cuts in veteran’s services affecting me? Not YET! It’s far from clear that Elon Musk, the DOGE team and their enabler President Trump are in any way finished. Many veterans have been hurt so far. The Tucson Sentinel tells us that
Over the past month, VA has cut 2,400 positions, and VA Secretary Doug
Collins said this week the department plans to slash more than 70,000 jobs. The goal
would reduce VA staffing to 2019 levels, three years before the historic PACT
Act expanded benefits to more than a million veterans sickened by exposures
to toxins.
The VA keeps saying that they can pursue two goals at the same time, to make massive cuts in
personnel and funding, but that no veterans will be harmed. Nah, I don’t believe them either.
The essential problem is that President Reagan went after programs that were considered wasteful in1981. He cut a few percentage points from the federal budget, but after ‘81, couldn’t find any real targets to be cut. Vice-President Al Gore, under President Clinton, cut almost 400k jobs from the government, but he did so by working slowly, carefully and lawfully, NOT by just taking an axe and whacking away at programs to their right and left. When people say DOGE is just cutting Waste, Fraud and Abuse, no, no they aren’t. They’re cutting needed programs.”
Free Soil 
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