Suspicions arose when U.S. Rep. Larry Bucshon, who represents Indiana’s Eighth District, said written questions would be required in his first Town Hall in Evansville in more than a year.
Likewise, concerns were raised when Bucshon’s communications director, Nick McGee, would not say who would be the moderator on the evening of Friday, July 21, at the Southern Indiana Career & Technical Center on Evansville’s North Side.
As it turned out, however, those fears were not founded. With an audience estimated at 350 -- far more, Bucshon said, than attendance at past events -- and a preponderance of Evansville police officers working security, the event, while spirited, was informative and enlightening.
True, there occasionally were derisive laughs and hoots when Bucshon’s answers did not jibe to the beliefs of a portion of the audience. But the fuorthterm congressman answered the questions as offered up by the moderator, University of Evansville professor Robert Dion, and stayed after the 90-minute session to speak to small groups of attendees.
Many of them did not hear the answers they wanted.
Bucshon’s responses to environmental concerns and the health-care stalemate were not changed from the standard Republican/ business approach, seemingly ignoring the fact that his district is on many lists detailing the very worst air quality in the nation, and that any tinkering with the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid or the Healthy Indiana Plan will affect thousands who live here. “The Medicaid growth at the federal level is astronomical,” he said. “The hope is that people will have an alternative to Medicaid, to take shackles off insurance companies to offer more affordable prices.”
That, of course, is only hope. There is no guarantee that supply-side policies will work. They haven’t in the past.
On the environment, Bucshon said he supports President Donald Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, a global pact to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and he said poor air quality issues that plague Southwestern Indiana have a lot to do with topography.
That obviously leaves out man-made factors that threaten our health.
Still, Bucshon earns credit for facing the questions head-on.
“There are fundamental disagreements; we saw that tonight,” he said. “People like myself need to engage with people we represent, and here what they are saying. When things come up in Washington, I say, ‘I held a Town Hall in my district, and this is what I heard. Here’s what one person things, and here’s what another thinks, and here’s why.’” Hopefully, Bucshon will follow through and speak up for those who disagree with his viewpoints -- and hold Town Halls throughout his district during Congress’ many breaks and recesses during the year.
He came away from the Career & Tech Center looking like a leader, whether or not you agree with his viewpoints