By Marty Wegbreit
Cong. David Brat’s Town Hall meeting in Blackstone on Monday was a study in cognitive dissonance (simultaneously holding two or more contradictory beliefs), as shown by the examples below, all of which really happened (I am not making any of this up):
1. He lauded his accessibility to constituents while standing in small restaurant in a small town at the edge of his Congressional district where more than half of the crowd could not get into the venue and had to listen to loudspeakers outside.
2. When asked whether he would privatize Social Security, he promised to not change anything for those within 10 years of retirement, while making no promise for those more than 10 years from retirement.
3. The best cure for poverty is the free market.
4. The best way to get clean water and clean air is economic growth.
5. Obamacare will be repealed and replaced by April, there will be a two-year transition period, but we do not know what the replacement will be.
6. He supports an independent investigation of Russia, along with a Senate investigation of Russia.
7. A mentally ill person’s access to guns is protected by the 2nd Amendment.
8. Planned Parenthood does not do prenatal screenings, and their money would be better spent at full service health clinics.
9. He supports $20 billion in school vouchers targeted at the inner cities, although a 375% increase in education spending has not improved test scores, which remain flat.
10. There is no separation of church and state, and there cannot be a divide between the two.
11. He had not heard of the power of the House Ways & Means Committee to require the disclosure of Trump’s tax returns.
12. When asked whether climate change was real, he replied that climate changes all the time.
13. Trump’s travel ban, which he described as a travel ban on 7 Muslin countries that are state sponsors of terrorism, is legal. Also, that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which struck down the travel ban, is overruled 80% of the time.
14. He easily can justify the $20 billion cost of the border Wall because undocumented immigrants cost the U.S. between $100-400 billion annually.
15. Spending cuts will save $8 trillion in federal spending over the Trump presidency
16. Trump’s presidency is running smoothly given the obstruction in Washington, D.C.
17. School vouchers do not support religious schools, because they are given to parents, and it is the parents who can choose to use the vouchers on religious schools.
18. Cong. Paul Ryan has proposed no such budget for cuts in Social Security and Medicaid.
19. There is no allegation of wrongdoing against former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who recently was fired.
20. When asked how rural hospitals will be compensated for provided free health care, he said that free clinics do a better job of providing care, without explaining how they would be compensated.
21. When asked about the Hyde Amendment (which bans federal funding for abortions) and CHIP (the children’s health insurance program), he said he wanted the best health care possible for woman and would do everything possible for children
22. When asked again whether he would support privatizing Social Security, he said he ran as an outsider against Wall Street and would clean the swamp, lower the corporate tax, and simplify the corporate tax form to one page by eliminating deductions, and did not mention Social Security privatization.
23. When asked for examples of working with Democrats, he cited co-sponsoring legislation (that was not named), working with Rep. Keith Ellison on religious tolerance, and lifting weights together with colleagues in the gym (you can’t make up this stuff).
24. He said the news media, such as the Washington Post, ignored his work while running stories about his inaccessibility with titles such as “Where’s Dave? (again said while in a Town Hall in a small restaurant at the edge of his Congressional district with more than half the crowd outside in the street).
The Town Hall ended with repeated chants from the crowd of: “This is what democracy looks like!”
–Marty Wegbreit of Richmond is director of litigation of the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society and is a constituent of Rep. Bratt’s.
