Well, thank you for that but lets start things a little more formally if we can. Id like everybody who can rise to rise and lets say the pledge of allegiance. Shall we . I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america. And to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. I want you to know im here because i work for you. [ applause ] and my im not here to lecture at you. My hope is that we all learn something from each other tonight. There is some other people who work for you that i want to introduce to you. Theyre all people who work in the district, in the in pennsylvania in the 17th Congressional District. And i want you to get to know who they are a little bit in case you ever need to call upon them for help. Starting with my district director, mr. Bob morgan. Now, now bob is also an Economic Development specialist and when i first learned about what it is to be a member of congress i learned that there are no more earmarks and well talk about that in a little bit but what that means is you need Economic Development special is to help officials write for grants for federal funding for important local projects so bob is an Economic Development specialist and we also have mr. Bill handily down at the end from pottsville whos a senior Economic Development specialist. And may i also introduce to you from our easton office, dr. April niver, our other Economic Development specialist . We have all sorts of constituent case work that goes on and i want one of the most important areas to me is standing up for our military and our nations veterans. And this is Sabrina Mclaughlin sitting in the Pottsville Office and she specialized in that. We a large, large number of people in the 17th Congressional District depend on important programs like Social Security and medicare and like any other big organization, sometimes things go wrong. And you need some help from your member of congress. And to help me help you, i have Christa Mecadon in the scranton office. Give it up for Christa Mecadon. Christa sits in the same office with jennifer manello with Financial Issues that may arise with our constituents. Jennifer manganello. And right here we have our staff assistant and right arm, mr. Brian dowd. Now, over here we have we have mrs. Ann laritson who is a wizard coming the u. S. Customs and immigration service. Any probables with your passports, shes amazing. Ann sits in the easton office. Now, as your member of congress, you know my time is not my own. To find out what im doing on a daily basis, i look on an online calendar and its put together by this evil genius down here on the end. Mrs. Tammy ieta. My scheduler. And the current face of our congressional operation, our Public Relations and Communications Person and also incidentally my Campaign Manager is colleen eagengarrity of scranton. Well, now you know us. And please avail yourself of our services if ever you need. Ret reach out to us. Well talk about a little bit. You guys can sit down and im going to take about ten or 15 minutes and run over what we do for you so you know. And what i want to do is move to the next slide whoevers doing that. There we go. We talked about sabrina. She works on veterans and military affairs. So anything with the va system, you know . Mistakes happen there. And military records requests. Military medals requests. One of my very favorite things to do is to award military Service Decorations on behalf of the president of the United States. Whoever it is at the time. Its its no. Theres no laughing. And but it actually has been a sincere and deep, profound honor for me to award bronze stars for valor from the battle of the bulge. Purple heart from world war i. Its these are very touching ceremonies and it chokes me up every time. Its and Sabrina Mclaughlin has been wonderful. If you have a Family Member or even somebody that youre close to that you know did not get their Service Decorations that theyre entitled to, please, please let us know and sabrina will dig into that and all we need is the d d214 and shell get you those medals. Okay. Next slide. Also, va has a wide range of services that it does for the for our veterans and sometimes they mess it up and sometimes your congressman can help you. Thats what sabrina and i do together. In addition to some of the legislation that i do, on behalf of, you know, you worry about veteran suicides, as many as sandy, how are you . So many combat veterans commit suicide in this country. Its a national embarrassment. And we can talk about that later. Lets go to the next slide. One thing that jennifer and bob both work on are irs. Your favorite federal agency. Its kind of timely to talk about the irs. Isnt it . The truth is if youve actually gone to your member of congress to help you with a problem with the irs, the chances are there isnt a whole lot we can do to help you but once in a great while we can help them bump your case up to the top of the pile and work something out. And i tell you that and i want you to know that because if you have a problem and the irs thinks you owe them money, time is not your friend. Because theyre going to tack on interest and penalties and if you let that happen, pretty soon the interest and the penalties are way bigger than the original past due amount so dont let the grass grow under your feet if you have that kind of problem. Call our office. Maybe we can help. Okay . As i mentioned, ann laritson, u. S. Cis. Its a big issue in the news these days but there are daytoday issues that arise so, for example, you know somebody that went on a cruise and the travel agent failed to tell them that they need a passport. And they call our office with only a few days to go before the ship sails. And we have actually been able to pull some rabbits out of hats. Did you bring your hat, ann . Where is ann . Did she is she outside . Theres ann. Theres the lady. Shes a magician with passports. So dont give up hope. There may be some help we can give you. And there are all sorts of other immigration and naturalization questions that may come up. And anns been working with us for four and a quarter years now so she has learned all the ropes and she can help. State department. We talked about passport renewals. Immigrant visas. Documents from abroad. Things like that. Social security. I talked to you about Christa Mecadon and christa has she opens so many case files for people with issues with Social Security. And you know, you know, theres one county that i skept. Schuylkill county, pennsylvania. 150,000 people that live there and fully 38,000 of them receive Social Security checks. Either disability or old age benefits. And folks really depend on that. They depend on getting the right amount and getting it on time because a big chunk of those people, thats all they have to live on and we know that and were very conscious of that and if a problem comes up with Social Security, let us know. We may be able to help. Medicare goes hand in hand with Social Security. And they make mistakes sometimes, too. And sometimes your provider isnt getting paid and you dont want your doctor or your nurse to be upset or your therapist and we can help with that. Economic development. We talked about a little bit. To me, fostering the climate for more and better jobs is probably the most important thing that i can do for this 17th Congressional District. I know it. I think about it. I work on it and i talk about it all the time. And one of the biggest ways that i have i can directly impact the Economic Situation of this part of the world is by getting federal money into our economy. They say for every federal dollar that comes in to our economy it generates 4 in economic activity. So we have a couple of fine gentlemen here that work at toby hahn army depot, for example. I work hard to make sure they not only get contracts and funded but also that the workforce get appropriate raises from time to time. Thats appropriate, isnt it, boys . Yeah. Im getting agreement. So, but its not just that. Its also the federal grants program and i talked about that. Economic Development Grants and assistance to firefighter grants. We just made a check presentation here well, down in easton this afternoon. A lot of different Grant Programs and theyre not intuitive and so one thing we do is to help educate our mayors. We have i started a mayors conference every year. This year it will be in may at the Northampton Community college Monroe County facility and the idea is that there is uneven understanding and awareness of all of the federal dwrant programs and we dont write for those grants. The local mu nis pal officials do and what we do is we swap stories at mayors conference. We make sure that theres a more even distribution of the knowledge, of the information about what Grant Programs are available. The more success we can have with getting federal grants into the district the better off our economys going to be. And thats just scratching the surface of what we do for Economic Development. I want to leave a lot of time for your questions. Okay. Next one, april. And we do all sorts of other, you know, black long benefits, for example. A lot of people, elderly people, made their livings digging coal out of the earth. And they have trouble getting their black lung benefits and sometimes we help with that. Student loan issues. Fannie mae. Post office issues. Housing and urban development. There are a lot of stories we could talk about with these programs where weve been able to put some elbow grease into it and help out locally and its you know, its a time when not all that much is happening, legislatively in washington, it feels good to be able to work with all of these fine people i introduced you to and do some good around northeastern pennsylvania and my part of the Lehigh Valley. Okay. If you come to visit washington, be sure and call us and call us in plenty of time. If you want a white house tour, they need about three months notice so they can run your Social Security number and all that. But we can set up all sorts of fun tours that you may not have thought about. Again, avail yourselves of our offices. Were working for you. Okay. So, i want to bob, do we have we have some questions on bobs bringing them. Oh, good. A reminder if someone had a question and didnt write it down, we have question cards. Just raise your hand and we can get you one. Huh oh. Theres a lot. [ laughter ] all right. First one is, how will you vote on attempts to dismantle Social Security . I will vote no. Next one. Thats easy. Thats an easy one. How can we support Affordable Health care for all and block trumps efforts to cut subsidies to give a tax cut to rich folks . Okay. Well, the first part of that is Affordable Health care for all. I do support that. Remember, this is not a i want to tell you, this is not a political rally. So what i try to do at the town halls is kind of give both sides of the of the issues and then lets make sure you know where i stand. Yeah, right now the the republicans in the house are kind of wringing their hands trying to figure out what to do about health care. They ran for seven years on a program of repealing the aca. And now theyve won the house and the senate and the white house and theyre trying to work out whether they can do that. The problem is that the republicans in the house, its not monolithic. They are about 240 different voices who have all their own ideas and some of them want to simply repeal the aca and not replace it with anything at all. There are some who want to repeal the aca and replace it with something, maybe not quite as all encompassing. And therefore, a little less expensive. And there are others with all sorts of different views but the point is they cant agree with each other on what to do. And so, where it stands right now, they couldnt even bring up a bill. Now, i want to tell you. My brother member of congress here in the Lehigh Valley charlie dent made it clear he wasnt for that bill that cobbled together. And i think hes kind of in the same neighborhood as me on that. That he wants to see something that works. Obviously, there are a lot of problems with the aca. Its too expensive on some groups. It has deductibles that are too high on some other groups. And involves some taxes that kind of disparately impact some groups and some industries. Im particularly not happy with a couple of items on that and i wont go into all of them but the cadillac tax is one of them. The tax on medical devices, im not sure is fair, and it actually hurts some of the manufacturers right here in the Lehigh Valley. So im willing to ive said id be willing to look at that. But the question is how can we support Affordable Health care for all . And i think the answer is, and i forgot who said it, but somebody said we have moved the needle on this discussion. It used to be, no way no how on anything like the aca. But now, its lets make it work. And my hope and i really do hope this, is that me believes of congress from both sides of the aisle will come together. People like charlie dent and me. And work out something, to work out the kinks of the aca and make it work for everybody. And i think the thing thats driving that is thats what the American People want. Thats what the people want. [ applause ] and thats the way its supposed to work. Now, the second part of it is block trumps efforts to give subsidies to a tax cut for rich folks. And that was a major problem for the bill that did come up. The bill that came up, they rushed it. It is a very complicated subject. And they didnt have any hearings. I mean, you have to have hearings to find out from, for example, the Health Care Insurance industry. Remember, aca is not government insurance. No matter what you see online. Its not government insurance. Its insurance that is sold to you by forprofit insurance companies. And if they if nobody bothered to ask them whether the ahca was going to work for them, how did they really know that they were going to participate in it . That was a major problem that i saw. But anyway, i think thats the answer, is that we need to come together and work on it. And thats the approach i want to take. Can i ask a personal question . About Health Insurance that the congress can we well come back to it. I have a whole stack of questions that people took the trouble to write out. Ill get back to you. What is the democratic response to aca repeal . We just covered that. With only three Health Care Providers left in the Lehigh Valley and rising premiums, what specifically is your plan to repair, not replace, the aca . That is thats exactly what im talking about. I dont have a specific plan. I think its something that we have to wrestle with. We have to have hearings about. We have to be honest with each other about and stop scaring people. Stop making it a political football. I said that over and over. This this is peoples lives were talking about. All right. What can you do to oppose the cuts for the nih and other Research Organizations . The trump budget is scary. How can we help to oppose it . Okay. Yes, the trump budget. Im glad somebody brought it up. Im going to go back to my friend charlie dent. Charlie dent and i are both on the house committee. Last fall. Theres some great bipartisan work thats done on the House Appropriations committee. And its a breath of fresh air to be working with bipartisan people like charlie. I do oppose the cuts to the nih. And to research. [ applause ] we saw this this budget that came out of the white house. And history will prove me right or wrong but in my personal opinion our chief executive and commander in chief never laid eyes on that budget. That budget in my view was drafted and compiled in the basement of the heritage foundation. Which is a hardline rightwing organization that wants government out of everything and therefore wants to slash everything except military. And Mick Mulvaney whom i know very well and who was one of the founders of the rightwing Freedom Caucus was nominated and approved to be the director of the office of management and the budget which is one of the most powerful parts of the executive branch in this country. And so, that budget fully reflects things that i know to be ideological priorities of Mick Mulvaney and the Freedom Caucus. And its dead on arrival because of that. [ applause ] because there are there is so much public support. Democracy really works in case youre wondering. Theres so much public support for Scientific Research done by the government, for health Research Done by the government. We are not going to cure cancer if we dont if we cut off all the funding for the research. People want cancer to be cured and they want all manner of other diseases to be cured. I do. And the people in the Congress Know that. If you set aside that i dont know. The 30 or 35 me believes of the Freedom Caucus who would rather cut the budget than take care of these priorities, youre talking about a lot of people that hear from constituents at home and understand that we cant be doing these things. It is not Just Research for science and medicine. Its things like lowincome heating. Or meals on wheels. Or head start. There are an awful lot of Popular Programs that americans like and have depended on for many years that i can tell you from my own part and i think this is true across the aisle from the Appropriations Committee we will be studiously ignoring the president s budget on those things. All right. How many people are on the Appropriations Committee . About about 40. 40 . Yeah. About 40. Okay. Oh. We didnt have enough. Okay. All right. [ laughter ] okay. With being on the Appropriations Committee, how is it working with republicans and are you able to get goals accomplished . Well, again, i really enjoy working with the republicans on the Appropriations Committee. I tell you. The overall chair of the entire Appropriations Committee is a man named rodney freeling hizen. A very germane, a very civil person. A real gentleman. And a person that hes you know, if everybodys throwing around political ep paths about everyone hes the last one to do that. Hes a practical person. And he likes to get the job done. I really look forward i just got on this committee. And were kind of gearing up now to do our work. So check back with me later. Ill let you know how much i like it. What steps this is this is small writing here. What steps are being taken in the house to have President Trump release his tax returns . Okay. And a bunch of questions here. But yeah. Theres a bill. One of the democrats introduced a bill in the house. You remember from sesame street, you know, before they cut the budget for public television, you know, you remember from sesame street how bills work. Im just a bill. Bills get assigned to committee. But its all about whos in charge. Right now the republicans are in charge of the house. And that means they control everything that happens other than the introduction of bills and they cant really control what the democrats say on the floor of the house. But other than that, they control what bills come up for votes in committee. And if its a bill they dont favor, it doesnt even come up with committee. Now, there is a bill. I believe it went to the oversight in Government Reform Committee about forcing the president to release his tax returns. But remember, the end of the story from sesame street . If the house passes it and the Senate Passes it it goes to the white house for signature by the president. Raise your hand if you think the president s going to sign that bill. But i will say this. I think that there is an outside chance that the democrats will win the house in 2018. [ applause ] its hard to predict. But if it did happen, what that would mean, not only would it mean that the democrats have control of the committee agendas, but they also have control of the Oversight Committee which has subpoena power. And if the democrats got and if youre in the minority in the Oversight Committee you do not have subpoena power. If you get into the majority you do. My dear friend representative Elijah Cummings is the ranking democrat on the Oversight Committee. And by his request, i actually also continue to serve on that committee. If the democrats win the house back, representative cummings will have the power of subpoena and that committee can subpoena anything and anyone in the United States. Including the president of the United States. So things may get very interesting if that happens. How long will that take . [ laughter ] well, they have to the election is in november of 2018. All right. The other one is, what steps are being taken to preserve and improve medicare . Medicaid and Social Security . What about having the federal government negotiate drug prices . What is your position . [ applause ] okay. The first question is, preserving medicare. Medicare is so important to me that i actually when i first ran i called myself a roosevelt democrat. And because medicare and Social Security go hand in hand and it was roosevelt who prety much invented Social Security and then medicare came in in the 60s. These programs you often hear about doomsday dates for those programs, dont you . Social security goes insolvent in 2034. Medicares belly up in, you know, 2025. Whatever it is. What is that . What does all that mean . Well, first of all, its not recent. They have always had insolvency dates on those programs. They have always had them and they just adjust the years closer or further away. So, for example, depending on what else is happening in the federal government. When obamacare came in, that actually pushed medicares insolvency date back Something Like 11 years so its something that the economists wrestle with and now does it mean, well, if the insolvency date for Social Security is 2034, does that mean theyre out of money, no more money in the bucket . No. You cant pay 100 krentds on the dollar for what is owed. So that means thats the date they start paying 99 cents on the dollar. It doesnt mean ka put but it means trouble. And so, the question is what is being done in the house preserve these programs . Theres something. If you get a chance when you get home, fire up the computer and plug in Social Security 2100. And Social Security 2100 is a bill that my dear friend john larson from kth kconnecticut aud and im a cosponsor. Raises the cap. If you ever notice, you pay in. You pay in to the programs until you make a certain amount and if youre lucky enough to hit that amount you stop paying. Thats a good one. And thats what thats what the idea is, that they raise that cap up. Actually, the way larsons bill works is that you have kind of a donut hole. You pay in to a certain amount and then you stop and then once you make over 450,000 a year, you start paying in again. Good. And just give me the 450,000 a year. Right. Youre willing to make that sacrifice. Oh good. So the benefit of that and the bills get scored by the congressional budget office. Cbo. And its a Nonpartisan Group of accountants that look at bills and see what kind of affect they have and they scored that and they said that that would extend the life, that would push back that doomsday date for medicare and Social Security for 75 years. Yeah. So, but i think we need to do it sooner rather than later because what youve got is youve got this disconnect between the outflow and the income. And the closer that disconnect gets, in timewise, the more pain is going to be involved in closing the gap. So the further apart we can do that, the sooner we can address it the better because it becomes a more gradual change. So, and the answer is im in favor of that. Im a cosponsor. So, moving along, last Month Congress voted on hr 998, the scrub act. Searching for and cutting regulations that are unnecessarily burdensome. Which established a Bipartisan Committee to review regulations 15 years or older that are unfunded man dates, obsolete, duplicative or harmful to wage growth. You voted against this bill. I did vote against it. And the question is, why . And the answer is that that bill remember, i talked about i was dissatisfied that they had a lack of hearings about about the American Health care act. The problem with this the way they structured this bill was that they established a commission. The commission comes up with a list of regulations. I dont call them regulations. I call them protections. Yes. [ applause ] okay. Yes. Thank you. But the commission is to come up with a list of the protections that they think are obsolete or duplicative or harmful to wage growth. They come up, you know, this Blue Ribbon Panel basically comes up with their list of the protections that they hate the most. And then it goes to congress for one vote. Up or down. It could be hundreds. It could be thousands of protections. All at once with one vote of congress. Sweeping them away. On the word of some panel thats a Blue Ribbon Panel and i dont know what their priorities are and you didnt elect them. So thats why i voted no. [ applause ] keep in mind there are some bad regulations out there that need to go. But we need to go over them carefully one at a time and make sensible decisions. Are you willing to work with all parties on fixing health care and saving planned parenthood . The answer is, yes. Can you tell senator toomey to meet with us . All right. What can be done to encourage the Justice Department to uphold the civil rights gains of the past 50 years . If they dont support these laws what are our options . I think thats something that we all have to work on together. To tell you the truth. What can we do to encourage the Justice Department to stand up for the civil rights laws . We have to raise our voices. If you care about that and you want to be heard, we have to raise our voices. Dont think they dont listen. They do listen. Democracy works. And i mean, i can write bills until im blue in the face but im in the minority in congress and i can write letters and i do write letters. And i and for me its a core values standing up for the civil rights gains of 50 years ago. I was at selma for the 50th anniversary of bloody sunday when president obama gave that wonderful, majestic speech. John lewis is a personal, dear friend of mine. And i deeply care about these things but i cant do it by myself. We all have to come together and make it clear to the people in the Justice Department that we will not brook, we will not tolerate them walking away from these standards of american decency. Will you join a bipartisan call for an independent investigation into transactions between russia and all me believes of the Trump Administration . Sure. [ laughter ] no problem. Will you back support and help strengthen the Public School system despite the efforts of betsy devos . Yes. Yes. And i tell you. I do that because i believe Public Education is the education is how we better ourselves in this economy. And if you cut off the ability to better ourselves so only the people born on third base get to go to the best institutions, youre not being fair. Thats a political view. And thats the one that i hold to. Question, if an Infrastructure Initiative ever goes forward, how can Congress Protect the american taxpayer from privatization scams . Good question. Yeah. This is make no mistake. I am not here to trash donald trump. Hes the president. He won the election. And not by majority. And he won it by the rules that were laid out. And i have to work with them. But he said some things that i kind of like and the thing he really said that i like a lot is that he wants to invest a trillion dollars in american infrastructure. Thats good. I didnt read the footnotes but that didnt show up in his budget. But that includes the wall. But see. That gets back to when i said i dont think that the president really read that budget, thats a hopeful thing. Thats that is my hope. Because i think i think he really does want to invest in american infrastructure. And i dont think he has a choice about how we do it. There was some noise made about giving tax credits to big corporations so that they can they can, you know, redo the infrastructure with trickle down economics. And i will fight that. And i think that that will be fought on a bipartisan basis out of the Appropriations Committee because remember what congress does. The essential functions of the u. S. House is to tax and to spend. And we all spend all of our time fighting over how much to tax, how much to spend, who to tax and what to spend on. Thats in a nutd shell most of what all the hot air, all the gas in washington is about. But the way its been done ever since the founding of the House Appropriations committee in the 1790s has been to have the appropriators carefully, pain stakingly go through what were going to spend money on and do it in a transparent way. So that so that there are hearings and people are heard. And we come to sensible decisions on how the money is spent and what its spent on. And for my own view, its about making sure look. If were going to redo american infrastructure, the roads, the bridges, the rail systems, the water systems, the sewer systems, broadband internet, all of the things that are going to grease the skids for the American Economy and the American People, if were going to do that, there are people who are going to be doing that work. And i want to make sure they get treated right and paid fairly. So thats why thats why its hopeful to me that i dont think the president read that budget. I think he does want to do infrastructure and i think theres going to be significant republican support that we do it the right way, the way we have always done it through appropriations. Question, who are the democrats grooming for president in 2020 . Not me some significant milestones have been achieved with the pen east pipeline. On april 7th, firk released the eis recognizing but ignoring significant environmental impacts. What will you do or can you do in your office to assist landowners who are concerned not only for the environmental impacts but the risks and threats of imminent domain . Thats a well stated question. Heres where i am on that. I think pipelines are with us. Pipelines create jobs. Pipelines move the natural gas. We have factories springing up in eastern pennsylvania, in connection with generation of electricity. Electricity. In a Perfect World we wouldnt have to do anything. The money would just flow to us automatically, but it doesnt work that way and we have to we have to think about jobs and the economy. As far as pipelines, again, there are jobs involved in laying pipelines. And these are highpaying families, sustaining jobs. And so there are voices who are in favor of doing away with pipelines and doing away with gas, drilling. And i understand those voices and they come from people that i care about, but im not there. I see natural gas as a bridge fuel. I think we need to get to Sustainable Energy. We need to get wind and solar powering this nation, but its we cant do it right away, and theres going to be too much suffering if we were to outlaw that right away. And i speak to you as somebody who is sticking up for the environment is one of my top priorities. What im looking at is the tradeoff. Either you do it with coal or you do it with natural gas. And i know thats not going to please everybody. Its also not going to please everybody what i tell you about the laying of pipelines. Every time a pipeline goes through, firk has the power of Eminent Domain. They get to decide the rout and whose land it goes over. It could go over your private property and all they have to do is give you reasonable compensation, fair market compensation for your land. And thats the law. That is the law, the way it works. And so what we get a lot in our office is we get folks that call up and say, well, wait a minute. Why is this pipeline coming over my land instead of farmer jones land a mile away . And thats legitimate question. And so the point ive been taking is firk needs to be transparent about how they pick their routs. I think thats fair. I dont think its overly burdensome on firk or the Pipeline Companies to explain how they pick their rout. Because otherwise people are going to go away thinking, wait a minute, nobody told me why the pipeline has to come through my property. My great grandfather homesteaded this land. You know, this has been in the family for generations, but farmer jones down the road and maybe he thinks, i know farmer jones he made a political contribution to a state senator and so hes tied in. Thats why he doesnt have this in his backyard but i have it. And that may be a bunch of hooey, but people will think the way people think when you dont have transparency. So i think at the very least that were entitled to is an honest explanation of why the routs were picked and why thats the best rout. [ inaudible ]. If we were to make a stronger effort to be more progressive about that, we wouldnt have to worry about Eminent Domain and pipelines. [ applause ]. I want to repeat that. Thats a good question. If you didnt hear that, the question was if we had stronger advocacy for renewable and stronger Sustainable Energy we wouldnt have to worry about Eminent Domain for pipelines and things like that. Thats absolutely true. And i want you to know that i am absolutely in favor of every kind of tax advantage we can give to Sustainable Energy, solar and winds. It was a major victory. People dont realize it but even in a republicandominated house we can score victories by taking advantage of the dysfunction among the republicans in the house. So, for example, about two and a quarter years ago it was december. We had to keep the government funded. Paul ryan did not have the votes to fund the government because the Freedom Caucus were revolting. And he had to come to the democrats to get votes. One of the things we insisted on was a five year solar and wind tax credit which had not happened until that moment. That is a small victory, but thats the kind of thing were able to scratch out in the current environment. Democrats went back to the house, went back to the senate, went back to the white house. You can expect to see a very aggressive, progressive approach on Renewable Energy and i will be leading the charge. [ applause ]. But thank you for that question. Question, what can or should the dnc do to improve representation in congress . And what, if anything, can congress do about the terrible gerrymandering. [ applause ]. Well, there are efforts afoot about fair distributes. I think it makes sense. Its interesting congress doesnt control that. Its the individual states. If you followed it, california pushed through a fair district bill and it passed and the governor signed it and they have districts that are recognizable gio metric shapes. [ laughter ]. Did you ever see a map of my district . [ laughter ]. That is a shape that does not occur in nature. Who drew that . This is the question is who drew that . In pennsylvania here is how it happens. Its an ordinary bill. It happens every ten years. We do a census every ten years. Thats why they do it to make sure that members of congress represent equal numbers of people throughout the country. And, in fact, we expect because in proportion to other states pennsylvania is losing population and will probably lose a member of congress after the next dissen yell census. But they do that census before they draw the congressional map. The way they draw the congressional map is it begins with a bill in the state house and then it goes to the state senate and then it goes to the governor. The current map was drawn by a republican state house, a Republican State Senate and was signed into law by a republican governor. And thats why we have, you know, in a state with a majority democratic registration we have 13 republicans and 5 democrats in our congressional delegation. So, what can we do about it . Again, raise our voices. The problem is, you know, the democrats once they get back in charge of the process theyre going to say, now its our turn. And then youre going to be youre going to be youre going to be calling them up. So, now but the question is what can the dnc do . And they cant do anything. Its a harrisburgdriven thing. The dnc is not in control of that. I cant read this one. This question is where do you specifically stand on the toxic use of bio solids or sludge . Im for all sensible protections, not regulations. Thats another thing the trump budget did was it cut the epa by a third. You know, in addition to wiping away masses of protections all at once, they want to do away with a third of the people who were supposed to enforce their protections. Yeah. Im against the toxic use of biosolids in violation of epa regulations. Pardon me . [ inaudible ]. I couldnt hear you. Can you specifically say how you are against it. Okay. But what will you do to help us . I mean, you know, if you do not eat organic food chances are you are eating food grown in toxic waste. Any animal that eats that toxic grain or grass, youre consuming that. It is like bio this is not a good thing and it needs to be screamed from the rooftops and why are people allowing it to go by . Why are Companies Getting away with this . People are being poisoned. Children are being poisoned every single day they consume food and no one, no one is screaming really loud that has the power to. No, i appreciate that. Will you stay after . I want to put you in touch with some of my legislative staff. I have an equal number of people on my legislative staff that i want to put you in contact with. Appreciate it. Okay. Why did we drop 26,171 bombs on iraq and syria in 2016 okay. Well, that was a decision of the department of defense. And the only thing i can say thats relevant on that is that that came out of the white house. It came out of the executive branch. And whoever is in the white house whether you like them or hate them theyve been in my view, theyve been overreaching on the use of military force. Not to say specifically that this is a mistake or thats a mistake. I think just generally they need to check in with congress about it. And if youve been following it theres something called the aumf, the authorization for the use of military force and the executive branch and the department of defense have been operating off of the authorization the aumf that was enacted in 2002 and 2003. So everything theyve done since then theyve, you know, done some kind of a legal limbo dance to connect it up to their authority under those very old bills, those very old acts that gave the president authority. I am absolutely in favor of redoing the authorization for the use of military force because. [ applause ]. Because congress is supposed to be involved in these decisions, and right now its not. Pardon . Whats stopping congress from carrying out their function . Again, its impossible to just refer generally to congress. You have to talk about which house and who is in charge of which house. Where i work its the republicancontrolled house of representatives. Every single bill that comes out of there is what the republicans want, what the Republican House leadership wants. If they wanted to curtail the use of military force by the white house, they could bring it up. And i wish they would. So whats stopping them . Nothing. [ inaudible ]. That doesnt happen often in washington. An example is the Supreme Court judge that was just nominated i felt that the democrats could have done a better job of negotiating something the democrats knew for a fact that judge was going to be nominated but yet they let that opportunity pass by to make a point. Okay. So if you didnt hear, the question was about really democratic activism and pushing back against things happening in the congress and by the president. Yeah. Those are political decisions. So, for example, the nomination and confirmation of judge gorsuch was mentioned. That was actually unfortunate because they had to abandon the filibuster rule in the senate. The comfort is there they only abandon the filibuster rule for that case. Its still in place for ordinary legislation. Now, this is important because for tactical purposes it means that if something is a core democratic value, for example, and the senators who are democratic know that, they can refuse to let something come up. They can filibuster it, and they do. And there are a lot of bills that have passed through the republicanheld house since ive been there that simply died in the senate even though the republicans controlled the senate. And so when they abandoned the filibuster rule to get judge gorsuch through i was disappointed because it means a dismantling of the kind of bipartisan spirit that youre used to in the u. S. Senate. Thats a long discussion what you brought up, but thank you for the question. How are you going to prevent this president from bankrupting this country with travel costs for his family and himself . [ applause ]. Im open to your ideas on that. Remind, remind, remind. Were american. We have short attention span, every single day. Well, well, well. If he paid his taxes. Everybody hear that . That is the correct answer. The correct answer is that we have to raise our voices together if thats the way we feel about it. And dont stop. The renewable thrj job sector occupies three times number of jobs in the coal industry. What can be done to bring more of those jobs to your district . Its something that i think about a lot. I was in washington one morning and i saw across the street a panel van and it said Solar Innovations, pine grove, pennsylvania. And i walked across and they were installing solar panels. Pine grove is in my district. So i got all excited. And i ran across the street. And theres a couple of guys lugging heavy stuff into this house. And i said Solar Innovations pine grove . And they said get lost, buddy. But undeterred i wrote down the phone number on the side of the truck and i called up and indeed theres a Wonderful Company in pine grove that employees upwards of 300 people. They make well, they started with greenhouses, but they graduated to a high efficiency glass. And they use it for highend buildings and, oh, i think they built a house out in seattle for one of these software zillionares and they sold glass for High Efficiency Energy homes in russia. They also power their entire operation with their own solar array, which provides 115 of all of the electricity they use in their processes at the factory. So, its there. Its happening. And i look for it. Its true that the number of jobs, of people actually digging coal is Something Like 75,000 versus in the neighborhood of half a Million People working in solar and Renewable Energy. The other thing we have in our district is wind. And we have a bunch of wind farms. Its funny because thats also an area where you get local landowners complaining about the placement of wind generators. But im all in on that. I think that the costs will continue to come down. You dont pollute the atmosphere. You dont pump carbon into the atmosphere. And you dont have to go exploring for the sun. You know where it is. And the wind is there, too. And you know what . One thing i really like about Sustainable Energy is who are the people who will benefit the most when Renewable Energy is prevalent . The poor people. The poor people. Because we all pretty much use the same minimum amount of energy. And if youre spending a third of your income on the energy needs you have, imagine having a third of your income back or close to it. Its important to me. Would you support a singlepayer plan . I assume were talking about healthcare. And the answer is if it came up for a vote i would vote yes. But im not going to pull the wool over your eyes and suggest it will come up for a vote any time soon. It will not come up for a vote during a republicanheld congress. Even if the democrats come back in charge remember the democrats were in charge when the aca came up and there was this massive fistfight over what was going to happen to the forprofit Health Insurance companies and they ran ads with what was it harry and ethel or yes. Scaring people that they would never be able to see their favorite doctor Marcus Wellby ever again. And make no mistake youre talking about putting an entire industry out of business. It isnt that youre annoying them with protections or regulations. Youre threatening them with extension. So they will fight with everything they have to bring to the battle. Theyve done it before. They won so theyll be encouraged to do it again. So i think theres a wide, wide gulf separating us here from single payer, but the reason i like it is that medicare works on a 3 administrative fee, not 20 , not 18 , 3 . The other thing that was brought up is what about medicare negotiating drug prices. Theyre not allowed to. Why arent they allowed to . Because the pharmaceutical industry has the power not to let that happen. And i would be all in favor of allowing that negotiation to happen, but there again youre talking about an entire industry that has a lot of money and a lot to lose. So theyre going to fight that tooth and nail all the way through. Dont expect to see that go through any time soon either. What is the Healthcare Plan for congress . And can we all get in it . Im on obamacare. Im on is everybody on obamacare . I dont know. Do you choose for yourselves or everybody gets the same thing . I chose it for myself and for my family because i dont want to be a hypocrite. [ applause ]. And its kind of expensive not to be a hypocrite because i have to pay for a plan that covers me at home and scranton and also covers me down in washington, d. C. But dont make any mistake about it, im darn grateful to have this job. And im so proud to represent all of you. [ applause ]. Im going to take one more question from the floor. Does somebody have a burning question that needs to be answered before we leave . You won the lottery. Oh, thank you. Im very disturbed about the defunding of meals on wheels, which is so incredibly important. Not just for dignity but so important. And i just want to know what you think because its so desperately needed. It astonished me thank you for the question. Everybody hear, what about meals on wheels. They really want to defund that. Its awfully important to keep it going. I agree with that. I was astonished that that showed up in the president s budget to cut meals on wheels. And they asked did you see this on television . Mull vany was answering questions about this with a draw eye and a cheery expression that well, meals on wheels isnt working. Do you remember he said that . Its not working. No, it wouldnt be working if people were starving to death. Then it wouldnt be working. The fact that people can eat and live and take advantage of the program the Program Works and thank you for raising that question. Im fully in support of it and i can tell you that that is a very Popular Program that i fully expect the House Appropriations committee on both sides of the aisle to stick up for. Everybody, thanks for coming. Thank you