Tolkkinen: $10 to see Rep. Fischbach, and they didn’t even get to ask their questions

OTTERTAIL, MINN. - U.S. Rep. Michelle Fischbach, R-Minn., finally came face-to-face with her critics on Thursday, but they had to pay $10 to see her. And none of them was allowed to speak to her directly.

She arrived through a back door, went to the lectern of a conference room at Thumper Pond Resort in Ottertail and was whisked out through the same door when it was over. There was no walking through the crowd, no smiles and small talk for those who had come and no pressing the flesh or pretending to care about their concerns. No selfies for social media or for posterity.

Fischbach is adept at dodging hard questions and people who disagree with her. She even dodges people who might not necessarily disagree with her but want to better understand her positions.

Fischbach has ignored the pleas of groups like Minnesota Indivisible and the League of Women Voters to meet with the public in a town hall meeting. She has also turned down several of my requests for interviews. The only interviews she seems to give are to conservative radio stations.

But she agreed to meet with the conservative Twin Cities-based Center of the American Experiment, which hosted a well-publicized event open to anyone who wanted to pay $10. The proceeds all went to the center and not to the congresswoman.

Through the small town of Ottertail, well over 100 protesters lined the sidewalk, some holding up signs that emphasized that they live in her district (earlier this month, she dismissed similar protests as “garbage” instigated by outsiders).

The outdoor protesters outnumbered those who came to hear her speak. And in the conference room, her supporters seemed to be outnumbered by those who were either against her, were looking for answers to their concerns or simply wanted to hear their congressional representative for themselves.

There were farmers, people concerned about climate change, retirees and people with health issues. There were some whose booming voices marked them as seasoned protesters. Local officials seem to have stayed away.

Fischbach represents a wide swath of western Minnesota, a district of farms, lake homes, resorts and small towns. It skews older and poorer than the rest of the state. About a quarter of the residents rely on Medicaid to pay for their health care. Medicaid is under the gun, with its oversight committee ordered by congressional leadership to cut some $880 billion in funding.

If you’ve ever been on Medicaid (I have), you understand what a lifeline it is for the people who rely on it.

But Fischbach offered neither empathy nor reassurance to low-income people facing the very real likelihood of the loss of their health insurance.

Instead, she talked about the advantages of telehealth and the (very real) challenges of nursing homes to meet federally mandated staffing ratios.

And she said that the congressional committee tasked with cutting the Medicaid budget hasn’t begun its work.

“We don’t know exactly what’s going to happen yet,” she said.

We might not know exactly, but given that the entire Medicaid budget per year is not quite $900 billion, you can pretty well guarantee that $880 billion in cuts would gut the program.

Her refusal to directly confront the impending cuts to Medicaid prompted one attendee to speak up, permitted or not.

“Telehealth is a smokescreen!” he yelled. “That’s not going to cover up $880 billion cuts to health and human services.”

The event was notable for what was said as well as what wasn’t.

Asked about the 2017 tax cuts that are supposed to expire this year, Fischbach said Congress is working hard to extend them. If they don’t, she said, 55,000 small businesses in western Minnesota will see a tax hike, 77,000 families will lose half of their child tax credit and farmers will have a much harder time trying to pass their family farms on to the next generation.

What American Experiment didn’t press her on, and what she didn’t say, was that those tax cuts have been roundly criticized as favoring corporations and wealthy Americans while adding to the national debt. Nor did she elaborate that the estate tax breaks for farmers are really for the wealthiest farmers, exempting close to $14 million of farmland and assets, or $27 million for a married couple. If the tax cuts expire, $7 million of farmland and assets will still be exempt from estate taxes.

Eventually, American Experiment got around to reading the questions submitted from those present. The most common question was about tariffs.

Fischbach said President Donald Trump is imposing tariffs to even out the imbalance of trade and that some countries have charged the U.S. exorbitant tariffs.

And although the Constitution gives Congress authority over tariffs, she disavowed any ability to fight them.

“The tariffs are handled by the executive branch,” she said. “It is not something we can tell him he can’t do.” She was booed for that.

She emphasized that Congress wants to go after waste, fraud and abuse, and that the country is $38 trillion in debt. I would venture to say that no taxpayer supports waste, fraud and abuse. But Fischbach won’t win over opponents by refusing to meet with them. And she also won’t be pressured to examine public policies that are hurting the country, like tax cuts for the wealthiest people.