Yuba-Sutter residents were given an opportunity to connect with Congressman Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale, on Thursday evening during a town hall meeting in Marysville, asking a range of questions from drug trafficking to the national debt to parental rights regarding transgender youth.
Before addressing questions from constituents at the FIVE30 Event Center in Marysville, LaMalfa briefly spoke about his involvement with the Farm Bill, a package of legislation passed once every five years that impacts farming livelihoods, how food is grown, and what kinds of foods are grown.
According to the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, the bill covers a wide range of programs that tackle everything from crop insurance for farmers to healthy food access for low-income families.
The current Farm Bill, the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, expires this year, and legislators, including LaMalfa, are working to draft an update.
“The farm part of the Farm Bill – which is what helps keep our commodities under the same head and production on track in this country – is to be our own bread basket. We need to have food security that comes from our country, not imported food,” LaMalfa said on Thursday. “We need to have our food come from here and employ American farms with American workers, American tractors and the whole works. That is what we hope to accomplish with the Farm Bill.”
LaMalfa’s staff also provided information regarding an expanded bill to exempt wildfire payments from federal taxes. In late July, LaMalfa and Congressman Mike Thompson, D-Napa, introduced the Protect Innocent Victims Of Taxation After Fire Act, an expanded version of their bill to prevent fire victims from paying federal income taxes on compensation received from losses suffered during a wildfire.
If passed, this bill would cover payments made from the Fire Victim Trust, a $13.5 billion wildfire settlement for nearly 70,000 victims of the 2018 Camp Fire, 2017 North Bay wildfires and the 2015 Butte Fire, according to LaMalfa’s office.
A similar version of this legislation was designed only to cover claimants of the Fire Victim Trust. The Taxation After Fire Act would remove requirements that limited payments to settlement trust funds, expanding protection to anyone receiving disaster aid payments to reimburse wildfire-related losses, including Zogg Fire victims in Shasta and Tehama counties.
The following is a breakdown of LaMalfa’s response to various questions asked by some of his constituents:
Q: What challenges is the Department of Justice facing in regards to keeping substances like fentanyl away from being trafficked into our communities from across the border?
A: We have people in charge who are not too concerned about securing our border and who are coming in here and what they’re bringing. I’m sorry, but there isn’t another explanation after many months of this going on.
… “A border fence won’t work. A wall won’t work.” Well, it’s certainly a concern where it is. We have a sovereign right and obligation to defend our border. Most of what you’re talking about would be if not 100% solved, 90% controlled by having a formal border process.
We receive hundreds of thousands (of people), it’s amazing that politically there are folks that can get away with thinking this is a great policy. This isn’t all just folks who might be poor, seeking opportunity in this country. There’s also very dangerous people and obviously bringing very dangerous substances and arguments and other things.
… I believe in a strong, enforced, solid border, but also one that has gates with well-oiled hinges and people staffing them that processes those who want to apply for citizenship or work permits or tourist visas or student visas.
Q: What can be done to reinvigorate interest in finishing the Auburn Dam?
A: We were blessed this year by an incredible amount of rainfall and snowpack that made up for a lot of gaps in our water management. The lakes filled up by and large.
In Tulare Lake, the Central Valley has had a history of flooding. We’ve tamed that by and large, except for some incredible flows which overwhelm some of the smaller structures along there.
There are still people cleaning up water over spillways for winter conservation to make sure we’re able to absorb winter flows and not overwhelm dams.
Auburn Dam, if we just built it in the 1960s and 1970s, we wouldn’t have to face a whole bunch of environmental lawsuits and disingenuous posturing on that. It’s taken so long, they ran the clock long enough that the water rights that went with it were taken back by the state.
… If a ray of light suddenly comes out and people become sensible again supporting projects like the Auburn Dam, it would be an amazing help in flood gear. … Auburn Dam for now isn’t going anywhere, so we’re going to push forward to continue.
Q: What are your thoughts on rising national debt?
A: 50% of Congress does at least talk about the national debt and the deficits we’re running, and it seems that 50% of it is OK with continuing to pile it on. A trillion here, a trillion there. I guess from my own thinking on that, controlling spending is one of the things you can’t put a handle on until you start reducing spending item-by-item, and that’s where the shouting starts happening.
… Let’s talk about social security for a minute. It’ll be on the rocks by 2033. Look at the numbers. How do we fix that? There are several ways.
Do we take more out of people’s paychecks? Do we have to have an employer write a higher match? Do we have to cut the level of benefits for each subsequent year people retire? Do we extend the age people are eligible for an older and older retirement age?
Those are things I can think of off the top of my head that we could do so it doesn’t crash by 2033. Do you think we can have an honest conversation about that like we’re trying to have right now without someone saying “LaMalfa wants to get rid of social security and give it over to Wall Street?”
We’re talking about national debt. There needs to be an honest conversation about partisan spending. … There needs to be an honest discussion about how we’re going to solve it.
Q: You recently introduced a bill titled “Protecting Children From Gender Experimentation Act,” meant to prevent gender transitioning procedures for transgender youth. You have also spoken out against the social transitioning of a Chico student, whose mother was not informed of this change. Why are you in support of this?
A: We passed a bill in the house that affirms more parents’ rights on this subject. We see a bill like this to not keep secrets from parents at school when their kid is going through some serious decisions as well as banning the reforming of gender altering procedures on minors.
Kids are in no position because they are not able to vote under the age of 18, get a driver’s license under age 16, own a gun under 18 or 21 depending on what state you’re in, buy tobacco, rent a car, a gazillion things we don’t allow minors to do because we don’t think they have the maturity.
Why in the world are we putting pressure on them to make a decision about gender especially when they’re coerced by likely what they’re reading on the internet or Instagram or Snapchat or TikTok or on the playground at school? Even the education establishment can’t wait to herd them into this process because you had a tendency or some thought that you may be a different gender.
… When that Chico school board voted 3 to 2 that parents should be left in the dark when your child, in this case an 11-year-old girl went in for a counseling session and an hour later marched down with a boy’s name and pronouns to her classroom and teachers and fellow students.
They said that keeping it from the parents is a privacy issue. Who’s privacy are we defending when that girl who’s confused about it was basically coerced, talked into or encouraged to make this change?
Her privacy was violated when that counseling session was outed in front of her classmates and teacher except for what could have been the sanctity of the home with a loving mother.
