I went to a town hall tonight in Little Rock. When I walked in about 10 minutes until time to start, it was a standing room only crowd in a church sanctuary that seats 750 people.
I leaned up against the wall at the back of the sanctuary, and an older gentleman next to me remarked about the crowd size. I asked him, “I wonder when the last time this church was this full?” And he said, “I go to this church, and it probably hasn’t been this full since the Civil War.”
Matt Cleveland
I’m glad I went. Chris Jones moderated and took us to church, and I heard several moving stories from regular everyday Arkansans who spoke to the moment we find ourselves in.
One woman who spoke was a sixth-generation family farmer. Until this week. Her family had to make the heartbreaking decision to sell the farm. They grew corn and rice and soy beans and wheat. And she said there is not a single commodity that is profitable for family farmers right now, so they couldn’t survive. She said agriculture is the single biggest industry in Arkansas, but we’ve not had a new farm bill since 2018, and we have a senator who is chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee.
Another woman who spoke described herself as a steward of public lands and said she has helped develop waterways all over Arkansas. She said Arkansas has more than 4 million acres of public land, which brings in more than 4 billion dollars in tourism every year. Yet, our National Park employees are being fired by Elon Musk and DOGE because they consider them waste, fraud and abuse. These folks add incalculable value to our state. They are not waste.
“Maybe if legal immigration wasn’t so difficult, we wouldn’t have so many with illegal crossings.”
A Mexican American citizen spoke to the value immigrants add to our communities and about how difficult it is to emigrate to the U.S. legally when it can take 20-30 years to be allowed entry when you have a family member sponsoring you. Maybe if legal immigration wasn’t so difficult, we wouldn’t have so many with illegal crossings.
A veteran spoke about how there are 55,000 veterans who live in the 2nd District of Arkansas. He said these folks (and their families) rely on the VA for benefits they fought for. Yet Trump plans to cut the VA by 83,000 workers, while it already is short 60,000 workers. They sacrificed, knowing their government would take care of them when they returned home, but now it’s turning its back on them.
A first-generation high school graduate who is now a scientist spoke about how every dollar received from National Institute of Health adds $2.62 to the Arkansas economy. It’s an investment that makes an impact on our state’s health outcomes, as well as our economy. Again, not waste.
Lots of folks shared their stories and spoke their minds tonight in an old church, and it was a beautiful thing. Too bad our elected officials who were invited to address these citizens’ concerns couldn’t be bothered to show up and instead were a couple miles down the road at a $7,000-a-plate fundraiser for Sen. Tom Cotton.
We need elected officials who work for the people of this great state to help solve the problems that affect real everyday Arkansans, not pick fights about fake culture war issues they make up to divide folks and score political points.
They have broken their social contract with the people of Arkansas who have paid into Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid for generations, and they are now planning on cutting benefits to pay for another tax cut for the wealthiest in our country. They have overplayed their hand, and they have overstayed their welcome as our representatives. Vote them out.
Matt Cleveland is a graduate of Ouachita Baptist University and lives in Searcy, Ark. This article originally appeared as a post on Facebook and later was published as an op-ed in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
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