Rep. Michael Burgess Town Hall Meeting 7/15/06 - Part II

Editor’s Note: This is the second in a two-part series covering Rep. Michael Burgess’ (R,TX-26) “Town Hall” meeting on 7/15/06 in Roanoke, TX.

If you haven’t read the first part, please read that first. It is more interesting, and will give you more context for some questions.

Read Part I

As I mentioned in the first post, I am an IT Consultant, and not a professional reporter. I did not have the benefit of a tape recorder, so these quotes are my best recollection, based on my paper notes taken during the meeting. I’ve tried to fairly represent what people said. Names have been shortened to protect the privacy of some of the individuals in attendance.

…Now Burgess opens the floor to questions:

Immediately a woman stands up and says “You know what I’m going to ask”, and Burgess says he does.

Q1: Question regarding the “National Animal ID System” – something that affects livestock owners and people with horses that purportedly would require them to notify a government agency every time they move the animal off the property. Burgess doesn’t know much about it, but mentions that he still has the 60 page document the woman gave him at the previous town hall meeting. It comes out that she’s talking about TX HB 1361, which supposedly is already in effect. She claims there’s a “federal voluntary implementation by 2010”.

Burgess: Tries to quell her concerns and states that he’ll have someone look into it. That she can rest assured that something “voluntary by 2010” is unlikely to come to fruition.

Q2: R. L. of Denton: His wife is a Russian Immigrant, a pediatrician, who has been waiting several years on her green-card so that she can get to work. He’s frustrated at the slowness of the bureaucracy and even more frustrated that “illegal aliens might get to the front of the line” when his own wife is here legally, doing things the right way.

Burgess: Well, “I cannot defend the policies of the Department of Homeland Security”. He goes on to sympathize with the man and asks if his office is helping him. The man responds that he has been working with the Lewisville office. Burgess explains that there is currently an 11 year wait for green cards, and goes back into talking about controlling our borders. “Both Northern and Southern” he says. “We have to control the Northern border too, because we have WAY too many Oklahomans coming down”. (At this point APPLAUSE and laughter from the audience)

Q3: What is the government doing to promote mass transport? I think its image should be improved so as to attract the middle to upper-income people.

Burgess: I think the Denton County Transportation Authority (DCTA) has done an excellent job working to get rail service. In order for that to work, DART must meet the DCTA line in Carrollton. Though he doesn’t want to “give any more money to DART”, he will in order to get the line into Carrollton to connect with DCTA. In fact, he says they just now appropriated the full $700 million for DART. He goes on to explain that he thinks DART needs to do a better job “capturing more in the fare box” in Dallas. He says he doesn’t have a car in Washington, and that he uses the Metro there for transportation. He names the fare he pays and implies that the fare is fair.

Follow-up Question – same citizen: I’d like to ask you about “corporate socialism” in the form of company provided health care benefits. The woman explains that she thinks the practice of employers providing health-care benefits should be ended because it is a form of socialism that must be stopped and it devastates families when they lose employment and lose their coverage at the same time.


Burgess: (seeming to realize that she’s an extremist nut at this point) says he wouldn’t necessarily equate it with socialism, but tried to give a brief history of how the practice got started and that it had something to do with wage controls, and that company provided health-care was a way to get around wage controls by providing value to the employee without breaking the law, and that since then generations have come to expect it, and that it’s just how it works now, and that it couldn’t be stopped. With the government de-regulation of HSA’s and MSA’s, more and more individuals are now becoming insured. He says there are now only 41.2 million people here without insurance, and that this number represents a small decline, that he thinks is attributable to HSA’s and MSA’s.

Followup #2 – same nut: But we should “cut the leash”…

Burgess: Disagrees and thinks that what we need to do is make more options available, and that it would have to represent a very gradual social change – not something you could do overnight.

Followup #3 – same nut: “Well, I do think that there are some things the government could do as far as screenings that would detect things like Diabetes and such and thus reduce ER costs”.

Burgess: (seeming slightly annoyed that this lady won’t shut up already, but still being gracious) I agree. Yes, next question?

Q4: J. D. from Keller: I have an idea I haven’t heard anyone else mention, and I thought I’d propose it to you: I propose that we pass a tax on alien labor – something like $.50 to $1 per hour on legal alien labor and $2 – $3 per hour on illegal alien labor. That would be a disincentive to employers, and they’d quit hiring them because they don’t want to pay the tax.

Burgess: Well, I’d say that the employer in this case has already chosen to break the law, and that they wouldn’t’ pay this tax anyway. By the way, there is some rhetoric from the other side about illegal aliens taking jobs that Americans “wouldn’t’ do”, but I don’t believe that. I think the illegal alien labor force is driving down the cost of labor, and is reducing the prices that employers are willing to pay for certain work. I think these ARE jobs that Americans would do if there were not illegals here doing it for less. So I’d disagree with your proposal, but nevertheless, I might mention it to some of the more impassioned members of my party.

Follow-up from same person: But with this, you could use the Department of the Treasury to enforce the law with employers.

Burgess: Disagrees. Again, these employers have already chosen to break the law. By the way, we have a pilot program that allows employers to match Names and SSNs. Right now by law an employer can’t question someone’s identification if they produce a document that somewhat resembles a real ID. They’re prohibited by law from doing that, but we have a pilot program that allows employers to match up SSNs with Names. It takes less than a day and only costs about $1.50 per name. We could even further subsidize that. It has a very high success rate. 90% of the time when the name and SSN matches, the person has the legal right to work here. Likewise, 90% of the time, when they don’t match, the person does not have the legal right to work here. Admittedly, there are occasional mistakes with the SSA getting numbers mixed up, or people change their names as a result of getting married and such. Employers should all have to play by the same rules.

Follow-up from same person: It makes me angry that we have voter registration cards that have Spanish on them. Illegal aliens can just show up with a water bill and register to vote with no ID. We shouldn’t have aliens voting, and we shouldn’t have Spanish ballots. (At this point APPLAUSE from the audience)

Burgess: (I didn’t catch Burgess’s response here due to the applause, but I think it was just a polite acknowledgement).

Q5: “Admiral F., retired military” My question is about I’m not sure the number of the bill, I think it’s house bill 504, which would prevent the slaughter of horses for foreign consumption in the US. Do you support this?

Burgess: Well, yes, I think “any time we can poke a finger in the eyes of the French, we should do so.” (LOUD APPLAUSE at this point)

Followup question – same man: I’m concerned that Defense spending is too low as a portion of GNP – going down.

Burgess: Spoke briefly about defense spending, and that it’s considered a “discretionary item”. 52% of the budget is spent on entitlements. Medicaid alone is $330 Billion and has been growing at a rate of 7.7%. What we did was we rolled back the rate of growth by .3%
With Student loans, what we did was we reduced subsidies to lenders in the form of guarantees of their 9% rate of return, which is better than you and I can get.

Not sure what the context was, but he talked briefly about child support enforcement, and that they have “too much of an administrative budget”.

He speaks again about the appropriations process, saying that there is pork in it. He says it should be tight and transparent. But he says that he’s “not going to unilaterally disarm”. He says that 183 is an earmark, and I-35 E is an earmark.
(I did note that Burgess once sponsored a $5 million bill for expanding I-35 E through Denton County. That bill died in committee. It’s a shame. That could have bought several hundred feet of roadway.)

Time: 3:08pm

Q6 – Person asks about the matter of local law enforcement not being able to enforce federal immigration laws.

Burgess: I can’t defend the practice. I’ve heard a lot from border county sheriffs. They ask for DHS money...


Follow-up by same person: What about this Trans-Texas-Corridor. I’ve heard this thing will run all the way up to the Northern border. It will have a customs facility in Kansas City, staffed with Mexicans. The funding is private, and they’re going to charge a toll, but they’re using eminent domain to grab the land.

Burgess: I’ve only recently begun to hear about this. I don’t know a lot of the details. But something this large is going to take a long time to do. Talks about the growth of our area and how there will need to be infrastructure – roads and power plants. Mentions that TXU wants to put in 12 new coal-fired power plants, and he doesn’t know that these plants and the toll way are necessarily the answers we need.

Follow-up by same person: Complains that they went to an open meeting of the TxDOT, and they’re all acting like it’s a “done deal”.

Burgess: Said something along the lines that it is probably not as much of a done deal as they think, but didn’t condemn it.


Q7: A Latina teacher from Keller schools gave a short speech about why she thought that we as Americans should “Respect the English Language” (More applause from the Audience)

Burgess at this point mentions again about his campaign to get the Congressional Gold Medal for Byron Nelson. He says that he’s got to get the Senate to pass the bill, and every week he tries to meet with someone on some Senator’s staff – he mentions that Senators are much too busy to talk to lowly representatives. He tells the audience that he’s gotten Senator Clinton’s sponsorship. He also mentions that though he and John Murtha disagree on a lot of things, Murtha has signed on, so this is a truly bipartisan bill.

At this point he dismisses the town hall, and people leave or crowd around to ask him questions. I snap a few pictures and leave.


As you can see, there was at least one other Democrat in attendance. (This is not my car)