“Okay, you go ahead and laugh! You don’t give a damn about what people think in this area,” said instructor of journalism John Blair to Congressman Larry Bucshon at Monday’s town hall.
Blair, the third audience member to ask the representative for the eight district a question, was quickly escorted out of Mitchell Auditorium shortly after his outburst at Bucshon’s first town hall since his election in November.
“I thought this was a town hall?” Blair asked as he was told to leave. “I’m not being threatening.”
Blair said he was just mimicing the antics of the Tea Party during liberal congressmen’s town halls, and he wanted to make an impact on Bucshon.
“I knew that if I stood up and was polite to him, it would have gone in one ear and out the other,” Blair said. “He is just a big-business conservative that has this right-wing ideology…His record is horrible, that’s what I wanted to point out. He doesn’t care about the health of the people in this region.”
The audience of less than forty did not see any more excitement during the rest of the town hall, with Bucshon answering questions from a mostly supportive audience.
“It’s good that he comes out here and represents his district, having town hall meetings,” junior political science and economics major Jordan Whitledge said. “It’s what more of our elected officials need to do.”
The town hall lasted roughly an hour, with Bucshon questioned about topics ranging from U.S. involvement in Libya to the nation’s budget woes.
“Everyone agrees we need to cut spending,” Bucshon said.
Addressing the issue of education, Bucshon said the government needs to find more effective and cost-efficient ways to educate students.
“We’ve been spending a lot more money per student than a lot of other countries,” Bucshon said. “For many years the federal government spent a trillion dollars at least on education…The money has not resulted in success as far as comparing our students to the rest of the world.”
Junior political science major Tyler Hammond is an office intern for Bucshon. He said it has been interesting watching the representative hone his public speaking and presentation skills, and he emphasized the importance of such town halls to USI students.
“With him [Bucshon] being from here, he knows a lot of the needs of the community,” Hammond said. “USI students have a direct link between getting their voices out and their representative in D.C.”
