- [Announcer] Live from your Public Media Studios, WVIA Presents "Keystone Edition Reports", a public affairs program that goes beyond the headlines to address issues in Northeastern and central Pennsylvania.

This is "Keystone Edition Reports".

And now moderator Larry Vojtko.

- Hello, I'm Larry Vojtko.

Welcome to a special edition of "Keystone Edition Reports," Meet Your Congressman.

We're a month into 2023 and that means lawmakers have returned to the nation's capitol to resume their various legislative duties.

Congressman Dan Meuser of the ninth Congressional District is in his third term in Congress and is serving his first term on the Financial Services Committee and his second term on the Small Business Committee.

He also previously served as Pennsylvania Secretary of Revenue under former governor Tom Corbett.

Congressman Matt Cartwright of the eighth Congressional District is in his sixth term in Congress.

Is a senior member of the House Committee on Appropriations, serves as Vice-Chair of the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition, and also as co-chair of the House Military Depot and Industrial Facilities Caucus.

The congressmen are with us tonight to take part in a respectful, cordial discussion and not a debate.

Now for more information on the congressmen, you can visit their respective websites; cartwright.house.gov and mesuer.house.gov.

Welcome gentlemen.

Thank you for being here at the Sedona Theater.

Well, the last time that we met was last fall for the debates.

Of course, those were two separate events because you were debating other people.

And now we have you together.

First, congratulations on your reelection.

- Thank you.

- And we in that time had a studio audience but they were cautioned not to comment, not to engage at all during those events.

We do have a studio audience again but we are engaging you to participate as well into this discussion.

Now the process is very simple.

WVIA Chris Norton is in the house to facilitate this and we just ask that you go up to the mic that's in the house, state your name, tell us where you're from, and tell us to which congressman you want to address the question.

And of course, you can address the the question to both Congressmen if you will.

However, I do caution you to remember that again, we're trying for a substantive discussion, something that's positive, something that is issue oriented.

And so I ask you to refrain from any questions or comments that might undermine that objective.

So let's go to the first question and we're going to start with a poll.

The recent NPR "PBS NewsHour" Marist poll suggests that the Citizenry of America are just really tired of the hyper-partisanship that has been on display in buildings since I think the election of Barack Obama.

Now in this poll, 74% say that Congress should compromise.

Eight out of 10 Democrats agree to that and 2/3 of Republicans agree to that statement as well.

So Mr. Meuser, how do you personally respond to this feeling among the electorate?

And do you think the House will find ways to work together during this session that's in session now?

- Well, thanks Larry.

Really appreciate being here.

Appreciate everyone and the VIA.

I certainly hope so.

I am a conservative Republican but I brand myself more as a problem solving Republican, if you will, just a problem solving member of the U.S, House.

- [Larry] You are at the Problem Solvers caucus, correct?

- I am on the Problem Solvers caucus.

Currently we have 30 Republicans, 30 Democrats and actually I find that to be sometimes the most productive hour of the week when we meet and we discuss, we find common ground.

Yes, we do negotiate, we certainly cooperate.

And yes, that word compromise does of course come into play as it should in all aspects of life.

So, you know Representative Cartwright and I were just talking about this a little bit earlier before we started, we gotta avoid the cheap shots.

We gotta avoid the hyperbole.

We gotta avoid the shrillness as much as possible on the house floor.

I mean, heck, sometimes I think politics should be banned between nine and five.

We should just be focused on actually governing.

And you know what?

I'm hopeful that this year, it's not an election year for the house, the Senate or the presidency.

Of course '24 is gonna be quite a year but we hopefully, we work together.

I'm committed to it.

I think most Republicans are, I think many Democrats.

I have many colleagues and friends on the other side of the aisle.

Hopefully, we can stick to the truth, to facts and policy that's in the interest of the vast majority, if not all, of our constituents and Americans.

- Mr. Cartwright, what is your view on this?

- First of all, yes, there is the feeling in this country that hyper-partisanship is taking over and that it's worse than ever now.

But I don't think that's true.

Read the book on Alexander Hamilton that was the basis for the show.

The truth is that partisanship was really acrimonious back in Hamilton's day.

That was when members of Congress challenged each other to duels.

That was when people- - Well, he passed away in a duel, right?

That's how he died.

- That's how Hamilton died.

It's when members of Congress would write polemic tracks about each other.

Even Hamilton himself wrote a long, under a pseudonym, he wrote a long attack against John Adams attacking his lineage.

I mean, that's way over the top.

And it certainly is the business model for a lot of members of Congress now that they wanna get national publicity by saying outrageous things either on the right or the left.

That's their business model.

You'll find that Dan Meuser and I are not like that, we're not in that group.

- So your your opinion, if I'm hearing you correctly, it's a perception on the part of the American people that it is more acrimonious than ever but perhaps not held in reality if you study history and the Adams Jefferson battle and Jackson also was Andrew Jackson- - Absolutely.

It's not as bad as it ever has been.

But also it's not as bad as people think because remember, people get their information from the news, okay?

And you know news has to make a living too.

And they have to have articles and pieces that are interesting and maybe involve conflict.

You will never read a newspaper article with the headline, They're All Getting Along Swell This Week on Capitol Hill, that's too boring, they can't sell newspapers like that.

- Okay, so that's what it is?

It's about making sure that they stay in business.

So it then falls to what?

It falls to the citizenry to educate ourselves and learn this, perhaps to use the word more sophisticated about what's going on and then wade our way through all of that information and find it out for ourselves?

- I agree with Matt, there's far more of us that are interested in actually solving problems and getting things done and finding common ground.

And I think the vast majority of the general public prefers that as well.

Nevertheless, talking about it and doing it sometimes gets a little bit tricky too.

And very often, I'll focus on small bills to get through and work in cooperation because sometimes it's easier to hit singles than it is home runs.

But nevertheless, the big issues that are in the national media and frankly are the most important such as border security, such as inflation, such as energy security, such as crime, not necessarily a federal issue but it is, I mean, they wanna see real cooperation that ends in the positive results that are needed in those categories.

- Well, let's move on to this question.

Now that your session is up and running, the campaign's over, let's talk about your efforts to ascertain the priorities of your constituents.

So Mr. Cartwright, what kind of procedures do you have in place, how do you go about finding out what are the most important issues to the people you serve?

- Well, Larry, one of the best ways to do it is what we're doing right now, is have a town hall.

I've done dozens and dozens and dozens of town halls over my 10 years in the Congress.

And I really enjoy doing it.

Typically, we don't get as big a crowd, we might get 20 or 30 people but it's a time to kinda let your hair down and educate people without talking down to anybody.

But you know who focuses on the inner workings of Congress as part of their daily lives?

They don't.

And so sort of kinda lifting the veil on what happens in Washington and how business gets done and people appreciate that.

And I think that the way we convey this to people at events like this, at town halls, unfortunately, during the pandemic, we had to stop having town halls.

I hated that because it interrupted our ability to connect with our constituents.

- Mr. Meuser, tell us about your efforts to hear your constituents.

- Well, I mean, I really just did a town hall yesterday up in the new part of the ninth Congressional up in Bradford County and made several visits along the way.

I was up in Patriot Cove, a great place for hunting and fishing, a 501(c)(3), complete non-profit for veterans.

So we get around a lot when we have district work weeks, sometimes they call it just simply outta session or the district work weeks.

And we stay extremely, extremely busy.

You know, having a great team.

I promised when I was elected first that we would have the best constituent services of 435 members.

And I think perhaps we're almost there.

I mean, I've had people that have been with me for a good four years now.

And just when I was in business, it was always about customer service came first.

It's constituent services come first, we're great at casework, we're great at solving problems.

I tend to say we're in an extremely effective greasy wheel, squeaky wheel that gets the grease.

And that's our focus.

Our focus is about legislation that's in the interest of our district as well as our country, constituent services as mentioned.

Communications, making sure they know what we're doing and we know what they want and project management.

That's very important.

And Matt and I have worked on a couple of very important projects for the area, for mine reclamation to other industry events that affect employment and the quality of life of our area.

- Well, squeaky wheels get things done.

Just getting my colleagues here at WVIA about me.

So we have a question from the audience.

Please identify yourself and- - [Judy] I'm Judy Zabel.

- And where are you from, Judy?

- And I'm from German, I'm in Congressman Cartwright's district.

- [Larry] Make sure that you hold your microphone a little closer.

- I'm in Congressman Cartwright's District from German.

- [Larry] And your question is?

- Congressman, I read on your website, just to refresh my memory before I came, your great interest in our veterans.

I'm interested to know what is coming down the pike to support the veterans especially those that are homeless, those that are having health issues, and what can we as a citizenry do to help you?

- Thank you for that important question.

I will say this, it is true that I talk about veterans all the time and to me it's important not just to talk but to act.

And I wrote a bill called the Camp Lejeune Justice Act four years ago.

It took me four years to get this over the goal line 'cause it's expensive.

If you know about it, at Camp Lejeune, for a period of 34 years, our marines, our marine families and the employees at Camp Lejeune were exposed to astronomically toxic levels of volatile organic compounds, VOCs, they cause cancer as well as a host of other medical problems.

There was no way for these people to get any kind of compensation, let alone treatment.

And first we started with treatment, VA started to recognize that they were entitled to medical treatment but to get just compensation for everything that they and their families went through, there were miscarriages, there were still births, it was awful.

And it took me four years to do it but we got the Camp Lejeune Justice Act over the goal line.

It got packaged together, you may remember the Burn Pits Bill, it's called the Honoring Our PACT Act and it happened last summer.

You remember the comedian John Stewart, he got very involved in pushing that and pushing the Senate to do it.

And I was grateful for his help.

But we got it done and what we're looking at going forward is all of those people moving into the VA medical system to get treatment, the people exposed to burn pits, the people exposed to toxic chemicals all over the place.

That was a big effort and it was a big victory in the last Congress.

Thank you for that question.

- Mr. Meuser, you wanna- - Hi, Judy.

Yeah, absolutely.

If there's any group that deserves the priority of our government services, it's those who fought for our freedoms, who sacrificed, they and their families.

So I think that's a very bipartisan approach.

Fortunately, my first term I was on the Veterans Affairs Committee, the current chairman of Veteran's Affairs, Mike Boast, his office is right next to mine.

So I stay very close to those issues.

We passed the Mission Act, we passed the Improve Act, we passed the Veteran's Choice Act, things have really improved.

And they're nowhere near perfect but just over the last, my first two years the last term and and moving forward.

So there's a lot of good policy that's been put into effect that I think veterans for the most part have appreciated.

And I have over 40,000 veterans in my district.

I also have Fort Indiantown Gap, the largest helicopter training facility for the Army in the country, the Army Reserve.

So just very important.

And I'll tell you this too, our Vas, Wilkes-Barre and Lebanon, I have Lebanon VA in my district as well, I'm there often.

And we work with them, we support them but we make sure they're highly accountable to delivering for our veterans.

It's a big part of the job.

- Yeah, you know what strikes me about veterans?

There are so many veterans who are homeless, we have nonprofits like the Wounded Warriors and things of that sort which is a fine organization, they're doing good work.

But why should an organization like that even exist?

Why don't we take care of the people who put their lives on the line for us and they shouldn't have to worry about something when they come back, especially when they've done several tours of duty?

It is an issue that we all should be concerned about.

- Well, let me jump in there.

Dan's right, I think you were probably up at Hunts for Healing up in Bradford County and I've been there and I was just up at Camp Freedom a couple weeks ago.

Larry, you're never gonna stop the American public from supporting veterans on their own.

There will always be a place for that.

And we welcome that and we cherish that.

But you're right, there's so much more that the government can do to be supportive of the veteran community and I think Dan and I are united in that effort.

- Well, we have another question from the audience and please identify yourself and where you're from, I think I can see that.

But also to which congressman you'd first wanna address your question.

- Thank you.

Welcome, Congressman.

I'm Linda O'Boylesneski, born and raised right down the road in DuPont, Pennsylvania.

In 1991, I had the honor to represent the Commonwealth in the Miss America pageant as Miss Pennsylvania.

And now 32 years later, I get to do it again as Mrs Pennsylvania.

And both times I had the opportunity to partner with the Alzheimer's Association because that is a cause that is very near and dear to my heart, both personally and professionally.

So today I'm here on behalf of not just myself and my family but the 280,000 that are living with Alzheimer's in the state of Pennsylvania and the 401,000 caregivers in the state of Pennsylvania taking care of them.

And by the way, six out of 10 of those caregivers are still working full-time.

So my question today is, first just an ask, and first I'd like to thank Congressman Cartwright on behalf of myself and some of the Alzheimer's advocates here with me today, I would love to thank you for being on the Appropriations Committee and raising the funding for the National Institute of Health and also for being a co-sponsor of ENACT, the Equity in Neuroscience for Alzheimer's Clinical Trials as well as the Caregivers' Support Act for Alzheimer's and NAPA the National Alzheimer's Project Act.

Today I ask both of you, not a question just an ask, to continue to support those initiatives as well as to help us with access to those new FDA-approved treatments and to continue the money for research because we have to find a cure for Alzheimer's.

And I want to be able to support and celebrate our first Alzheimer's survivor because that could be me.

- So Mr. Meuser, you wanna take that first?

- Yeah.

(audience applauding) I've met with the Alzheimer's groups a couple of times in Washington and locally.

I believe I've always been supportive for a number of reasons.

I know how serious this issue is.

I also know that the forecasts are that it's going to be far more pervasive in the future.

There's no quote unquote cure but there are real breakthroughs and whenever I see those in the paper or I get 'em from my staff, I'm very focused on learning more.

As a matter of fact, my daughter Caroline is in med school right now and perhaps heading towards psychiatry and Alzheimer's is something that she's engaged in the research on so she helps keep me updated as well.

It's a very, very serious issue for our country so I look forward to being very supportive, yeah.

- Mr. Cartwright?

- Thank you, Mrs. Pennsylvania, formerly Miss Pennsylvania.

And thank you also right behind you, I see Dr. Glenn Finney, a terrific neurologist who has been incessant advocate for money, for research to cure Alzheimer's.

Dr. Finney knows that my own mother had Alzheimer's and so that's a cause that's near and dear to my heart.

And the pain and the slow long goodbye that people have to go through with that, it's horrendous.

Dan's right.

We're worried about it getting worse as time goes on.

And the best thing that we can do is put money toward research, not only at the National Institutes of Health but also pure scientific research which I fund as part of my subcommittee on commerce, justice, and science.

I fund the National Science Foundation and a lot of times cures come from unexpected research results.

We'll continue to do that.

Thank you so much for the question.

- Thank you.

Well, let's take another question from the audience.

And again, let me just point out that we have a limited amount of time here so try to keep your question as succinct as possible.

Please identify yourself and where you're from and then to which congressman you'd first like to address the question.

- Well, as Representative Cartwright already said, my name's Glenn Finney.

I live in Dallas so Representative Cartwright is my representative.

Representative Meuser is in my neighborhood.

My question as part of the Alzheimer's Association leadership is a follow up.

And really, I know there has been great bipartisan support from Congress historically about Alzheimer's disease and related disorders.

What I'd like to hear from both of you, from your perspective within your parties, your caucuses, what has been the major barrier and I want each of you to answer this, that you've seen to making progress on issues related to Alzheimer's disease and related dementia?

And maybe a quick like one or two thoughts, what you think it's gonna take to get over those barriers and challenges.

- Mr. Cartwright.

- I think you're touching on a central problem with running a federal government is that when you get outta Washington, you know when you first get elected, they say it all the time, you're drinking from a fire hose because there are so many departments and agencies and issues to tackle and so many priorities.

I mean, we have to have an Army and the Navy, right?

And we have to defend ourselves from cyber attacks and we have to think about climate change and we have to figure out how to make pharmaceuticals cheaper for seniors.

We have so many priorities and Alzheimer's is in the mix but it's just one of hundreds of priorities.

All I can tell you, Glenn, is, you know I'll continue to push for research for Alzheimer's because that's a core value.

- Well, to your point about that and to answer the doctor's question, maybe there's a place for the federal government in this but it's not wholly the federal government's job to do this and that there are other institutions, other organizations, and of course, the private sector of scientists and things of that sort that are doing the work as well.

So that is a question that popped in my head as you were answering that, you know?

With all of the prior priorities, maybe we have to find that organization for which it is the priority.

- Yeah, since I've been in Congress now for the last four years and Dr. Finney, you and I have met a couple of times I think.

And I agree with what Matt just said related to prioritizing, that issue as itself falls within the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health, very important committee.

I didn't get on it, although it's a high priority to me, healthcare in general because over the last four years, frankly, all the air being pulled out of the room on, I mean, certainly COVID which was once in 100 years we hope, the priorities sometimes get moved around and we don't focus.

I mean, healthcare should be at the top of all our lists on improvements and adding to and making better.

And it really hasn't been much of a conversation for the last couple years.

I would just offer you this, Dr. Finney, give us your blueprint, all right?

It's the beginning of the year, let's get a reboot on it.

Give us your blueprint of what's needed and we go to work 'cause certainly our tenure, mine now going into my third term and certainly Representative Cartwright's here, we have a lot of relationships on every committee.

And in the end he's on Appropriations as well.

And between you and I, we'll get him to move in the right direction.

(audience laughing) - Well, it turns out that the audience is making my job very easy indeed because we have yet another question from the audience.

Identify yourself and where you're from and ask your question.

- My name is Mark Kania, I'm the public relations officer for Taylor Fire and Rescue.

First of all, congratulations to both of you on your reelections.

My question is, while I know that both of your offices are inundated with requests for grants for volunteer fire companies, perhaps a bigger issue that's affecting volunteer fire service right now is volunteerism.

Currently the state of Pennsylvania, we are at below 10% of the number of volunteers that we had in 1975.

And 67% of all fire service in emergency services in the United States is provided by volunteers.

So that in my mind at least, makes it somewhat of a federal issue.

We were the first ambulance service to de-certify in 1997.

And recently our borough council de-certified one of our fire companies because they couldn't respond to emergencies.

So local governments, school boards and so on are offering tax abatements to volunteers.

And what I was wondering is A, if the federal government has anything in the mix or B, is there anything that you think of that might generate interest or encourage volunteerism, particularly in the fire and emergency services?

- Mr. Meuser, any thoughts?

- Well, I'll tell you what, the volunteer fire houses throughout my district are absolutely amazing.

And honestly, I'm certainly not just saying that.

Every time I'm there and I'm at many of them throughout my extensive district which is larger than the size of Connecticut, not only are they always there outside of their jobs that they have, they're either fundraising or working on the equipment or fighting fires.

Very often while I'm there, the alarms go off and they're jumping on on the fire trucks and heading to a fire and then they're coming back three hours later or two hours later, whatever it might be.

So it's phenomenal, the level of volunteerism.

Now we definitely have problems with recruits.

The training levels that you know very well are very extensive.

So we really gotta figure some things out.

Now we need to let the general public understand that if it weren't for these volunteer fire departments, our taxes would be a lot worse and our safety would be very much in jeopardy as well.

So it's definitely a big priority.

Hats off to the volunteer fire department and hey, we definitely just gonna stay on your side and let's talk, let's see what your thoughts are.

- Mr. Cartwright?

- That was a hard question and thank you for that.

We've been getting lots of hard questions tonight but that's one I've been struggling with for years now because you show up at the, Dan's right, these volunteer companies are phenomenal but they're aging and they're having trouble getting new recruits.

And volunteerism generally is on the decline.

I mean, the Kiwanis Clubs, the Rotary Clubs, they're having trouble getting new people.

I'm not sure what the root cause of that is and I'm not sure that the federal government has a role in fixing that.

But I think as just leaders in general, as leaders of the community, we can do a better job of talking up volunteer fire companies.

And one angle that I looked at, it arose from a story at one of the host companies in Durier and it was a young man that was struggling in school and he was showing up to the local hose company 'cause it was interesting.

His mom was a single mom, didn't have a father figure in the house, showed up to the hose company, one thing that volunteer fire companies have is a house full of father figures, okay?

And it's a wonderful thing that happened to this man because they said, "No, you can't come back "until you get your grade average up at school."

And he did, and he graduated and he moved on to become become a member of the IBEW and had a successful career.

All of that because of the kind of guidance and leadership and advice that he got from members of that hose company.

I think that's just one of the angles that we have to pursue but as a society, we need to do a better job of communicating and spreading that culture of volunteerism.

Thank you for the question.

- All right, well, let's go to another question from the audience.

Your name, where you live?

- Hi Congressman, my name is Chuck Smolchik, I'm from Moosic, Pennsylvania, Neighbor of Congressman Cartwright.

My question's about Social Security.

When I received my Social Security statement last year, it said that Social Security can pay 79% of promised benefits in 2036.

It'll still be there but that's what it can pay.

This year when I got my statement, it said that social security can pay 78% of promised benefits in 2035.

So what I'm wondering from both of you is, what is Congress doing in order to protect Social Security for folks my age.

I'll be 60 and 2036 so I have a vested interest in seeing it continue as a going concern but when Social Security itself is telling me it doesn't really have the money, how do you address folks that are my age and say that you're protecting it for us as well as our retirees who do currently deserve it?

- So, Mr. Cartwright, we've been hearing about the Social Security Trust Fund running out of money.

So what are we doing?

- Sure and this is not new.

I mean, we've been hearing what the doomsday date is for both Social Security and Medicare for a long time.

I'll tell you what I'm doing, I'm a proud co-sponsor of a bill called Social Security 2100.

It was something that we put together, John Larson of Connecticut is the primary sponsor of that bill.

And it's something that, folks understand that there's a cap on Social Security FICA, you pay in and for the people who are lucky enough to get to something like $140,000 in earnings in a year, at that point, you stop paying into the FICA Trust fund.

And remember, this is an insurance program, this is not the government program, this is not tax dollars, this is an insurance program that was started in the Roosevelt administration.

By the way, it was a Pennsylvanian Owen J. Roberts on the Supreme Court of the United States who approved the Social Security Act as constitutional.

So thank Pennsylvania for having Social Security in the first place.

But I wanna say to preserve Social Security and to keep it fiscally sound, we have to raise that cap.

We have to raise that cap.

Larson's proposal, that Social Security Act of 2100, what that does is it blasts the cap.

People making over $400,000 start to pay back into it so that you have the income to keep the whole program solvent and Medicare solvency follows from that.

Thank you for that question.

- Mr. Meuser?

- Important issue, there are many, many of my constituents and Americans of course, that have paid literally 12.5% into Social Security over a 30, 40 more period.

You add all that up, that adds up to about $300,000 without any compounded growth at all.

So basically, many of you who are retiring, the federal government owes you 300, $325,000.

Now that's gonna be paid back at more or less $2,000 a month and it should be sustainable.

The reason that Social Security's gonna run outta money is because we've borrowed all of that money.

We've taken the Social Security dollars out and used it for other measures.

So the money should be recouped and in the end, Social Security must be sustained.

I'm very, very adamant about that and it's really the last category of that, should be looked at for minimizing or removing or altering.

Now on the same note, yes, let's look at some longer term improvements.

Now baby boomers are one reason why things are gonna get very tight within Social Security and we be running a deficit within Social Security in one of those years, 2035, 2036 but some longer term improvements.

Steny Hoyer, the past majority leader of the Democrats in the House said to me, "We gotta hold hands and jump.

"We need to do this together, "we need have a bipartisan approach."

And honestly, as a Republican, just what Matt just brought up about raising that cap.

Now the cap does get raised with inflation and all but I am not opposed to that.

And maybe some other structural changes that are, but that is to say, can certainly be perceived as a tax increase on businesses but nevertheless, what he just stated over $400,000, some things like that need to get looked at.

Even some means testing, right?

I mean, there are some people that have done well because of their hard work but also their good fortune that don't want to take Social Security.

Do you know what's almost impossible to say no, I don't want it?

So that could be fixed as well.

- So what you're saying is that some of the trust fund when it was doing very, very well and we had the overage, it had been kind of used that money because there was some kind of variance that had to be closed.

So we lock that off and then we raise the cap but nothing seems to be going on to the gentleman's question.

It's 12 years away, it's not that far away, you know.

- Important discussion and I'm sorry to say that there are voices, Dan is not among them but there are voices coming from the Republican Conference that are talking about cuts to benefits from Social Security.

I am unalterably opposed to that.

Anybody who knows people who are living in northeastern Pennsylvania on Social Security checks know that they are just barely scraping by and we cannot do that.

- We're not gonna debate, I'm sorry, but I don't know where those voices are coming from but that's something that I'd like to hear.

I don't hear from my caucus in conference that we have any interest in reducing in any way Social Security.

The idea is to save it through various options.

- So again, both of you would agree that action needs to start now.

I mean, we have to move forward as soon as possible to fix this?

All right, let's go to the next question.

And your name and your city of residence.

- Hello, my name is Seal Bartoli from Youthtowne, just right around the corner.

Despite Herculean efforts by our state legislature and by county and state employees, our child welfare system is buckling under the pressure of mandates and staffing crises.

So my question to both of you is, what do you know about the child welfare system in Pennsylvania and do you have any suggestions for the child welfare system overall?

Thank you.

- Yeah, Mr. Meuser, can you enlighten us at all in how it works?

- Well, you know what?

There's many things that are important, child welfare, assuring all children receive the education that they deserve.

Equal shots at opportunity, food, you know I was just at a food bank yesterday that was volunteer focused for young people.

Look, we allocate the funding for Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, I was about to say Obamacare but same thing in large sums and primarily through the states.

Now the states have the obligation at that point to figure out the eligibility requirements based upon that state and for allocating of those funds.

Now if wherever it exists that doesn't seem to be doing the job, my office is very available to discuss that and we'll pull some of the state representatives and state senators into that discussion.

- Mr. Cartwright?

- Well, it's an important discussion and Dan's right is mostly a state, it's a Harrisburg discussion but the federal government has a lot to do with the welfare of children.

And in fact, the expansion of Medicaid, Dan touched on Medicaid, was so important for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

For a long time, after the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act went into effect, some states were pushing back on expanding Medicaid in their states and Pennsylvania was one of those states.

And while Pennsylvania was pushing back, we actually lost two hospitals in northeastern Pennsylvania.

One in Carbondale and one in Schuel County, now in Dan's district and I'm here to tell you, it's all theoretical.

Healthcare insurance is all theoretical but when you actually get sick and your local hospital isn't there anymore, that is a real tangential, it is actually a tangible in impact on your life when that hospital isn't there.

Well, the fact that Governor Corbett finally changed his mind and agreed to the Medicaid expansion, that is much to his credit, and it has shored up our hospitals and it has made Medicaid available for the treatment of small children in our Pennsylvania hospitals.

- Yes.

- I was in the Corbett administration, it wasn't pushed back, we wanted it to be done in a different manner.

We wanted a block grant.

Block grants have proven to be much more useful and effective in various states.

And that was the waiver that we were looking for from Obamacare.

But the idea was to do it better, not less but do it better and have more statewide control over it rather than some of the federal mandates that existed.

- The whole whole conversation begs the question and we're running out of time but how does that work?

That interaction and relationship between the federal governments and the various state governments, for instance, with the state government, with Pennsylvania, people often get confused.

They sometimes think that your office has some authority or some influence or whatever on a state matter.

So just to very succinctly, can you talk about that a little bit?

- It's a case by case basis, Larry.

And there are parts of the government that Dan and I have nothing to do with, for example, education.

Sure, federal government funds Head Start and I will fight for Head Start till my dying breath.

- [Dan] Same here, it's a very important organization.

- Right but when you get from K through 12, federal government has nothing to do with that.

Once you get into Pell Grants to go to college and other collegiate activities, federal government comes back into play but that's a perfect example about the interplay between state and federal.

- So what you're saying is this is a method, Mr. Meuser has alluded to that, he gets some of the state representatives in and they have a conversation and it's more about, "Hey, can you do something about this?

"I'm hearing from my constituents "and maybe this is something we look at?"

- Yeah.

- Hmm.

All right, so another question from the audience.

Your name and where you live.

- Hi, my name's Dave Dimus, I'm the a FG local president outta USP Canaan.

I have a question for both of you.

By the way, we're very supportive of both of you guys, thank you for all your help with everything at USP Canaan.

So my question is, we've been getting fentanyl coming into our prison.

I know Congressman Cartwright's on board with this but we have this program, it's called Mail Guard.

I'm wondering if you will get behind that as well, Congressman Meuser.

- Do you think it's a good idea, officer?

I'm sure I would get behind it.

Of course you know I was out at Canaan not too long ago and Congressman Cartwright and I are working on, we, well, jointly work on that as the fentanyl issue that you bring up but the regionalization effort.

That continues to be in the top 10 of my office's projects as we put it.

And we need to get that done for you.

I know what you're going through as far as that level of duress and your recruitment issues.

And even though of course, you're in Congressman Cartwright's district, got a lot of correctional officers that are from my district so we're with you.

Good to see you by the way.

- Mr. Cartwright, do you have anything you would like to add?

- Sure, Dave, thanks for mentioning that.

Of course, I instituted the pilot program for Mail Guard and the reason for that, you'll remember it, up at Canaan, we had a three or four correctional officers who were overcome by the fumes when they opened the mail and it's unbelievable the ingenuity people have to get drugs into prison but it was basically LSD soaked into mail and the fumes overcame the COs and I got called, I went up there and we started that pilot program which was, the idea is this, you take the mail offsite, you image it and then you allow the inmates access to their mail by looking at screens.

There's no way they can get drugs that way.

So it protects the inmates, it protects the correctional officers.

It worked very well and that's the point of a pilot program is to see how well it's gonna work.

It worked perfectly.

So let's institute it nationwide.

The other thing that I wanna say is huge victory this past Congress to get $180 million more in funding, more than the Biden administration asked for in funding for hiring correctional officers in our federal prisons.

You know, if Eric Williams had a partner when he was doing his rounds 10 years ago, he would not have been killed.

And you know that those recruitment problems that we're having right now have to do with the overall economy.

And the answer to it is more federal funding for the hiring of correctional officers, keeps the officers safer and keeps our inmates safer as well.

- Well, we only have about 10 minutes left in the program and so if we have about hmm, I'd say about five more people.

So if we can keep the question succinct and if we could keep the answers direct and pointed then we can maybe get through all of them.

And may I have your name and where you live.

- My name is Lorraine Cummings, I'm from Old Forge and I know both Congressmen very well.

Thank you Congressman Cartwright for always taking my calls when I call you, I do appreciate it.

We currently in 2022 spent $113 billion of aid to Ukraine.

It seems like a never ending war over there, since 2014 they've been at war.

How much longer are we gonna be spending all of our money over there rather than our own citizens as you just saw, all these people are looking for funding and all that money's going to war that we had nothing to do with, how long we're gonna fund it?

- Sure, Commissioner Cummings, nice to see you.

And it's an important question, it's a good question because it's a question where reasonable minds can disagree.

I personally I'm all in on supporting Volodymyr Zelensky and his effort to keep a free and democratic Ukraine.

(audience applauding) And I'll disagree with the premise of your question to say that we're spending all of our money is far, far from the truth.

We're spending a bit of money compared to the entire federal budget.

And it's something that we're able to do, it's been successful.

The use of HIMARS technology has kept the Russians at bay.

And look, let's not repeat 1938 all over again.

If you let military adventurists like Vladimir Putin loose in Europe, it's gonna lead to a bigger, bigger conflict and we'll spend a lot more money fighting that.

(audience applauding) - So Lorraine, very nice of you.

Yeah, my numbers have it as $107 billion and it's mainly in military equipment and there is some humanitarian aid and some other funds to just keep their economy from completely just evaporating.

I've been to the border at the Ukraine, it's an incredible disaster.

Putin is an animal, he's a tyrant.

He's targeting civilians.

I mean, what you see, I have various, I was on foreign affairs, I have various classified meetings on this.

He's connected with the Iranians providing these type of drones that are just deadly and sinister and killer.

China, the CCP is providing various levels of support, certainly buying as much oil and natural gas as Putin can sell them in order to fortify.

So there's a lot going on here.

Now the biggest problem I agree with is that we have not done enough and I've said this to Secretary Blinken more than once, probably five times, I was with him just a few days ago, that the American people need to have accountability.

We need to have, if we're gonna be at $100 billion, the rest of NATO, Japan and other countries that have equivalent and have higher GDPs than ours, including Germany and others collectively need to be paying funding at least as much as where we are.

That's not the case today.

They're in the neighborhood of about $40 billion, we're at 107 billion so that's just wrong.

So we need more diplomacy and be looking after America's finances as much as they're looking after theirs.

And I've said to them, you're gonna have a real problem moving forward with this majority.

Now on the same note, Putin's an animal.

If we allow this to occur, next nations are coming next.

I was in Moldova as well, they are incredibly fearful, as is the Czech Republic, as is Poland and others.

So we've gotta be smart.

The people deserve transparency and accountability big time because it's your money that's being spent and it's a lot.

Now on the same note, some will argue, my friend Mike McCall, chairman of Foreign Affairs was on Fox this morning stating how we're decimating, there's no American lives at risk and we're decimating the Russian military along the way.

Now I don't know, was that a goal of ours?

No.

But is that favorable knowing who Putin is for the world?

I'd say so.

And then there's the Taiwan factor.

If we don't do this, at any given moment, the CCP is circling Taiwan with their Navy and all kinds of other equipment.

So we are sending signals to them as well that the world is gonna be behind such tyrannical type of invasions.

Thank you.

All right and the next question- (audience applauding) - Good afternoon.

Mike Hooly, lifelong resident of Luzerne County in the eight district currently living at Exeter, PA. Quick question for Matt Cartwright.

Matt, I'm a small business owner and I started the process of obtaining a GSA contract license and it's gonna be a process and there's gonna be hurdles.

I was wondering if I could rely on maybe you or your office to help through this process.

- The answer is absolutely yes.

I'm thrilled to hear it because one thing we've been doing is look, I'll back up and the point I wanna make is that our area has struggled economically.

Everybody knows, Northeastern Pennsylvania always has a few points higher unemployment, always has a harder time finding valuable careers for our young people to stay in the area.

Doing things like what you're talking about are high up on my list of priorities.

And because of that, I've been happy to fund the NIPA Alliance and now they're in Pittston and Jeff Box and his crew are experts at figuring out how to connect companies like yours with federal funding.

So if you want a federal contract, NIPA Alliance can work with you, make sure you understand all the hoops you have to jump through to be able to compete for a federal contract.

We need more and more of that because what's happening is that our region fell behind because we haven't had effective members of Congress for a little while pushing for that kinda thing.

This money is going out but it's going to different parts of the United States.

We need to get every penny of our fair of federal dollars coming to Northeastern Pennsylvania so that money is circulating in our local economy.

It creates jobs and better paying jobs and it creates opportunity for our young people.

Thank you for the question.

- [Mark] Thank you all.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

(audience applauding) - All right, so again, we have about three minutes left.

The next question, please.

- My name is Henry Alexandria, I represent the United States Postmasters and Managers Association.

And thank you both for being here today.

I met with you, Matt, at your office so many times I can't even count on my fingers right now.

I wanna thank you for taking the time to meet with me every time I come to Washington.

We haven't been able to meet in the past few years because of COVID but thank you for being here.

My question to both of you 'cause this is important for the people that like this gentleman looking to get social security in the future, H.R.82, the Social Security Fairness Act which part of it punishes Social Security recipient that have people that was in the CSRs system and under the new system, they're not as much penalized but when they married to somebody that had a state job, a federal job, their Social Security like often deceased of one of them like it gets cut quite a bit.

So I wanna know if you could get behind that.

It's more of an ask that you continue to support, I know you said the 2011 is also part of that, something that you're looking at but H.R.82 will be better suited for everybody.

So if you could take a look at that.

- Sure, yeah, sure.

- Okay all right, well, we have time for just one more question very quickly.

- Hi, I'm Amanda Walman, Huntersville, PA.

Congressman, you sir is my new state or federal congressman, I apologize.

Hello, Matt, it's good to see you again.

This question is for both of you, it's actually a three part, very simple and short- - Nope, I'm not sure we have time for three part question.

- Nope, it's all the same answer pretty much.

Will both of you stop allowing Medicare and Social Security to be used as a partisan weapon and a negotiating tool, so to speak when one side or another wants something done?

And can you also say that you'll stop allowing veterans issues like the Honoring our PACT Act to become such a thing so that we stop insulting Pennsylvanians and Americans in general because our veterans never should have been insulted the way they were with the PACT Act?

Will you do everything in your power to protect our Medicare and Social Security because we, in this room, paid into this system and you were not to borrow it for anything else.

And if you cannot prevent the sun setting legislation, will you promise to make sure every single person in this country that paid into these systems that were not to be touched is given back to them in whole?

- Thank you, thank you.

Well, these are yes and no answers, I think, Congressman?

- That's a yes times three, Amanda, thanks for the question.

- And as I have the honor of representing Amanda in Congress, why don't we get together and go through it.

I'd really appreciate that if you can do that.

- [Amanda] I would Love that.

- Okay.

- Wonderful.

Well, thank you.

Our time is up.

I'd like to thank the congressman for participating in tonight's program and thank you for joining us.

For more information, please visit wvia.org/keystonereports.

Well, thanks so much for watching, I'm Larry Vojtko.

(audience applauding)