Grothman offers few answers to upset constituents at Town Hall

Unwilling to offer many specifics and sticking mostly to Trump administration talking points, Congressman Glenn Grothman confronted a largely disgruntled crowd at a Town Hall meeting on Friday morning in Fox Crossing.

Republican legislators have been facing hostile crowds around the country over the past week as concerns grow over the economy, cuts to Medicaid and Social Security, mass deportations and the abandonment of Ukraine, a US ally under siege by Russia the past three years.

A crowd of nearly 200 showed up to hear from Grothman and to pepper him with questions and concerns, though he fielded only 10. Seventy-five people were turned away due to capacity, while around 100 were in attendance.

Grothman lamented the nation’s $35 trillion debt. In fact, the House's current GOP-written reconciliation bill – "the big beautiful bill," Grothman calls it – is projected to contribute nearly $3.4 trillion to the deficits over 10 years, while cutting significant social safety net programs. Additionally, helped along by a $2 trillion dollar tax cut, Donald Trump added nearly $7 trillion to the debt in his first term, growing it by 33 percent. Joe Biden added $4.7 trillion, though the debt grew at half the rate it did under Trump (16.7 percent).

Though, like the administration, Grothman didn’t identify any significant instances of government waste allegedly discovered by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), he still lauded Elon Musk’s work and seemed unconcerned that someone unelected had been given so much unfettered access to key institutions within our government.

“I’m glad that Musk is there,” he said. “He’s looking at everything. Musk is a force for good. He’s doing a great job of finding waste.”

Despite claims that DOGE is identifying and eliminating waste, few significant instances have been cited by the administration and those that have, have since been disproven. For example, DOGE claimed that more than a 100 million deceased citizens were still receiving Social Security. In fact, while those people are still on the rolls due to the cost of removing them, no actual checks were ever issued.

Grothman stuck to the party line when it came to bans on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs; Trump’s mass deportation plans; and his attempt to eliminate Birthright Citizenship, the constitutional guarantee that anyone born on US soil is automatically a citizen of the country.

Economic issues were the main topic of discussion as the administration is threatening more than $2 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and is threatening other social safety net programs like Social Security and Medicare as well as the Affordable Care Act. 

But Grothman seemed unconcerned. When asked how the “pro-life” party can make cuts to healthcare, he shrugged. “It won’t happen because Trump said he wouldn’t do that.”

Yet it is Grothman's own party in the House that is attempting to pass "the big beautiful bill" that would cut $800 billion in Medicaid. And Trump, who distanced himself from Project 2025 on the campaign trail, has embraced nearly every plank of it as he continues to dismantle the institutions of government and fire tens of thousands of civil servants. 

Grothman was met with plenty of vocal opposition as he spoke. 

On the subject of funding for public education, Grothman alluded to “too much government control,” though it wasn’t clear to what he referred.

The final question regarded Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. For three years, the United States and its NATO allies have supplied Ukraine with the weaponry necessary to hold off what many thought would be a Russian sweep to Kiev. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have been killed. Trump recently blamed Ukraine for Russia’s unprovoked attack, negotiated unilaterally with Russia and has expressed eagerness to cede Ukrainian land to Putin, while offering nothing in return for Ukraine.

While Grothman wouldn’t go so far as to say Ukraine started the war, he said he wants to end it, though he didn’t specify on what terms.