Congressman Kiley’s tele-town hall filled to capacity

This week Congressman Kiley responded to these requests for a town hall and welcomed questions for an hour and a half addressing local concerns, federal policy, and past actions on his part.

Even though he extended the tele-town hall’s time, many voices were left unheard due to the sheer volume of participants.

News outlets received multiple reports from interested participants stating that they were unable to join the tell-town hall, and only received an automated message: "Sorry, due to overwhelming demand, we are unable to connect you to your conference at this time. Goodbye."

After many attempts, some participants were eventually connected to the conversation.

“We are working to schedule another as soon as possible so more constituents can provide input and ask questions. Regrettably a small number of people using one method for joining the event were unable to connect because of a technical issue. That issue will be resolved for our next town hall,” a spokesperson for Kiley said.

Congressman Kiley represents the Third Congressional District which is the largest district geographically in the state of California, spanning 450 miles, across ten different counties.

District 3 stretches along the east side of California, as far north as Lake Almanor in Plumas County and as far south as Death Valley in Inyo County.

At the start of the tele-town hall, he asked participants in the if they were agreeable to the virtual format during a brief poll before the question and answer portion of the phone call.

He also asked if participants prefer a standard tax deduction which allows taxpayers to subtract a certain amount from their income when completing their federal taxes, or if they prefer itemizing deductions.

“There's a tax provision that's going to expire this year if we don't extend it,” Kiley said. “Without extending this provision, the standard deduction will drop by over 50 percent next year and that's for people filing individually or married.”

Moving on to the question and answer portion of the tele-town hall, participants were asked to press *3 on their telephone to get into the queue to speak to the Congressman, and in most instances they gave their first name and location from where they were calling.

Read below for a selection of constituent questions and Kiley's answers.

Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security

Question: My question touches on the problem in regard to Medicare and Medicaid and maybe even ultimately Social Security, because the recent funding bill that was passed has cuts in it that really can't be squared without taking money away from Medicare and Medicaid.

And that leads me to a kind of follow-up, which is the funding that the Congress has allocated, but the administration refuses to apply, what does Congress do? How does Congress enforce its own budgeting against an administration that doesn't want to spend the money?

Kiley: We absolutely have to protect Social Security and Medicare, and in fact, when we passed the Fiscal Responsibility Act in 2023, which actually will reduce the deficit significantly over the course of the next decade, we did so without cutting Social Security, without cutting Medicare, and we actually increased benefits for our veterans.

Not only that, but I sponsored what's called the Social Security Fairness Act, which is going to go into effect this next month.

If you're a former teacher, firefighter, or police officer, you're going to receive several hundred dollars more in your social security check because we were able to change a very unfair provision that was withholding and docking benefits from these former public servants.

As far as Medicare is concerned, one of the things that we did is I led a letter that was actually aimed at restoring funding that had been taken out — and I had to stand up against my own party on this…Money that was going to be taken out for a program called SHIP, which actually gives seniors advice and guidance on the program that's right for them within Medicare. I sent a letter to get that funding restored, and it was restored.

Now as far as Medicaid goes, you mentioned a recent funding bill, but actually there hasn't been any funding bill passed yet. What's been passed is a framework that will ultimately be used to, for example, extend the tax release and the standard deduction.

What's more, when we're looking at how we can actually get some savings when it comes to Medicaid, the biggest opportunity is simply the waste, fraud, and abuse that exists within the system.

There was a finding by the General Accounting Office, which is a nonpartisan entity, that there's $50 billion every year in improper Medicaid payments. If we could reclaim that money and actually use it for people who are entitled to the benefits, I think that would be a good thing.

Finally, I should say that right now it is true that California's Medicaid system is in big, big trouble. Just today the news broke that, number one, Governor Newsom is asking for an emergency loan to prop up the system of $3.4 billion.

He's now going to the legislature and asking for another $3 billion to cover a shortfall that's arisen for primarily one reason, which is that California has done something that no other state has done, California has decided to offer universal Medicaid benefits to every single person who's in our state illegally.

They said this was only going to cost a few billion dollars at first. Now we're told it's costing almost $10 billion, and if you stretch that over the course of a decade… that's going to be hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicaid funding that is not going towards our own citizens and legal residents.

I've introduced legislation that will make it so that doesn't happen anymore, so that we preserve Medicaid benefits for our own citizens and legal residents, and that will be the single most important thing that we can do to preserve Medicaid funding for Californians.

Funding for Meals on Wheels

Question: The administration that is currently in power has done a federal funding freeze regardless whether or not that is found to be legal. It is currently being treated as though it is enforceable, and the Older Americans Act has not technically been renewed. Considering this, the funds that fund Meals on Wheels, the organization that I work for, we've gotten zero to little communication from any of our representatives in government on what we should expect in terms of federal funding.

What should Meals on Wheels in Nevada County expect from our representatives or from the federal government when it comes to long-established federal funding to feed our housebound seniors whom we are their only resource not to starve?

Kiley: You have my assurance that if there is any threat to the funding or viability for Meals on Wheels, I'll be the first to object and to fight back against that. Meals on Wheels is a vitally important program for the reasons that you cite. I've actually been out with the folks in Nevada County and helped to deliver meals to seniors there and I will absolutely do everything I can to protect the program.

Homeowners insurance

Question: What is being done about homeowners insurance?

Kiley: This problem has continued to get worse… and people are having to pay astronomical rates, and the Fair Plan is now in big trouble just because so many people have been kicked onto it... This is primarily a state issue. I've been calling upon the governor and the legislature and the insurance commissioner for years to actually understand the scope of this problem and take action, and they finally have done so really just within the last six months to a year.

We'll see if that's too little too late. I'm hoping that it's not, that they can turn the market around.

What I actually tried to do when I was in the legislature was to give you a tax credit for the amount that your premiums went up because I don't think it's fair that you should have to bear the cost.

There are things that we can do on the federal level as well, though.

I introduced legislation that I'm the author of called the Safe Homes Act and what that does is it gives you a credit on your taxes based on the expenses that you incur hardening your own home against wildfires. If you're clearing vegetation, if you're upgrading materials to make them more fire resistant, I think that you should get some tax relief for that…

The most important thing that we can do to get fire insurance rates down is to do active forest management and to prevent these catastrophic wildfires from happening again and again…

We have gotten unprecedented resources that are being deployed to do fire mitigation work on an unprecedented scale. Unfortunately, regulations still make it more difficult than it should be to do this work. The good news is, we passed the bill through the House which was bipartisan, and I'm hoping that very soon it will pass the Senate and be signed into law by the President.

Protecting national parks

Question: I live in South Lake Tahoe. I saw your email today about protecting our national parks, and I'm very enthusiastic that you're going to protect our national parks. However, in Tahoe, 78 percent of our land is forest service or wilderness areas, and I'm very curious about what you are going to do to keep them staffed and maintained this summer.

Kiley: Last year, I ushered through the House, the Lake Tahoe Restoration Reauthorization Act… This was landmark legislation that got through the House and then signed into law by President Biden that unlocks up to $300 million in funding for the Tahoe Basin over the next decade. About half of that is for forest management and fire protection.

This was bipartisan legislation that is going to go a very long way towards protecting Lake Tahoe, protecting the lake's beauty and protecting against wildfire for generations to come…

Beyond just Tahoe when it comes to the national parks, I joined with several of my California colleagues... to write a letter to the administration about the importance of our parks and specifically making sure that they have adequate personnel for the coming months which are really peak season for many of the parks.

We've asked if they provide direct ‘hire authority’ to the individual parks which is going to be the best way to get them readily staffed up and prepared for these peak seasons.

Children with special needs

Question: What are you doing for our families with special needs kids — like the ones your mom taught — with the dismantling of the Department of Education, who risk losing funding, and the same kids are also on Medicaid, which also looks in danger?

Kiley: There are few things that we do that's more important than helping our kids with special needs… I'm honored to have been named, earlier this year, to chair the House Subcommittee on K-12 education.

The issue of providing support to kids with special needs is one I've been working on for quite a while. When I was in the legislature, I supported major increases in the amount of money that's available to kids with special needs, and also changes to the funding formula, which oftentimes actually deprives districts that are doing a good job serving families of the resources that they need, and then they then have to dip into their general fund; it's created a big fiscal issue for a lot of our districts.

Now it is true that a good part of special education funding comes from the federal government under IDEA, or the Individual with Disabilities Education Act, and I am going to be very insistent that whatever reforms we make when it comes to education policy, we need to make sure that we are protecting those funds and ideally, more of them will actually get the students at school sites where they're being assisted with their IEPs and being given the help that they need. The subcommittee is making sure that that funding gets to the students where it's actually needed.

Scotts Flat, PG&E, and water in California

Question: I have a question about the water in California, and what's being done to monitor it, specifically as it also relates to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

We've already decommissioned four big dams up in Northern California for the Klamath, and there's another one that's more of a minor dam, but it's not minor when it comes to the communities that it serves.

Over 600,000 people will be affected. And that is the Scotts (Flat) Dam. Specifically, it's owned by PG&E. And PG&E is saying that they can't afford to maintain it.

This will lead communities dry, and I know that this is probably rampant through California, but specifically, do you know how this is being addressed at the federal level?

We can't get any answers from PG&E or any of the local water people. Is there anything that you can add to that? Or could you make an inquiry to this particular commission to find out where we're out with that?

Kiley: I'm familiar with the issue with the Scotts Dam, but I would like to connect with you further to make sure that I have all the latest information and to see where we can be helpful.

More broadly, your point is absolutely correct that in California we have failed to build the water infrastructure that we need. I mean, I think the world was shocked when we saw this tragedy unfold in Los Angeles, and we had an empty reservoir sitting there.

We had fire hydrants that didn't have water coming out of them. We've been dealing with water issues in California for a very long time. We haven't built significant new water storage in this state since the California Water Project several decades ago…

And then we have these periods of drought… if we had simply saved water when it came to us — not to mention the terrible impact this has on our farmers.

The good news is that we are seeing some real momentum behind Sites Reservoir... We are able to get hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding… This is a little north of where we are here, on the border of Colusa and Glenn County, but it will be used by water agencies throughout our district and will really go a long way towards augmenting our water supply…

Other questions

Kiley received other questions regarding to the dismantling of the NATO alliance, consumer confidence falling, stock market declining, and the flouting of court orders, and the continuation of the legal acts by the executive branch, and what the Congressman was doing to change these trends.

Kiley responded, "I can't say I agree with every characterization that you just made, but I do appreciate the feedback. He spoke of the crisis at the border and polls that state that President Trump is on the right track with his actions. I'm going to continue to be an independent voice for our district,” Kiley said.

Kiley was also asked by one caller if he supports ending subsidies for pharmaceutical and oil companies who are “making record profits right now."

In another conversation around cuts to federal jobs filled by veterans and a possible decline in services, Kiley reiterated how important it is that spending be brought under control to reduce the looming national debt and that funding reaches the people that it is intended for.

To contact Staff Writer Marianne Boll-See, email mboll-see@theunion.com.