Back home, Crawford gets queries

MARKED TREE — In the back room of the town’s old bank building — its columned facade weather-worn from years spent as headquarters for the local drainage district — local officials urged U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford to secure funds for clearing a ditch.

The Republican from Jonesboro, back home while Congress is on August recess, listened Wednesday as they described the problem: Whenever the Mississippi River floods, it clogs the local flood-control ditch, spilling water onto acres of farmland and occasionally homes.

The U.S. Army Corps 0f Engineers has been working to clean out the ditch,

a spokesman in Memphis said, and is awaiting funds to start the next phase in the project.

Crawford’s August tour of his east Arkansas district comes as Congress plans to tackle budget negotiations and a tax overhaul upon its return next month — and after failing earlier this year to pass a health care bill. A reporter tagged along with Crawford on Wednesday.

As the congressman made stops in Poinsett County, he was questioned about Republicans’ plans for health care and taxes, veterans affairs and the president’s Cabinet, as well as an international trade dispute.

After the end of a Lions Club luncheon in Trumann, one diner remarked privately that Crawford did not talk about Confederate statues, though no one had brought up the topic. Nor did anyone press for the congressman’s opinion of President Donald Trump.

The four-term congressman told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that Trump remained popular in his district, and that he hoped the president would continue to transition into the job and working with Congress.

At the Drainage District 7 meeting, Crawford promised to reach out to the Corps to see if he could secure funds for the project.

The evening before, Trump, speaking to supporters at a rally in Phoenix, had threatened to shut down the government if he did not get funding for a border wall during those negotiations.

If that happened, the Corps of Engineers could continue to work on local projects if they are deemed “essential,” said James Pogue, a spokesman for the agency.

Crawford said the idea of shutting down the government was “irresponsible.”

“We’re going to support the president when he is right, and we’re going to oppose the president when he is wrong but I will do it discreetly and respectfully, because I’m not trying to create an adversarial relationship with the White House,” Crawford said.

At the Lions Club in Trumann, Sandy Teague, the 63-year-old owner of a home health care provider in Marked Tree, asked Crawford why he voted to support the House’s plan to supplant the Affordable Care Act, after the congressman had opposed an earlier plan.

And, Teague said she wanted to know, what were Republicans planning next?

Addressing his campaign promises to repeal the law, Crawford said “there’s been an institutionalization of Obamacare” that’s led opponents to fret about what type of health-care system will remain in its place.

A so-called skinny repeal that ultimately failed in the Senate did not address those concerns, Crawford said. He also shared that he was called to the White House and “chastised” after speaking out against an early version of the House bill.

“We certainly need to find something to support replacement,” Crawford said.

Teague declined to say whether she supported the Affordable Care Act, but said she was disappointed that the Republican proposals to replace it would reduce Medicaid coverage, which many of her patients receive.

“He was careful in choosing his words,” Teague said later to a reporter, before pointing out that Crawford’s office made a good effort at being accessible. “He’ll hear from me.”

Trumann Lions Club President Ronnie Harrison, 70, also had a question for Crawford: He wanted to know why Trump’s Cabinet was made up of predominantly of millionaires.

“I wish I had the answer to that,” Crawford said in response. “It’d be nice if there was a broader representation.”

After lunch, Crawford toured the Columbia Forest Products manufacturing plant, also in Trumann, and promised to help weigh in an ongoing trade dispute the company has lodged against China, accusing that nation’s government of illegally subsidizing Columbia’s competitors.

Crawford said he would write a letter to the International Trade Commission on the company’s behalf, and offered to testify at upcoming hearings.

Before gazing at a machine spitting out thinly pressed sheets of plywood, Crawford was taken through a production line shuttered this year because of lower demand. The plant has 60 workers, about half the number it once had, said Dave Abts, Columbia’s vice president of manufacturing.

In addition to the trade dispute, Abts said a new federal regulation limiting formaldehyde in wood products would be a boon for his business — which he said avoids using glues that fall short of the new standards, unlike practices followed by Chinese competitors.

Trump’s January executive order to freeze regulations approved under then-President Barack Obama had delayed implementation of the formaldehyde rule, but it is now set to go into effect at the end of the year. Abts praised that decision, as well as the president and his congressman for standing up to China.

“President Trump is speaking the right way, but at this point it hasn’t happened yet,” Abts said. “It’s been tough.”

Asked about another one of Trump’s executive orders, a recently announced decision to roll back Obama-era standards for building in flood zones, Crawford said he agreed with the president, saying the rule unnecessarily drove up costs for homeowners.

A spokesman for the congressman later emailed an online column Crawford wrote about the rule in 2015, stating that it would result in a 20 percent increase in designated floodplains in Arkansas.

Crawford has meetings in his district until Friday. Congress returns to session Sept. 5.