Immigration, budget discussed at forum

BELLA VISTA — Third District Rep. Steve Womack defended his record of opposing the separation of children from parents at the border, saying the situation could have been prevented by better border security in the first place.

The Republican from Rogers fielded questions for most of the two-hour town hall in the courtroom of Bella Vista District Court, beginning at 5: 30 p. m. Those questions ranged from immigration to the federal budget to net neutrality, and came from among an audience of at least 60 people.

The town hall was scheduled before two men formerly close to the president were convicted of felonies and were held scarcely 24 hours after those convictions.

Yet neither conviction came up directly in questions posed to Womack from a crowd expressing diverse viewpoints, views that varied from support of the administration to severe criticism of it.

“This administration kidnapped thousands of children, and hundreds of them have still not returned to their parents,” Lisa Eldridge of Bella Vista. “As far as I’m concerned, you are complicit with what was done at the border.” Applause broke out from about a third of the audience.

Eldridge referred to the temporarily imposed policy of separating and processing children separately during unauthorized crossings of the southern U. S. border.

Womack replied he opposed the separation policy and he supported better security at the border to prevent such attempts to cross illegally — which drew louder applause from a larger portion of the audience.

Peter Tonnessen of Fayetteville criticized U.S. enforcement efforts in immigration as ineffective, saying his son wanted to be a professional carpenter but watched his wages vaporize because of the influx of low- cost

immigrant labor.

In Womack’s remarks before the question-and-answer period, the congressman said he didn’t expect a government shutdown — at least not one that would affect all agencies. He said continuing disputes on some agencies made a partial shutdown in October a risk. For example, disputes about immigration are a sticking point in the budget for the Department of Homeland Security, he said.

Womack is chairman of the House Budget Committee and is also the House’s co-chairman of a joint House and Senate committee trying to reform the budget process. He said in his early remarks there’s consensus on that committee to move to two-year budgets instead of one year at a time.

In other issues, Womack said Russian attempts to hack U.S. elections are real and continuing, along with similar efforts by other countries. As for Russian president Vladimir Putin, “I don’t trust him at all.” Womack said he visited countries subject to Putin’s aggression such as the eastern

Ukraine. While China is a long-term threat, he said, Russia isn’t to be underestimated.

Womack has run on fiscal conservatism since his first race for Congress in 2010. He was confronted at the forum with questions about why he voted for a tax cut package that will lead to a trillion-dollar deficit. He replied it was needed to make the U.S. tax code competitive with other countries, a rationale disputed by some in the audience.

Audience members — some sympathetic to President Donald Trump and others who were not — asked if Womack and other members of Congress

couldn’t do more to keep the president’s outbursts under control.

“I think he’s thin-skinned and vengeful, but I want him to do better,” said Landra Bench of Fayetteville. Another audience member, a Trump supporter, described the president as “his own worst enemy.”

As a congressman, his role is to check and balance the president on policy, Womack said. Neither he nor Congress can check the president on personal style, Womack said.

Womack