Last Friday Congressman Antonio Delgado (D-NY19) held his 33rd town hall meeting at the Highland Middle School to inform his constituents on what has been accomplished this past year but also to listen to their present and future concerns.

Delgado started by recognizing that a significant number of young students were in the audience.

“It’s always nice to see young people engaged,” he said.

Delgado said people came to the Town Hall meetings from different walks of life and with different political views.

“I’ve been all across our community, up and down this district, which is bigger than Connecticut and Rhode Island combined, and every community I go in, we can have civil discourse [and] we can talk about the issues that matter. We may come at it from different points of views but we all want clean drinking water, we all want some access to rural broadband, we all want good schools for our young people, we all think it’s important to tackle climate change and we all think we have to help our farmers. The ‘how’s’ might vary but understanding first and foremost that we have shared desires, shared needs and then we come together to find out the right way to do it.”

Since he was elected Delgado has introduced 28 bills and more than half have been on a bipartisan basis. He said 7 of his bills passed in the House, “and one of those bills, in this very divided time, got through the House, the Senate and was signed by the President, the Family Farm Relief Act. “He pointed out that the NY 19th district is the 8th most rural district in the country, with 8,000 farm operations and 5,000 farmers, “all of them are small family-owned farms, no big corporate agricultural firms. They need help, they need support.”

Delgado is working to lessen the regulations on small business owners, is helping to regulate PFOS, a key ingredient in the fabric protection and in coating plastics but causes auto-immune disorders, birth defects and cancer.

Delgado is working to allow people the choice to opt in to Medicare and Medicaid through his Medicare X Choice bill, which will also ensure that people have negotiating power with the pharmaceutical industry.

Delgado touched upon the issue of the impeachment of the President, saying he did not run for office for this purpose but to serve the people of his district. He said he will review all of the evidence that has been presented but, “any decision that I ultimately make is a decision that rests on my conscience.”

Delgado favors a public option when it comes to healthcare.

“We’ve got to get better care and more affordable care and I think a public option can do that by breaking up the monopoly the private companies have on the market,” he said. “Put that public option in there and see how it operates. I can tell you there will be a whole lot less in administrative costs.”

Delgado pointed out that while paid family leave has been passed for federal employees he will continue to push to provide this for everyone. He said there now is momentum for this in the House, calling it, “something that is long overdue.”

Delgado said climate change is the most important issue facing mankind, for without earth nothing else matters. He said there are still disagreements on whether the science is real, “but we have to all be united on this front because when we look upon the health of the soils for our farmers, when you’re looking at the flooding that’s going on and the wildfires that are intensifying with the winds; these are all the result of a changing climate.”

Delgado criticized the present administration, saying, “they’re doing more harm than good; rolling back standards, rolling back protections, allowing for drilling in protected lands; things we shouldn’t be doing. We should be thinking about how to transition from fossil fuels to renewable resources.” He said we don’t have to continue polluting the earth but can make the needed adjustments to save the planet; “We owe that to the one planet we have.” He pointed out that we need to support the green sector job and stop giving billions in tax subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.

When questioned Delgado agreed there is a lack of affordable housing in the Hudson Valley. He said statistics show that families are paying up to 40% of their income in rent.

Delgado said the government must invest more in affordable housing but noted that funding through the Housing and Urban Development agency has been decreasing.

Delgado said the federal government must be better at watching over funds that are given out for housing projects to make sure they are allocated properly. He said presently money is handed out to developers with a, “wink and a smile with no real strings attached, without any conditions.” He said those seeking federal funds must prove the need and attach actual numbers to projects before any allocations are handed out.

Delgado said the far larger issue is that the federal government is not working for the people but are actually creating more inequality.

“The gap between those who have and those who are just trying to make their way is growing. People say the economy is doing great but for whom. We have to ask ourselves who is it really good for,” he said.

Delgado urged people to look at whether wages are keeping up with the rising costs of housing, food and healthcare. He fears that at the federal level, “we are not thinking any more about the public good and we’re enabling the inequities to grow so much so that our level of income inequality is the highest we’ve seen since we started measuring it in 1967.” He said it is imperative that we invest tax payer dollars back into the community, “and not give it away to people who don’t need it. Take that money and invest it in infrastructure, invest it in housing, invest it in protecting our water. These are the kinds of things we have to get back to at the federal level.”

Delgado is pro-choice, saying that women must have control over their bodies and not the government taking that right away. He said some states are passing laws aimed at rolling back Roe v. Wade and are working to de-fund Planned Parenthood that focuses on helping all people obtain medical advice and treatment, “especially people of color who cannot find care that they need.”

Delgado was asked when the Congress will “bite the bullet” and submit balanced budgets, with a portion of that going to pay down the national debt that now stands at $22 trillion and climbing. He said by 2029 the debt is projected to hit $29 trillion, the highest level in the country’s history.

“We’re sitting on a little more than a trillion in deficit, generated in large part by the tax bill that was passed in the last cycle,” he said. He called this a giveaway to people who don’t need it and to corporations that makes it difficult to pay down any of the debt. He estimated that the U.S. pays about $500 billion annually in interest on the debt, all of which makes it difficult to fund many of the things that he discussed, especially for an infrastructure program that the President promised when her ran for office. He said that money was given away to the wealthiest individuals in the country, calling it a, “trillion dollar deficit-inducing tax break.” He said when we invest in infrastructure, broadband, schools and green jobs we get a return on the investment because it grows the economy. That is the direction he believes we should move in.