'Tax Elon!' Irate crowd shouts down GOP congressman during town hall in deep-red county

21 February

Even residents of a county President Donald Trump won by a significant margin are outraged by the Trump administration's slashing of public services — and their Republican congressman's support of the cuts.

The La Grande, Oregon-based Observer reported Friday that Rep. Cliff Bentz (R-Ore.) was recently met by an angry crowd of constituents during a town hall at Eastern Oregon University. The outlet noted that the audience of several hundred people filled nearly all 435 seats in the McKenzie Theater, and more people filled the aisles and stood along the walls to hear their congressman.

Attendees reportedly grew impatient with Bentz's presentation, yelled "we can read" while he went over PowerPoint slides and urged him to move to the question-and-answer portion of the meeting. At that point, the crowd indicated it was furious with Bentz's support of Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's "Department of Government Efficiency," or DOGE (which is not an official federal agency authorized by Congress). Bentz has recently said he would even support firing some of his own staff in order to help DOGE.

In addition to cutting budgets for federal agencies, Bentz talked about his hopes to extend Trump's 2017 tax cut package — which could cost anywhere from $4.6 trillion to $5.5 trillion over a ten-year period. He also said he plans to vote for additional funding for border security and to increase oil and gas production.

While Bentz got back to his desire to reduce federal spending, members of the crowd reportedly shouted over him yelling, "tax Elon," "tax the wealthy," "tax the rich" and "tax the billionaires." Bentz countered that some of his colleagues weren't even holding town halls during this week's Congressional recess, saying: "You should be here to speak with me." The Observer reported that Union County, where Bentz held his town hall, went for Trump by 68%. Bentz won reelection with 64% of the vote in the ruby-red district.

"If you just came to yell, I can leave," Bentz said.

The Observer reported that members of the audience kept coming back to the "power of the purse," which is a power that Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution specifically delegates to Congress. Bentz pushed back, saying he supports Trump "doing his best to exercise his legal power" to reduce federal spending, and that the president wants to make sure the nation doesn't "go broke." Bentz — who is the lone Republican in the Oregon Congressional Delegation, confronted his own constituents just as Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga) had a tense town hall in his own deep-red Georgia district.

Click here to read the La Grande Observer's full report.

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