Town Hall meeting rouses Hill Country SRO crowd

Obamacare has to go, the consensus

Meridian, Texas – Anybody tries to tell you that freshman term Representative Roger Williams (R-TX Dist. 25) isn't a car dealer is plumb wrong. This guy is always closing.

Roger Williams quizzed by Karina Tergerson, 6 years old

That's a good thing when you've got an interlocutor like Karina Tergerson, 6, asking the questions.

“What have you learned from being on the Budget Committee?” she asked the Weatherford car man, the first representative to be elected to a brand new district created by the Texas Legislature in 2012.

Rep. Williams drew a big breath, smiled, and said as an aside, “We're old buddies, she and I. We met at the Courthouse.”

Then he let it rip.

“I've learned the books are out of balance,” he said with a big west Texas grin.

Laughter - hooting, clapping, knee slapping...horse laughter - lit the inside of the community center like a Christmas tree.

He's not changed his campaign message one iota since the day he first threw his hat in the ring.

It's lower taxes;

Less spending;

Smaller government;

and “Stand by Israel, no matter what.”

DA B.J. Shepherd, County Judge candidate Dewey Ratliff

Extended applause. In a recent interview with Israel's Netanyahu, he recalls he was told, “Let me tell you, Congressman. In this dispute, we are the tiger, not the lamb – so don't scratch the eye of the tiger.”

Then he threw some hard facts out at the unflinching crowd. The rate of annual deficit spending is $17 trillion, he said. But that's not the true deficit.

“The true deficit is in excess of $200 trillion.”

“I've learned that we have to balance the books...If you have $2 trillion in deficit spending, you cut the budget by $2 trillion.” No one objected. If you exceed your budget, you run out of credit and you have no operating capital. It's that simple.

And then an elderly man stood up in the back of the crowd, and the true Town Hall meeting started.

He said, “What I want to know is, how many 20-year-olds are here? How many 30-year-olds? How many 40-year-olds?”

“We are losing a generation, here,” said Mr. Williams.

“We're going to have to find them, or we'll be a socialist country,” the man replied. More applause.

Another man spoke up, angry, and said he's frustrated because none of the laws apply to the politicians. “They pass laws and they pass laws, and they don't have to obey those laws,” he said, his voice filled with anger, rising in pitch.

“I think it's a travesty for people to pass legislation that they don't have to adhere to,” said Rep. Williams.

And then Obamacare became the topic of discussion. It's got to go. The people agreed. Said Rep. Williams, “OK, Mr. President, I'll give you everything you want to run the government. But don't give him what he needs to fund Obamacare.”

But people say there's a 95 percent chance you can't defund Obamacare.

“There's a 5 percent chance you can, and just like us old football boys learned, run for daylight,” said Mr. Williams.

Football. It's the national religion of Texas.

If you can't completely defund the program because of mandatory user fees to be collected as punitive taxes in case of noncompliance, “Peel it back a little, that's all.”

And besides, he pointed out, Jimmy Hoffa is against Obamacare. “How many times has anyone in this room ever sided with Jimmy Hoffa?” More laughter.

“Why worry about 2016 if you don't deliver 2014?...We have to keep the House and gain the Senate.”

Then there are the “Navigators,” paid guides who will walk you through the enrollment process. “I've heard they aren't doing background checks on them,” said one man.

“I've heard that, too,” Mr. Williams said. As an aside, “They come up with these names, don't they?” Then it was explained that a Navigator gets all your personal information, catalogues it in the system, and helps you make your decisions.

That had a chilling effect on the crowd.

Jim Goldsmith, ex-Clifton football coach

Finally, an ex-Clifton football coach named Jim Goldsmith spoke up to say, “Government has gone from being my friend to being my adversary. I've gone from having no guns to having a substantial number of them.”

That's when another man, a true wag, pulled a funny and said, “But no ammo!”

Thunderous laughter ensued. People looked at each other and laughed, chucked each others' shoulders, elbowed each other.

“Okay, so, we manufacture ammunition,” concluded their Congressman.

And that's what a Town Hall meeting sounds like in West Texas, District 25, one of four new districts created from whole cloth following the census of 2010.