Baraga County 2025-03-10

Baraga County
Sarah Green, Calumet Township Resident
2025-03-10

Thank you for your attention and for your efforts to improve lives of Upper Peninsula residents. In such a big region with low population we all benefit from the success of neighboring communities. I love exploring Point Abbay and local forests, as well as your beautiful lakeshore.

I’m here today to address a threat to our democratic institutions. As Americans, whatever our political leanings, we have an intense loathing of tyranny. Although we may have honest disagreements, I am certain that nobody here voted for Elon Musk.

I have come to you for two reasons. First, because actions at the federal level have direct consequences for the Upper Peninsula residents whom you represent; and second, because you are our local face of democracy, and you have taken an oath to uphold the constitution.

Today the checks and balances embedded in our constitution are under attack.

1. The president is claiming the power to overturn the wishes of congress by freezing funds that have already been approved. The funding freeze aimed to block thousands of programs across the country from Meal-on-Wheels to Cancer Research. Billions of dollars in federal funding flows to counties and townships, often through state programs, including Community block grants, infrastructure programs, school lunch programs, and health insurance.
In 2023 Baraga County received $1,184,312 in federal grants, for health care, public safety, roads, among others.

These are your taxes, and mine, that congress is sending back to support citizens and programs for their benefit. The president does not have the right to block these appropriated funds.

2. A private citizen and his unvetted associates have gained access to the Social Security system, the IRS, and Treasury, exposing your social security data, tax information, and personal data.

There is no provision under any of the three branches for a private businessman to have access to the nation’s checkbook. And Elon Musk not only has billions of dollars in contracts with the government through his various companies, but also has undisclosed relationships with Russia, China, and other U.S. adversaries.

3. Elon Musk is further threatening the more than 9000 federal workers employed in MI-01 (1st congressional district).  An unknown number of local people have already been illegally fired.
The VA system is already being disrupted because 2400 people were fired last month; and there are plans to cut 83,000 employees from the system. As you know, some 22,000 veterans in the UP rely on those services.

These are your friends and neighbors who are being fired. And they work for us, the American people, not for Elon Musk.

All these actions are being challenged in the courts; some have been temporarily blocked.

These actions have profound local implications.
Undermining the constitution reverberate to all levels of government.

If justice is decided based on political patronage and friends in high places, laws become irrelevant. If private-sector billionaires can decide how and where government money is spent, congress becomes irrelevant, and so do you.

My right to “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” has no meaning if government is beholden to private interests.

Can we count on you to tell officials in Lansing and Washington that Yoopers want to be governed according  the checks and balances inscribed in the U.S. Constitution, and not by a king?

I urge you put political differences aside and work together to address this constitutional threat.

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Data:
Federal employees make up 2.6% of the workforce in our area. About 40% of them work for the VA; about 30% are veterans themselves.

Salaries and benefits for federal employees is about 9% of the federal budget. And nearly 70% of that is for the Department of Defense.