Words For My Congressman

My home on a northeastern North Carolina sandbar sits in the state's 3rd Congressional District. My Congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives is a gent named Greg Murphy, a practicing urologist who was first elected to the House in 2019 after four years in the state House of Representatives. He is a reliable Republican in a mostly red district and supporter of President Trump. He chose not to certify results of the 2020 presidential election and questioned Joe Biden's fitness for office based on his own medical experience. 

Below is a copy of a letter I sent him recently. 

Dr. Murphy, Your office reached out to me a couple of months ago as part of an effort to connect with constituents. I ignored the messages at the time, as we agree on little politically. But several recent stories that crossed my path amid the present overhaul of government function and services prompted me to write. 

If you want my input, here goes: I urge you to reconsider support for and silence about the wholesale cuts and changes that have taken place since the Trump administration took office. Evidence grows that tens of thousands of people will not only be thrown out of work here and abroad, but that many of the cuts and changes will disproportionately affect the most vulnerable among us. 

You want to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse? You want government to operate more efficiently? Fine. Determine where the waste and inefficiencies are and make targeted cuts. You wouldn’t prescribe treatment for a patient without diagnosing their condition. Yet giving a ketamine-fueled mega-billionaire man-child and his team with no knowledge of how government agencies work carte blanche to cut and eliminate is somehow acceptable? His ready-fire-aim approach already has done serious damage across a wide range. 

You’re a smart, informed guy. You know that the lion’s share of government expenditures goes toward the programs of Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid, defense spending and paying down the national debt. Focusing elsewhere might be good P.R. but it’s kind of nibbling around the margins for real accountability and savings. 

Want to better scrutinize spending? How about auditing the Pentagon for a start. You were quoted recently about jacking up work requirements for Medicaid. You said that you didn’t think that several of your patients receiving Medicaid benefits should qualify. I don’t doubt that you have anecdotal or personal stories of people who have taken advantage of the system. I’m old enough to remember Ronald Reagan referencing a welfare queen driving a Cadillac as an indictment of the entire system. That also played well among those who want to gauge who does and does not merit assistance. But a U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services fact sheet about Medicaid from a couple years ago determined that more than 95 percent of enrollees met requirements for enrollment. Increasing work requirements and red tape and subsequent cuts to benefits and administrative staff tasked with oversight will affect millions of people who would qualify for assistance. 

I mentioned stories that had crossed my path. The NPR program “1A” ran an episode on June 11 about the spike in senior homelessness in recent years. Inflation and rising housing costs, coupled with proposed cuts to assistance programs, have and will stress seniors and leave them with no good options for the baseline condition of a roof over their heads. 

Another story was on “Fresh Air” this week, an interview with Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson about DOGE’s ham-handed cuts and operations that didn’t approach the financial savings they forecast and have often produced anxiety and uncertainty. I don’t pretend to know your thoughts on the role of government and its obligations. I don’t know if you’re content with Russell Vought’s blueprint or if you want to go full Norquist (editor's note: Grover Norquist is a conservative political activist and founder of the group, Americans for Tax Reform; he said in a 2001 interview on NPR: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."). Regardless, I don’t believe that a man who won a presidential election with fewer than one-third of registered voters has a mandate to fundamentally overhaul government and to trample Congress and the Constitution. 

We both know that Donald Trump is a transactional figure who no more wants to govern than to ride rollercoasters. He wants to give orders and to make money. Anything else is an imposition. I’m also under no illusion that my thoughts will influence your thinking one iota. What I would ask is that you consider not just your donor class, but all the people you represent. The 3rd district encompasses a lot of rural areas, a lot of people with limited access to goods and services, for whom government can be a lifeline. Drastic cuts and reductions will be needlessly, even arrogantly, cruel. I don’t have answers for the best ways to improve people’s lives, though the Hippocratic Oath isn’t a bad place to start. Or more specifically, the line credited to Hippocrates from one of his other papers: First, do no harm. 

Sincerely, Dave Fairbank 

Kill Devil Hills NC