WHEATLAND – In her 75th town hall since being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) addressed upwards of 200 people at the Wheatland High School auditorium last Thursday. She spent a few minutes personally greeting people in the audience before starting her speech with a half-hour summary of the things she has accomplished for Wyoming, some of the bills she has supported or sponsored, and how she hopes to be influential in helping the country move forward to create better policies and reduce burdensome regulations in the country.
Then she opened the just-over-an-hour-long meeting with questions from the audience.
Standing strategically around the perimeters of the meeting place were local law enforcement from Platte County Sheriff’s Department, Wheatland Police Department, and Guernsey Police Department, but the assembly was peaceable enough not to need their intervention. Though there were some issues which caused some booing and at times people overtalked Hageman as she answered the questions, there were more times where the cheers and applause resounded throughout the auditorium in support of the representative and efforts by the current administration to get ahold of runaway government policies to “re-organize and right-size the government,” as Rep. Hageman put it.
The most contentious issues of the night included cuts to Medicaid expansion, with members of the audience not believing the congresswoman when she told them the only cuts to the government health care program was to the Medicaid expansion portion which Wyoming and 11 other states refused to participate in, hence they will not be affected by the change.
She explained the expansion of Medicaid came with Obamacare to extend benefits to able-bodied adults.
“For any able-bodied adults that were added to Medicaid rolls…the federal government would cover the cost of that program at 90% with the state taking 10%. The average is about 50%,” Rep. Hageman explained. “Medicaid is a state program, but the federal government pays for about 50% of that program. That is significant for [the 12 states who did not participate in Medicaid expansion because] through (budget) reconciliation, we most likely will be addressing that segment of the population in those states that did expand. And right-sizing that benefit [makes it] so if you are in New York, or California, Connecticut, or Delaware, that population will also be reimbursed at 50% just like it is here in Wyoming. That could save hundreds of billions of dollars through reconciliation, but Wyoming will not be affected by that because Wyoming never did Medicare expansion.”
So, she concluded in answer to one question, patients in Wyoming will still have Medicaid as they’ve always had it.
They also did not believe her when she said social security benefits will not be cut in the continuing resolution of funding passed to keep the government running. “Even in the reconciliation process (with the Senate’s version of the budget), we are not allowed legally to cut social security,” Rep. Hageman said.
She was also asked about social security offices closing in Wyoming, and the issue many people are having in even being able to contact the social security office, whether in person or over the phone. Additionally, the frustration with being sent in circles or the confusion that can occur with electronic sign-ups, etc. Basically, the people want to be able to call or stop by a social security office to get their questions answered.
“That didn’t start in the last two months. It’s every federal agency has been trying to keep you out of the office. They’ve been setting these things up for years. Again, trying to say they’re becoming ‘more efficient.’ If there is a particular issue or a particular service you are not getting, or you’re not getting your social security benefits, call my office,” Rep. Hageman said. “And one of the problems I have is that people don’t answer their phones when they’re working from home. If you find a problem or have an issue with any federal agency, call my office so we can figure out what is going on.”
She again emphasized people contact her office to open a case file when she was told at the meeting about the issue of veteran healthcare provider Tri-Care not reimbursing for any costs since the first of the year. She explained, part of what happens when concerns are brought to her office: a case file is opened up, and her team talks to the agency or department to find out why services are not being provided or funding is not being released for legitimate claims, then works out a resolution to the case. Rep. Hageman said since she has been in Congress (a little over two years), there have been 3,200 case files opened at her office, and 3,035 have been solved.
“So far we have been able to claw back for citizens of Wyoming $5,454,559 directly into the pockets of our citizens…for whatever reason the federal government was withholding it,” she said.
People were not happy with the 15% cuts in the Veterans Administration’s workforce to bring it back to 2019 employment levels, though Hageman pointed out the organization is bureaucratic-heavy, the majority of the job cuts were bureaucratic or redundant positions, and that the VA is still hiring 300,000 mission-critical positions to “ensure healthcare for veterans and beneficiaries are not affected…what is happening with the VA is a department wide review of the organization. What they are doing is focusing on actually providing services to the veterans, rather than spending the money on the bureaucracy,” she said.
Additionally, the review being conducted of the VA’s 90,000 contracts totaling more than $67 billion, have so far revealed there is “about 2% or 600 non-mission-critical or duplicative agreements that saved $900 million right out of the box,” Rep. Hageman said.
This statement was supported by the audience with whistling and clapping across much of the room.
Hageman continued, “So what they’re trying to do is save these programs to make sure they operate and are managed the way they were intended…for anyone who wants to disagree with me: there is an awful lot of waste, fraud and abuse in Washington, D.C. It is about time to start looking at it, and you all are the ones paying the taxes, fees, and having to follow the regulations. Every one of you is better off for us doing that.”
A question was asked regarding the National Institute of Health and concern that drug testing will be affected by employment and funding cuts in the government, causing university labs not being able to maintain their laboratories because of lack of money and the result affecting quality health care.
Hageman responded, “That is a general statement. What I will say is I think the NIH – after what we saw with COVID – demonstrates there is an awful lot of money that is wasted by that organization, including the taxpayer…[T]he horrific testing on beagles, the gain of function testing in the WUHAN laboratory in China: There are a lot of things the NIH should not be spending money on.”
To the applause of the audience, she emphasized, “What I think is important is that we look at every one of these programs. And to the extent the program is a good and valid program, we will continue to fund it. That is what we are doing. We are doing what is known as a zero-based analysis or an audit of federal programs. I can’t understand why anyone would disagree with that... It doesn’t matter what the program is, we should be looking at the funding, what the programs are, where the money is being spent, and whether they are actually working.”

She gave the example of the negative effect the PBMs (pharmacy benefit management by third-party administrators) have had on rural pharmacies and medical clinics, which Hageman said when instituted, lawmakers had likely intended to improve service and lower costs. “What we’ve found out is we created another black box. By creating the PBMs we have three companies that run [them] and we’ve got a situation where we are losing our local pharmacies because of the way PBMs are managed. We have to revisit these programs to determine whether they are functioning the way they are intended, and to make sure they are not destroying the small businesses we have.”
Another attendee asked what is being done to help keep critical access medical care (hospitals with 25 beds or less) that has been crippled in Wyoming. “Rural America – rural Wyoming: how are we going to handle the future? Is Congress doing anything to help us survive?” Hageman was asked.
She answered, part of what needs to change is the nation’s budget. “We have a budget of $7 trillion and we’re having some of these crises in our rural communities. It is absolutely unacceptable, but we are redirecting assets and redirecting resources to things that we should not be doing.”
Hageman said congress is also working with Commerce and Industry to bring more attention to the rural healthcare problem which Rep. Hageman is well informed about from her personal visits and questions to medical facilities across Wyoming. “Part of the problem however is because Obamacare – which was over 2,000 pages – has over 20,000 pages of regulations. And the regulations and the requirements are absolutely crushing our small facilities and our physicians because of the paperwork they have to fill out and the compliance costs they have.”
“[There are] things that are absolutely broken. In working with hospitals and doctors, we have to come up with a variety of ideas of what they tell me they need. When I go to Washington, D.C. I can tell you I advocate for what they tell me I need to do to try to bring the costs down and save these communities,” Rep. Hageman promised.
Asked if the government was going to address the issues of wasted funding connected to feral or wild horses, Hageman answered, the issue is complicated and emotionally charged.
“A year and a half ago, my chief of staff and I met with the head of the BLM wild horse program, and he told me a number that’s going to knock your socks off. He said that for us to manage the wild horse herd we have here in Wyoming over the next 10 years will cost $500 million,” Hageman said, adding that the number of wild horses in Wyoming has become alarmingly large. “I grew up here and have traveled across Wyoming for decades and decades. I never saw wild horses along I-80 – if you had that sighting it was pretty rare… I can’t even count the number of horses that I saw in just the last week traveling across the state of Wyoming. They are bunched up against that highway – they are bunched up against I-80…”
She added, the sheriff of Sweetwater County told her there is a stretch of road heading towards Flaming Gorge that, “He said you can come over the hill and see nothing but horses as far as the eye can see.”
Rep. Hageman cited an act from 1972 and another in more recent years that has prevented killing of wild horses, but it is Congress who will be working with the BLM to find some sort of solution.
“One of the things I have tried to do is work with the tribes. Over the last two years I was chairman of the subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs. I have continued my dialogue with the tribes to continue their programs of working with / dealing with wild horses to see if that is one of the ways we can even increase economic development on the reservations if we go that route,” Rep. Hageman added.
Rep. Hageman was challenged in a question as to the role Elon Musk is playing in his position at the Department of Government Efficiency, or “DOGE” for short.
The audience member queried, “I think we are totally missing the elephant in the room and the elephant in the country: We have an elected billionaire…” then after being cut off by both cheers and boos, she continued, “You describe the cuts like some kind of careful audit, but the cuts that DOGE has been making have been willy-nilly by someone who has never stood in the government, has never run a non-profit, who has 19-year-olds infiltrating with computers into agencies. And when beneficial to him, Trump says Musk leads DOGE; in court he says an unelected bureaucrat named Amy Gleason – she leads DOGE. I’ve never met her. So, who is Musk accountable to? What qualifies him to be making these cuts? It’s not an audit – you can’t tell me he’s audited all these [cuts.]”
Though the question was meant as a challenge, Rep. Hageman first answered the question, then later pointed out there was common ground in the fact there is duplication between the federal and state governments. She said she thinks it would be good to have the federal government give block grants to the states to run those duplicate programs, such as the DEQ, EPA, Department of Education, Department of Agriculture, USDA, etc.
“That is what I envision: that there will be people here who are accountable to you – not some nameless, faceless bureaucrat in Washington, D.C.,” Rep. Hageman said.
In answer to the question about DOGE, she pointed out, “First off, the idea of people attacking Musk because he is an unelected employee of the federal government is extremely rich to me when I have been fighting unelected bureaucrats for 25 years in every single agency.”
She continued with an explanation of DOGE.
“DOGE was established by the President as an office within the executive office of the president by re-organizing the existing U.S. Digital Service (usds.gov) created by President Obama to promote efficiency in government. Elon Musk has a top-secret security clearance which was provided to him by the Biden Administration. He is an employee of the White House and is classified as a special government employee, which is a category that was created by Congress. Thank Susan Rice under Joe Biden. President Biden and other presidents have had senior advisors who are special government employees. Musk is not the head of DOGE. Amy Gleason is the acting director. DOGE reports its current savings at $105 billion and ultimately,” she was again interrupted with applause, “As I said a moment ago. It is an audit. It is the closest thing we are going to get to zero-based budgeting in the federal government.”
Hageman took the opportunity to question the audience, which the largely had support in the room, “Now I’ve got a question for you. Do you think you are entitled to know how your money is being spent? Do think you should know what USAID has been doing over the last four years? Do you think you should know what the VA has been spending money on? The Department of Defense? The DOD is pushing $1 trillion annual budget. They have not passed an audit in eight years. That is unacceptable. DOGE will be going over how they are spending their money. And what we did with that money (which was increased in the continuing resolution of funding) is that we specified how that money is to be spent. That is why we are talking about increasing wages of junior enlisted. That’s what we did. That was us that did that.”
The congresswoman was challenged on the definition of “fraud,” and the fact “efficiency is a calculable number…just because you are firing somebody, that does not mean you are becoming efficient. That job is still there,” the audience member said.
Rep. Hageman brought up USAID to give an example of what she means by fraud. “USAID came out in defense of this particular expense… one of the line items that was in USAID funding: $500,000 to advance atheism in Nepal – a nation that is Buddhist. Tell me why we would sign a contract of $500,000 to advance atheism in Nepal? Think about Nepal? Do you think $500,000 is a lot of money in Nepal? That is an astronomical amount of money there. How much money do you think that actually went to advancing atheism in Nepal, or how many NGOs do got wealthy off that $500,000?”
“Here’s another example,” Rep. Hageman continued, “USAID assistance was used to finance Hamas’s campaign against Israel. Aid is being used to continue war economies in Afghanistan, Yemen and Syria. $697 million is annually given with the addition of cash funds ranging from $40- to $80-millillion to Isis, Al Quaeda, Boca Haram, and Isis Khorasan terrorist training camps. $840 million dollars over 20 years on Pakistan’s education related program. So, here’s what I’ll say as a citizen of the United States who actually pays taxes: every single one of those programs are fraudulent because they do nothing to advance the policies of the United States.”
There was resounding applause, cheering and whistling in the Wheatland High School auditorium to that statement.
Energy policy was also questioned, asking Hageman whether she thinks the 119th Congress can set energy policy focusing on energy and reliability?
Rep. Hageman responded in short answer, yes, but explained it will not be easy.
“One of the things we are trying to do through reconciliation (of the budget)… goes back to 2009. In 2009 the Obama Administration did what is called ‘endangerment finding.’ The ‘endangerment finding’ is the source of all what we’ve been dealing with over last 15 years. EV (electric vehicle) mandates, canceling pipelines, the effort to destroy the oil and gas industries, the effort to destroy the coal and mining industries. All the things associated with global warming and climate change go back to that ‘endangerment finding’… What they did is… they declared CO2 and methane to be pollutants and greenhouse gasses. So that is the source of all the stuff they’ve been focused on …[also], under the so-called IRA (Inflation Reduction Act) under [President Joe] Biden, they tried to imbed as much of that ‘endangerment finding’ into the reconciliation bill as they can get.”
“…We have looked at that entire law – we have identified all those places where they embedded the ‘endangerment finding’ into the IRA, and we are attempting to scrape all of those out to take that away through reconciliation (of the budget) to get back to common sense energy policy,” Rep. Hageman said.
She added, the EPA administrator announced last week they are revisiting the endangerment finding.
After a similar follow-up question, Rep. Hageman said one of her biggest priorities is affordable, reliable energy. She explained, her view comes from a comparison of her 101-year-old mother’s life growing up with the prosperity and ease of life today.
“Look at the prosperity we have today. Look at this beautiful school, or clothing, cars, the houses we live in: our prosperity is based on the commercial production of affordable and reliable energy – and we cannot give that up,” she emphasized, adding, “It is directly connected to national security and is critical to our prosperity. It is one of the issues I talk about almost more than anything else, because Wyoming is energy,” Rep. Hageman said.
A question came from a local resident who grew up in the forests around Dubois wondering what is being done to bring back logging and address the issue of beetle kill destroying the forests?
“What I have to say about forest management is the policies and regulations coming out of Washington, D.C. have absolutely been some of the most destructive things I’ve ever seen,” Rep. Hageman said. “We can go back to the 2001 Roadless Rule that denied access management and use to 58.5 million acres; it was adopted under Bill Clinton. It was an absolutely horrific regulation we are still dealing with. That is much of the cause related to the catastrophic forest fires as well as the pine beetle outbreak we’ve had. We just passed the Fix Our Forest Act – the very purpose of which is to try to address the issues that you are talking about.”
“This last year we saw an awful lot of fires around the state of Wyoming. Several were in our national forest. I went up on the Bighorn. I spent time with the superintendent up there. He has fabulous ideas on how we can better manage that resource, but because of the horrible policies that have been coming out of the Forest Service in Washington, D.C. we cannot implement them. We have phenomenal forest service employees who live and work Wyoming. Their hands have been tied by the rules and regulations that have been put into effect. And also, the lawsuits – the court decisions that have come down over the years are impacting our ability to manage that resource,” Hageman said.
She added she hopes the Fix Our Forest Act will make it through the senate so the U.S. can begin rebuilding its national forests: to protect them and prevent major forest fires, but also to bring back lumber mills.
“I cannot imagine what it would cost to rebuild that kind of infrastructure for us to be able to really start rebuilding that industry, but we’re going to have to find a way to do it,” Rep. Hageman said.
Throughout the evening, the point was directly and indirectly made, the current cuts being conducted by the Trump Administration to address waste, fraud, and abuse, can and should be better directed to help address problems with funding shortfalls across the U.S. – including here in Wyoming.
Rep. Hageman said she enjoys the opportunity to do town halls and connecting with the people of Wyoming because, “I think these are the epitome of our form of government and represent what America stands for…we’ve had some interesting town halls over the last two weeks. I will be very honest: I have enjoyed them, every single one. Some more than others, perhaps, but in engaging with the electorate here in Wyoming, I am here to listen and learn as much as anything else.”