Chippewa Valley Hosts Congressman Jason Crow for Town Hall

Colorado Congressman Jason Crow visited the Chippewa Valley this week to drum up support for Democratic candidates in the Third District.

Congressman Crow held a town hall with Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski, State Senator Jeff Smith, and State Representative Jodi Emerson at the Chippewa Valley Museum on Wednesday. The town hall covered a variety of issues facing the region, particularly ensuring that veterans are being taken care of properly, protecting access to healthcare, and the effects of tariffs on small business owners and farmers.

Congressman Crow also highlighted some of the ways tariffs are affecting Wisconsin residents differently than his constituents in Colorado. “The soybean farmers have been hit particularly hard by tariffs,” he said. “We’re talking with some of the farm groups that have told me that a lot of these farms haven’t received orders in five months or more and orders are just starting to trickle in. People can’t afford that. Family farms simply can not afford that and they’re going under.”

Congressman Crow also highlighted the impact of tariffs on small businesses compared to larger corporations, which are better equipped to address increasing costs.

“The big corporations, the top 1 percent who are the donors of President Trump, they’re doing just fine because they can tap into all the money they have sitting in cash reserves in big banks,” he said. “But the small businesses in Eau Claire and La Crosse and the farmers around here just can’t handle it anymore and we need to deliver relief to them.”

Questions from residents attending the town hall mostly focused on veterans issues, especially the recent closure of Klein Hall in Chippewa Falls.