Udall town hall turns into complaint session

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — U.S. Rep. Tom Udall showed up at the University of New Mexico-Gallup Thursday afternoon prepared to talk about the half-dozen bills a newly Democratic Congress rammed through the House during its "first 100 hours," on issues ranging from the federal minimum wage to homeland security.

But when it came time for the congressman to listen, the audience of about 25 inside Calvin Hall Auditorium clearly had other things on its mind. America's taxing occupation of Iraq, cuts to American Indian programs in President Bush's proposed budget for 2008, and the disappearance of a $1 million federal appropriation for a desperately needed new dialysis unit in Gallup, dominated the hour of questions and answers.

Dialysis
Since the 28 stations inside Gallup's current dialysis unit filled up last May, Rehoboth McKinley Christian Hospital has been sending all new patients 18 so far and counting to its unit in Zuni. And if Zuni fills up, as some hospital staff predict it might at this rate by August, it will have to start sending patients to Albuquerque.

For diabetics who've reached the point of kidney failure, dialysis is something they can't live without. But traveling to Zuni three times a week means spending more time and if they're not fully covered money for people often strapped for both, especially if they have to start going to Albuquerque.

The hospital is planning a new $3 million unit in Gallup in response, and was counting on the $1 million Sen. Pete Domenici said he'd all but secured from Congress to help make it happen. It got the news in late January that the money was gone.

Thursday's crowd urged Udall to help get it back.

"We're to the point where we are overflowing with patients," the director of the Gallup dialysis unit told him.

Even the lieutenant governor of the Pueblo of Zuni showed up to press Udall for help.

"We need for you to look into this, and we really need your support," said Dancy Simplicio, who vowed not to let the congressman off the hook.

"This is not the last you're going to hear from me," she promised.

Funding a war
Udall said he would do what he could to get the project the $1 million. Just because the money didn't make it into the latest appropriations bill, he said, did not mean that the administration it would have come from did not still have it. At the same time, he cautioned the audience against too much optimism. Discretionary funds were low, he said, largely because of the president's tax cuts and the war in Iraq.

"We are fighting a war we haven't paid for," said Udall. "That's why in part we're in this situation."

According to recent news reports, though, the loss of the $1 million had more to do with the decisions the Democrats made after they took Congress. As a stand against abuse-prone "pork barrel" spending, they decided to ban all earmarks like the money for the Gallup dialysis unit until they could put in place new rules to make the practice more transparent.

Back to the war in Iraq, Udall stood by his support of a non-binding resolution the House passed recently objecting to the president's decision to send more troops, including language that praised the jobs the troops themselves were doing.

"We didn't want the people to think that this had anything to do with a criticism of the troops," he said.

On the other hand, he added, if the United States made its military commitment to Iraq open-ended, "it's my opinion that (the Iraqi government) will want us to do the fighting forever."

Tightening the purse strings
Udall said he would also support a move by Rep. John Murtha, chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, that would make Congress' approval of any more money for the war conditional on urban combat training for troops before they deploy.

Udall stopped short of saying he'd be willing to hold back funding for the war in protest of the troop surge, a move Republicans in Washington are daring the Democrats to make.

Udall did, however, blame the ballooning war budget again for the cuts Bush is proposing to several programs that help American Indians. One woman mentioned a proposed $33 million cut to the Urban Indian Health Program, which funds 34 clinics serving more than 200,000 American Indians across the country. Another woman noted a $2 million cut proposed to the Navajo Nation's student scholarship program. A Zuni Pueblo councilman lamented the proposed elimination of a home improvement program.

Udall said he would try to restore funding to the programs during the upcoming budget process, which should last at least until September.

The congressman also visited Crownpoint and Thoreau Thursday, and will be at the Shiprock Chapter House this morning from 10 to 11.