Rep. Bennie Thompson addresses federal job cuts, USAID reductions at Vicksburg Town Hall

VICKSBURG, Miss. (VDN) — U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) held a town hall meeting Tuesday at Greater Grove Street M.B. Church in Vicksburg, aiming to reassure federal employees facing uncertainty amid workforce reductions.

“They should not have to go through this,” Thompson said. “When you have reductions in force, ordinarily there’s a plan. There was no plan, and people are just going from day to day as to whether ‘I’ll have a job, or I won’t.’ Morale has been at the lowest point that I’ve seen it with a lot of employees here.”

Thompson said the instability is affecting both job security and productivity.

“People don’t know whether ‘I’m here today, gone tomorrow, I have children in school, mortgages, I have a lot of things that normally, as a public employee I wouldn’t have to grapple with, but I’m grappling with it now, and I don’t like it,'” he said. “So, I wanted to give some comfort to those employees and others that we are in fact pushing back, and we’re winning.”

The congressman emphasized that Democrats in Congress are pushing back against the cuts.

“It’s a day-to-day fight, but we are winning,” Thompson said. “That doesn’t mean the Trump administration won’t come back with something else, but we are not going to allow federal employees to be treated this way.”

Thompson said he chose Warren County as the first stop in his series of town halls due to its high concentration of federal workers.

“One of the reason’s we picked Warren County to start, because proportionally, we have more people who work for the federal government in Warren County that any other county I represent,” said Thompson. “So you have significant reason to be concerned about your job.”

Thompson also addressed cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), warning that they are negatively affecting Mississippi farmers.

“They [the Trump administration] thought USAID only fed hungry people in third-world countries,” Thompson said. “They do—but guess who raises the food? Talk to the rice farmers here in Mississippi, talk to the rice farmers in Louisiana. Their number one customer is USAID.”

The federal agency purchases U.S.-grown food and distributes it to developing nations. Thompson argued that cutting the program not only harms struggling populations abroad but also opens the door for geopolitical rivals to gain influence.

“If we don’t feed them, China, Russia, and Iran will,” he said. “So our enemies are going to feed the people we’re trying to influence.”

Thompson assured attendees that he and his colleagues in Congress are working to mitigate the effects of these cuts while advocating for federal employees.