In the News

It’s not always easy to put faces and names to the impact that congressional budgets have on a particular populace. By visiting Riverside Industries in Easthampton on Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Richard Neal tried to do just that.

Neal, whose district in Massachusetts includes the cities of Easthampton, Holyoke and Springfield as well as several other communities in Hampshire County, took a tour of Riverside, which for 57 years has provided services, care and job training to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the region.

Many of those served by the organization rely on federally provided Medicaid, which is in danger of losing funding after the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a budget resolution that requires the House Energy and Commerce Committee to cut $880 billion in federal programs.

Nearly 80 million Americans receive health care through Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), including 1.6 million residents of Massachusetts and more than 330,000 residents in Neal’s 1st District. Throughout Massachusetts, 48% of adults are at risk of losing their health coverage due to the proposed Medicaid work requirements, Neal’s office said.

Neal, a Democrat, came at the behest of Riverside’s President and CEO Lynn Ireland, who said in an interview that she personally hand-delivered 144 letters to Neal’s office warning about how the proposed cuts to Medicaid would have a dire effect on providing services.

“Those letters were from parents. They were from board members. They were from the people that we serve, my staff, in particular the parents of people we serve,” Ireland said. “The federal government matches the state, so the state would have to do corresponding decreases, too. So it would end up being greater than a 50% cut to our organization. And that means the people that you see in here ... would not have services.”

Ireland also said that many of those served by Riverside also live in community-based residential homes, which could also be threatened by federal cuts, and that she was also concerned about cuts to the U.S. Department of Education.

“With the dismantling of the Department of Education, these folks won’t get services in the school,” Ireland said. “So they will not be able to go to the schools, which leads to a parent that is out of the workforce. That impacts on the economic development of organizations, their ability to survive and thrive.”

In addition to touring Riverside’s job training for kitchen and distribution services, Neal sat down with staff and those helped by the group.

Kelsie Brown, who said she worked at Big Y and had started services with Riverside two years ago, told Neal she was “star-struck” to meet him.

“I’ve seen you on TV millions of times,” she said. “This place is amazing. We do a lot of different stuff. Some people with disabilities, they have jobs up in the colleges.”

Also speaking with Neal was George Joudire, who helps with job training at Riverside, who said he was worried how the slashing of funds at the federal level would affect the organization.

“I’m really concerned about what’s going to happen to our folks here,” Joudire said. “I’m tired of taking all the offense from the Republican parties. I want to know what offense we can do because the best defense is a good offense.”

During a press conference as part of the tour, Neal lambasted congressional Republicans for acquiescing to President Donald Trump, who together with billionaire Elon Musk has pledged to slash up to $1 trillion from the federal budget and have engaged in a campaign of wholesale firings at numerous departments.

“The problem we have is there are not enough Republicans in Congress that are really willing to challenge the president’s decision-making. He doesn’t get to do this on his own,” Neal said. “He [Trump] wants a compliant Congress. That’s not the members’ job. Their job is to challenge. I questioned Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and Joe Biden. We didn’t have to fall in line to everything that they said.”

Federal judges have blocked some of Trump’s executive orders to halt funding, though Trump has publicly called for the impeachment of judges who disagree with him, leading to a rare rebuke from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, something Neal also remarked about on Tuesday.

“The best part of the news cycle today is the Chief Justice criticizing him,” Neal said. “He now wants to impose his will on the Congress of the United States and the judiciary? Who’s left in our system of checks and balances to check and balance?”

Neal also criticized the recent closure of Social Security offices across the country, and cast doubt on claims made by Trump and Musk there was widespread fraud within Social Security.

“There’s nobody 300 years old getting a Social Security check,” Neal said. “I just think that this is being missed in the argument about truth-telling. Everybody ought to see what happens here [at Riverside], what has happened here for 57 years.”