U.S. Congressman Tracey Mann Visits Grant County Senior Center

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United States Congressman Tracey Mann was a busy man, Thursday. The Republican representing Kansas District 1 in the U.S. House of Representatives, visited Grant County Senior Center to provide an update on issues he’s working on in Washington, D.C., that are of importance to this region.

Mann started his day at 7:15 a.m. in Liberal before moving on to Satanta, Ulysses, Lakin, Leoti and Oakley, finishing at 5:30 p.m. in Grinnell.

“This is the first week all year that we’ve not had votes in D.C., so we’re out doing town halls this week and we’ve been all over Western Kansas,” said Mann, who grew up in Quinter, has represented Kansas District 1 in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2021, and serves on the House Agriculture, House Transportation and Infrastructure, and House Small Business committees. “I always love being in Ulysses. My mom and uncles are originally from Johnson and my brother, when he graduated from K-State, he lived in Ulysses for a couple of years and worked for Crop Quest.”

District 1 starts in Elkhart and has been gradually extended east to Lawrence.

“Our district is one of the top three ag producing districts in the whole country,” Mann said. “Last year we did about 12-and-a-half, 13 billion dollars of ag production. Our district in number one in the country in beef production, number one for sorghum production, number one for wheat production, number seven for corn and number 11 for dairy.

“We have oil and gas, we have other industries, as well, but as we all know, agriculture really drives our economy.”

Mann said he has been working on healthcare access for rural communities.

“How do we keep our rural hospitals going is something that I’ve worked on a lot and care a lot about,” Mann said.

Mann said he believes the country is facing three threats – debt, China, and drifting away from fundamental values.

Regarding debt, the country is $36 trillion in debt, adding $23 trillion in the last 15 years.

“It’s just not sustainable - the pace at which we are spending money,” Mann said. “Last year 2024 was the first year in the history of the country that interest on the debt is the biggest expenditure of the federal government. We spent one trillion dollars in interest on the debt, which was more than the next biggest thing which is national defense. Every trillion dollars is $3,000 per person.”

On China, he said that nation has stated their goal is to be the number one power in the world. China has increased its military, bought farmland in the United States, acquiring different companies, taking intellectual property.

“China’s a real threat we need to be concerned about in looking at the world stage,” Mann said.

He said the country has drifted away from values such as faith, family, hard work, personal responsibility, and common sense.

“These are basic things I think the majority of the folks in western Kansas still believe strongly in, but as a nation feel that we’ve kind of lost our way,” he said.

He said things in Washington and across the country have been different since the election of Donald Trump. The Southern border has been a priority as well as reducing the bureaucracy and overall size of government.

“You really start to see him taking actions to do just that over the last four weeks,” Mann said.

The most impactful bill he’s working on in Congress is the farm bill.

“Farm bills are five-year bills,” Mann said. “Our current farm bill that passed in 2018 has been extended now twice.

“I’ve been very frustrated with the lack of urgency from the rest of Congress to get a five-year farm bill done and locked in. I think we owe it to our ag producers to provide some certainty to their lenders, as well.”

Mann said a larger bill is upcoming that will include items on the Trump agenda such as border security, return to American energy dominance, and taxes.

“Tax policy is really going to drive the conversation and be very significant this year because if Congress doesn’t act then January 1 of next year everyone in this room will see a tax increase,” Mann said. “And that’s because the Trump tax cuts from 2017, all of those tax revisions were seven years, so they all sunset, which means if Congress doesn’t act come January 1, federal income taxes for individuals will go up, corporations will go up, the estate taxes will go up. Taxes will go up everywhere.”

Chamber of Commerce Director Marita Hauser asked about Pharmacy Benefit Managers, which is a company that provides services to health insurance companies, employers, and other healthcare organizations by managing prescription drug benefits. PBMs act as intermediaries between health insurers, pharmacies, and drug manufacturers, aiming to optimize prescription drug costs and benefits for their clients.

“There’s been pharmacies closing, locally owned pharmacies,” Hauser said. “The PBM’s are driving the business to the big (pharmacies like) CVS and Walgreens and mail order. To me, our local pharmacy is one of the life bloods, it’s as crucial to me as having the hospital. If I’m sick, I don’t want to have to drive 60 miles to get a prescription.”

Mann said it’s a big deal.

“Our local pharmacies are struggling,” the PBMs are taking and are really driving a lot of the costs in the system to the detriment of our local smaller pharmacies,” he said. “There’s some legislation I support to reform, in many ways do away with and get back to its original intent that will really help. I was optimistic in December that was going to get passed. It did not. Very aware and concerned about it and pretty optimistic it’s going to get fixed. It needs to be.”