Last week Congress was not in session. Therefore, Members of Congress (like myself) were participating in what is called a “District work period.” Instead of being in Washington, we were spread out all over America, meeting with people in our own districts.
Among other meetings and events I had scheduled in the First Congressional District of Ohio, I held five separate town hall meetings in a new part of our district – Warren County. They were held in Lebanon, Franklin Township, Mason, Clearcreek Township, and in Hamilton Township. I’d say an average of 100 to 150 people attended each town hall meeting. (The next opportunity I get, I intend to hold town hall meetings in various parts of the two-thirds of Hamilton County in our district.)
I thought you might find it interesting and informative to give you a sampling of the type of questions I was asked by the folks who attended the meetings (and the gist of how I answered them.)
Here goes.
Question. Do you support the Fair Tax? (A national sales tax.) My answer. Our federal income tax code is far too complicated. It’s cumbersome, and a drag on our economy. I have co-sponsored legislation sunsetting the tax code (throwing it out altogether) and requiring Congress to do one of two things. Either adopt a new income tax code which is flatter, simpler, and fairer. Or abolish the IRS and income taxes altogether, and adopt a national sales tax (the Fair Tax.) What I wouldn’t support is keeping income taxes in place, and imposing a sales tax in addition to it.
OK, next question.
Why did you vote against the Hurricane Sandy relief bill? I’m glad you asked that question. A lot of people along the East Coast were adversely impacted by Hurricane Sandy. They needed and deserved our help. But in typical Washington fashion, the (Democrat-controlled) Senate loaded the relief bill up with a bunch of pork barrel spending, which was totally unrelated to hurricane relief. This is one of the reasons we have a $16.5 trillion national debt. So I, and a number of my conservative colleagues in the House, voted NO, knowing that we risked being unfairly labeled as not caring about the plight of hurricane victims.
Why do we give foreign aid to countries who hate us? Excellent question. We shouldn’t. There are countries who, for example, vote against the U.S. position at the United Nations more often than not. I would set a specific threshold, so that if a country votes against the U.S. more than a certain percentage of the time, they forfeit any and all U.S. aid. And we should be far more selective with foreign aid in the first place. Too often U.S. aid which was intended, for example, to help people in a poor African nation, ends up in a corrupt dictator’s Swiss bank account. We’ve been far too loose with foreign aid over the years. It needs to be tightened, and reduced. (Remember, we’ve got a $16.5 trillion national debt!)
Is our Social Security money safe or not? My answer. It’s outrageous how our government has handled the so-called Social Security trust fund over the last 50 years or so. Here’s how it happened. Back in the 1960’s, LBJ and the then-Democrat Congress, were trying to find a way to pay for the Vietnam War (which was expensive and not going so well) and LBJ’s Great Society programs (which were also expensive and not going so well.) What they did was to combine the Social Security trust fund money with the general revenues of the government into one big pot of money, and proceed to spend the money on anything they wanted. That irresponsible practice has continued to this day. In my view, it’s a scam. A paper IOU is put in the Social Security trust fund account (which is actually nothing but a drawer, in a file cabinet, in a federal office building, in West Virginia) and the spending spree continues. I am a co-sponsor of a bill called the Social Security Preservation Act which would require that every dollar that is taken out of a person’s paycheck for Social Security, can only be used for Social Security, and nothing else.
Do you support the proposed assault weapons ban? No. This was tried for ten years, from 1995-2005, and it didn’t work. We saw no appreciable decrease in gun violence in America (for example, Columbine happened during that period.) In my view, more restrictive gun control laws do not make us safer. They do inconvenience law abiding citizens, because law abiding citizens follow the law. But criminals just ignore the law (that’s why we call them criminals.) I believe it’s the culture which must change. Over-the-top violence in movies, on T.V., and in video games is having a corrosive effect on some impressionable minds. And, we must find a way to keep firearms of any sort out of the hands of those among us who have severe mental or psychological defects.
Do you support recent measures by President Obama and a group of Senators like John McCain and Marco Rubio to change our immigration laws? No, I don’t. Although they intentionally avoid using the word “amnesty” (they prefer “pathway to citizenship”), in my view, that’s what it amounts to. And we’ve been down this road before. Back in 1986, two million people who were here illegally, were given amnesty; and we were assured that our borders would be secured so the flow of illegal immigration would be stopped. Well, it never happened, so now we have 11 to 25 million illegal immigrants. Let’s truly get control of our borders first, and then we, as a nation, can decide what to do about those who are here illegally. Let’s get it right this time.
Well, that’s a sampling of the questions I was asked at my recent town hall meetings, and the responses I gave. There were a lot more questions, but I try to keep this blog to a reasonable length, so I’ll end there.
As always, let me know your thoughts. See you next week.
