One of my principal responsibilities as a Member of the House of Representatives is to keep in touch with the people I have the honor to represent in Congress. I do this in a number of ways. For example, I held two town hall meetings yesterday in the Warren County portion of our Congressional District, one at the Salem Township firehouse near the village of Morrow, and the other in the Wayne Township administration building near Waynesville, where coincidently the annual Sauerkraut Festival takes place. (I’d highly recommend it.)
I’m also holding a town hall meeting today in Evendale at the Evendale Recreation Center.
As I’ve done in this blog a few times in the past, I thought you, my faithful blog readers, might like to hear a sampling of the questions I received from my town hall attendees, and the answers I gave in response. Here goes.
Question: Do you favor shutting down the government, over Obamacare funding, as Senator Lee is proposing?
Answer: The debt ceiling limit will be reached sometime this fall, probably in November. We should use this as an opportunity to rein in out-of-control federal spending. And whereas I hope we can avoid a government shutdown, if Republicans in the House agree to fund all aspects of the federal government except for Obamacare, and President Obama vetoes the legislation, who has really shut down the government, Republicans in the House, or President Obama? That being said, let’s be realistic. Most in the press will blame Republicans and not President Obama, and Republicans will, in all likelihood, cave, and will therefore have accomplished very little. Thus we have to be smart about this.
Question: What do you think about the Fort Hood shooting being classified as “workplace violence?”
Answer: Outrageous. It was a terrorist act carried out by a Jihadist extremist yelling “Allahu Akbar” (god is great) as he began killing American soldiers. We should call terrorism terrorism, not workplace violence.
Question: Why isn’t Congress holding Obama and Hillary Clinton’s feet to the fire on Benghazi?
Answer: Chairman Darrell Issa and his committee are carefully and methodically trying to get to the truth on Benghazi, and the IRS scandals. However the Obama Administration has resisted coming clean at every turn. We must persevere, and get the truth out to the American people, no matter where it leads.
Question: Do you favor term limits, and why do Members of Congress get full pension benefits for life after serving only one term, free healthcare, and why don’t you have to pay Social Security like everybody else?
Answer: I favor term limits, and have voted for them every time they have come up for a vote in Congress. However, since the Founders put two-year-terms for House Members and six-year-terms for Senators without term limits in the Constitution, it would take a two-thirds vote in the House, and a two-thirds vote in the Senate, and three-fourths of the state legislatures, to pass the necessary Constitutional Amendment to implement term limits.
As for the other things you mentioned, there has been an Internet post going around for years now. It’s false. Members of Congress must serve five years before any of their pension vests, and then it’s only a small portion of it, which increases with years of service. Members of Congress pay towards their healthcare coverage each paycheck, as is common practice in the private sector, and Members of Congress do pay into Social Security, just as most other working Americans do.
Question: What’s going on with the Brent Spence Bridge? And what do you think about tolls?
Answer: I, and the other local representatives in the House and the Senate have thus far acquired about $50 million for the Brent Spence Bridge, mostly for planning expenses. However, the total cost is estimated to be approximately $2.3 billion, and that cost will be shared by Ohio, Kentucky, the federal government, and local entities to some degree, but the exact breakdown has not yet been determined. I’m not a big fan of tolls, but that’s a decision that will be determined primarily at the state level.
Question: I have a son in college, and a son in high school who will be in college soon. I’m concerned about student loan interest rates, and the amount of debt my sons will have after they graduate. Is anything happening in Washington on this?
Answer: The more the federal government has gotten involved in college funding, the higher the colleges have raised tuition rates – because they can. As the federal government has shoveled more and more money towards colleges, and literally taken over all student loans nationwide, tuition inflation has escalated. We ought to get the federal government out of it, and let competition keep prices down.
Question: Would you support a Detroit bailout?
Answer: Absolutely not.
Well, that gives you an idea of what is on the minds of the people of the First Congressional District of Ohio – at least on the minds of those who took the time to attend my town hall meetings.
See you next week.