U.S. Rep. Jerry Moran fielded questions ranging from the farm bill to the war in Iraq during his listening tour appearance at PrairieLand Partners in Emporia on Thursday afternoon.
Moran has so far held more than 20 town hall-style meetings this year as he travels throughout the 69 counties that make up the First Congressional District, the “Big First.” His appearance at the John Deere dealership, 1744 Road F, points to his emphasis on the proportion of rural residents in the district.
“I think our country faces tremendous challenges,” Moran said Thursday, “but we’ve been fortunate to some degree in Kansas that, while we didn’t hit the peaks we also have not had the valleys, although there are plenty of issues and concerns out there.”
Moran opened with a discussion about the stimulus package being pushed through Congress. “While the media reports that all Republicans voted against it, which I guess is true, I don’t see evidence that it was a design by Republicans to embarrass the president or to make his term in office difficult. I think the members of Congress I know are very concerned about the economy, they see things that are very troublesome, they’re serious about their work.”
Moran pointed out that the disagreement in Congress has to do with spending $818 billion in an effort to boost the economy.
“That ought not be easy, even if it’s the right thing to do,” he said. “That’s over $4,000 per American family. ... It’s almost twice what the deficit was last year. Our country is facing economic difficulties because we have borrowed too much money. Especially as a government. And so it doesn’t seem to me we can solve the problems by borrowing more money. So I did not vote for the stimulus package.”
Moran said he believes money should be spent on capital improvements, to provide jobs and improve the country’s infrastructure. In the current stimulus package, capital improvements amount to about 7 percent of total expenditures.
“There are consequences to adding $818 billion to the national debt,” he said. “In my mind there are economic consequences, but I also see it as a moral issue. It is wrong to expect our kids and grandkids to pick up the tab for things that we’re unwilling to pay for.”
Moran described his idea of a stimulus as something that returns more money than was put into it. “What a stimulus is to me is something you put a dollar into, and you get something back that’s more than a dollar,” he said. “ Because of the economic multiplier, you put a dollar into a construction project, people go to work, and because people are working, tax revenues increase, you get more bang for your buck.”
One audience member asked how the United States could have expected to pay for the Iraq war, considering how expensive it has turned out to be. “How dumb can we get?” he asked Moran.
“I think President Bush made a significant mistake by downplaying the seriousness of this war -- what it would take, what it would cost -- and in part maybe he wanted to do that so Americans didn’t get riled up, that we could do it on the cheap,” Moran said. “That’s troublesome to me economically, and it’s also bothersome to me that we can expect to go to war, and all the rest of us, except our soldiers and their families, can continue to live their lives as though nothing has changed.”
Moran said the process of removing soldiers from Iraq is moving along, but he doesn’t think it will be as easy as it would seem.
“I think this war has made demands on the active, the reserve and the guard in ways that were never anticipated,” Moran said. “No soldier, no member of the military can withstand the multiple deployments we’ve seen. ...”
Moran serves on the Veterans Affairs Committee, and he says it is making progress in caring for returning soldiers. “We still have a long way to go,” he said. Congress last year increased the amount of money spent for veterans’ health care, including outpatient clinics and options for family counseling and psychological services.
Regarding the economy and the outcry about executives who escape from their failing companies with multi-million dollar compensation packages, one audience member asked, “Don’t you feel that when there’s public outroar, and we say, ‘Hey, we just won’t take that kind of business anymore,’ don’t you think public opinion works?”
“Absolutely,” Moran said. “I wouldn’t do what I do if I didn’t believe that an individual, whether elected or not, could make a difference. And once you give up on that belief, that individuals matter and that what you say and how you conduct yourself and what you do and what position you take, once you reach the conclusion that that’s irrelevant, you’ve lost a lot of the meaning of life. We still believe we can change things in this country.”
One audience member expressed concern that the government doesn’t listen to people.
“I’ve never seen my job as coming here to describe or explain to you how Washington, D.C. works. What I see my job is, is to try to take to Washington, D.C. how Kansas works,” Moran said. “How we do things, and how generally what we want is to be left alone.”
Moran also addressed the concerns of Kansas farmers. “The First Congressional District of Kansas is the largest recipient of agricultural farm program payments in the country,” he said. He voted against the farm bill because it takes almost $4 billion out of crop insurance for a disaster program he doesn’t think will work for Kansans. Under the program, farmers won’t be reimbursed for losses until a year after a disaster is declared. “Because you have to prove your losses, it’s revenue for an entire farm throughout the whole year, ... so you have to prove that your revenue is down for the whole year, so that means the payment comes 18 months after you lost your crop.
“I care about farmers not only for the economy that they provide in our communities,” he said, “but I still believe it’s a way of life that we can transmit our values, our character, our integrity, our common sense from one generation to the next, and it’s one of the few places left that sons and daughters work side by side with moms and dads and grandparents, and it’s something that we don’t want to lose as Americans, we don’t want to lose that connection to the land.”