U.S. Representative K. Michael Conaway held a town hall meeting in Brownwood on Friday at the Brownwood Area Chamber of Commerce to talk about recent and upcoming issues including the government shutdown and immigration.
He outlined the recent shutdown that left government offices closed for 16 days, but said that in the end, the outcome was not as bad as many people expected.“It really wasn’t the disaster of biblical proportions that many of us thought it might be,” Conaway said. “We came out of it with a vote last week to reopen the government.”
He said that he voted against the bill to reopen the government although many Republicans voted in favor of it.
“I voted against that bill because I do not believe that it did enough to address the deep fiscal challenges facing our nation and didn’t do more to halt the implementation of Obamacare,” he said.
Conaway said that there were 87 Republicans who voted in favor of the legislation that reopened the government.
“I don’t criticize them for their vote,” he said. “They are listening to their constituents and I am trying to listen to mine.”
Conaway said that both the House and Senate are working on the budget, and the House is trying to get entitlement reform included.
“The goal on our side is to say let’s get as much entitlement reform as we can in exchange to offset some of the sequester spending that is getting cut,” Conaway said.
He said that the Senate and White House are likely not willing to work on entitlement reform without tax increases.
“We are not going to do that in the House,” Conaway said. “We gave the President $600 billion in tax increases on January 1 of this year and we are not going to give any more increases. It’s a spending problem, not a revenue problem.”
“We have a divided government,” Conaway said. “I am as frustrated by it as you are, and I know you are frustrated that nothing is getting done, but that is what divided government does when you don’t have leadership in the White House.”
Conaway reflected on past administrations through Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton who worked with Congress to accomplish their goals during their presidencies.
“Our president is not about leadership, he is about divisiveness and I don’t anticipate that getting any better for the next three years,” he said.
Conaway said that the next hot topic in Washington will be immigration reform.
“I don’t think anybody in this room likes the current status,” he said. “Immigration, like a lot of things, no one person will get the reform exactly the way they like it. I am going to have to make some compromises, they are going to have to make some compromises, but as long as we have an overarching statement that we are going to operate in America’s own best interest.”
He said that the House will be bringing several bills related to immigration reform over the next few months.
Conaway said that aside from current issues in Washington, a larger concern hits closer to home.
“Our founding fathers knew that only a moral people could self govern,” He said. “America has been a force of good in this world on balance, unseen in world history. That has come because of God’s blessings and our hard work. I think God intends for America to be that same champion of freedom, champion of liberty for the next 100 years. We are not going to be able to do that on the path that we are on.”
He said to fix this; it starts in each person’s heart and not through activities in Washington or through government.
“Each one of us has a moral code we live by, and each one of you has the responsibility to claim your moral code and then project that moral code in your everyday life, in your public lives, and in our country,” he said. “We will lose the ability to self govern in the very near future if we can’t reclaim the moral highway.”
