Welcome back to the blog!
There is much to be said this week so I'm just going to skip a thought out introduction and just move right into the topics....
....First off, Rep. Walter Jones has announced his plan to create a bill that would impeach President Obama and the hardcore right wing constituents from the district have made sure that their voices were going to be heard about this. Am I a fan of President Obama? Absolutely not. Do I believe that impeaching him right now is impossible? Yes. In my opinion this plan will fail almost immediately when brought to the respected committee. Even if it did pass the committee and passed through the house, the Senate majority is democratic and there is no way they would vote to impeach a president of their own part, especially during an election year. I welcome comments and questions on this topic.
Yesterday Rep. Paul Ryan, the Chairman of the Budget Committee, released his proposed budget deal to the house. This is a phenomenal thing on both partisan sides of the spectrum since we have not had a budget in over 1,000 days (since Obama took office). I took the time over the last couple of days to read over the budget. In a nut shell its going to cut the government spending to protect tax paying citizens (pretty obvious solution for a budget), works to hold our government officials accountable in their spending so we can afford to put money towards our obligations to financially support our troops, levels the playing field so to speak in order to benefit small business owners to restore our economy, takes away from government bureaucrats to spend towards health and retirement securities, and reforms our tax code in order to boost the economy by lowering rates and closing loopholes. To learn more about the budget or read the full plan go to budget.house.gov
Recently we sent out newsletters to our constituents about the bills that Congressman Ross is working on passing into law. These include freezing congressional salaries, banning insider trading, and abolishing sweetheart pensions. What this means is the bills are working to hold congressional members accountable to A. help the economy, and B. remind them of why they were elected and who they actually work for (the PEOPLE). Needless to say our constituents have called in rather happily to voice their support.
IF THERE IS ANY THING YOU WISH TO KNOW ABOUT IN REGARDS TO CAPITOL HILL OR CURRENT EVENTS PLEASE LET ME KNOW.
Aside from the job, as busy and exciting as it is, I have other news to discuss that's irrelevant to the job....The cherry blossoms are beginning to bloom due to the last 2 weeks being beautiful and in the 70's, so expect photos soon of the cherry blossom festival.
This week I took the time to just sit down and reflect on my semester thus far. So far this has been a wonderful experience. Along with the job comes menial work such as answering phones and handling constituent mail, however, nothing can compare to what you can learn from going to committee hearings and legislative briefing, sitting in on meetings, and talking to the staff members on Capitol Hill. Though this semester has flown by I can honestly say it has already made a lasting impression on me.
Until next time thank you and God bless...
Gage Nicholas
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Monday, March 12, 2012
Congressional Update
Hi All,
This week we are in recess and it's the majority of public schools' spring break so we are jam packed with tours non-stop this week so I felt this would be a good time to catch everyone up on what has been going on in terms of current events since nothing new is happening.
To start President Obama has decided to commission the construction of a $750,000 soccer field in Guantanamo Bay for the terrorist inmates we have imprisoned there. And here's where I express my feelings on the matter....this is absolutely ridiculous. Why should we spend almost a million dollars on aiding the people who have attacked this country instead of spending some money to aid the victims of the recent natural disasters throughout the south and midwest? Why should we waste money, that we don't have, so that terrorists can enjoy prison? The solution for this is in the making right now, it's called the NO FIELD Act, and basically this is going to stop the construction of the soccer field and cut $750,000 from the military budget. Keep in mind, before we declared war in the middle east our military budget was miniscule compared to what it is now. This is for the simple reason that there was 2/3 the amount of military personnel and we were not involved in an type of foreign conflict so the amount we spent on fuel, ammunition, etc was significantly lower. In my opinion the NO FIELD Act should be passed through as a way to remind President Obama of the checks and balances guaranteed in the US Constitution and move on our way to cutting federal spending so that we can work on getting out of this deficit.
This past thursday House Democrats and Republicans FINALLY played nice together and passed a package of bills that will make it easier for small businesses to raise capital so that they may increase their revenue and hire more employees. These bills would also remove SEC restrictions that prevent small businesses from advertising to solicit investors. The fact that this passed with such a high majority in the house on both sides (republican and democrat) really speaks to how efficient the bill is going to be.
In recent foreign affairs news there has been an ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran and their nuclear programs. British Prime Minister David Cameron spoke at a press conference explaining what he felt should take place, which in a nutshell is to attack them ruthlessly before they have a chance to bomb Israel. This is the part where I rant on why that is a dumb idea and what we should do in terms of foreign policy right now.... if we attack Iran right now we will disrupt oil production for 2/3 of the world even though we do not receive oil from them. If we corrupt the Iranian oil fields gas prices all around the world will rise significantly especially in the United States. Once oil rises the price of goods from other countries will also rise and if other countries are aware of something like this being caused by us we might actually start another war. Though I am not qualified to give an expert opinion on foreign policy nor do I feel that what I am about to say is entirely accurate but it is how I feel from what I do understand...this is where the secretary of state Hillary Clinton needs to come in handy and be a peaceful ambassador to both countries. At a time such as this we can not afford to allow ourselves to become involved in foreign conflict when we have relations with both countries. In my opinion it will diminish the allied relationships that we have with both nations and will deplete our economy even more as we are trying to build it back up. Though I'm not sure we can stop Iran and Israel from bombing each other we as a country need to at least figure out a peaceful resolution for them.
The final topic I want to go over is what is in the future for our oil dependency. For a while the Keystone Pipeline XL bill has been floating around the House of Representatives and since it has received so much negative feedback from "green energy enthusiasts" there has been much discussion of sue of fracking and shale oil as a form of natural gas to loosen our dependency on foreign oil, become a "green" society, and create the jobs to stimulate our economy. I feel that is Keystone is not going to get the support it needs then shale oil is a must.
If anyone of you would like to personally talk about any of these topics in a deeper discussion or have any topics that you would like to talk about or want me to research please feel free to contact me at (352) 267-4254 to do so. Until next time...
Thank You and God Bless,
Gage Nicholas
This week we are in recess and it's the majority of public schools' spring break so we are jam packed with tours non-stop this week so I felt this would be a good time to catch everyone up on what has been going on in terms of current events since nothing new is happening.
To start President Obama has decided to commission the construction of a $750,000 soccer field in Guantanamo Bay for the terrorist inmates we have imprisoned there. And here's where I express my feelings on the matter....this is absolutely ridiculous. Why should we spend almost a million dollars on aiding the people who have attacked this country instead of spending some money to aid the victims of the recent natural disasters throughout the south and midwest? Why should we waste money, that we don't have, so that terrorists can enjoy prison? The solution for this is in the making right now, it's called the NO FIELD Act, and basically this is going to stop the construction of the soccer field and cut $750,000 from the military budget. Keep in mind, before we declared war in the middle east our military budget was miniscule compared to what it is now. This is for the simple reason that there was 2/3 the amount of military personnel and we were not involved in an type of foreign conflict so the amount we spent on fuel, ammunition, etc was significantly lower. In my opinion the NO FIELD Act should be passed through as a way to remind President Obama of the checks and balances guaranteed in the US Constitution and move on our way to cutting federal spending so that we can work on getting out of this deficit.
This past thursday House Democrats and Republicans FINALLY played nice together and passed a package of bills that will make it easier for small businesses to raise capital so that they may increase their revenue and hire more employees. These bills would also remove SEC restrictions that prevent small businesses from advertising to solicit investors. The fact that this passed with such a high majority in the house on both sides (republican and democrat) really speaks to how efficient the bill is going to be.
In recent foreign affairs news there has been an ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran and their nuclear programs. British Prime Minister David Cameron spoke at a press conference explaining what he felt should take place, which in a nutshell is to attack them ruthlessly before they have a chance to bomb Israel. This is the part where I rant on why that is a dumb idea and what we should do in terms of foreign policy right now.... if we attack Iran right now we will disrupt oil production for 2/3 of the world even though we do not receive oil from them. If we corrupt the Iranian oil fields gas prices all around the world will rise significantly especially in the United States. Once oil rises the price of goods from other countries will also rise and if other countries are aware of something like this being caused by us we might actually start another war. Though I am not qualified to give an expert opinion on foreign policy nor do I feel that what I am about to say is entirely accurate but it is how I feel from what I do understand...this is where the secretary of state Hillary Clinton needs to come in handy and be a peaceful ambassador to both countries. At a time such as this we can not afford to allow ourselves to become involved in foreign conflict when we have relations with both countries. In my opinion it will diminish the allied relationships that we have with both nations and will deplete our economy even more as we are trying to build it back up. Though I'm not sure we can stop Iran and Israel from bombing each other we as a country need to at least figure out a peaceful resolution for them.
The final topic I want to go over is what is in the future for our oil dependency. For a while the Keystone Pipeline XL bill has been floating around the House of Representatives and since it has received so much negative feedback from "green energy enthusiasts" there has been much discussion of sue of fracking and shale oil as a form of natural gas to loosen our dependency on foreign oil, become a "green" society, and create the jobs to stimulate our economy. I feel that is Keystone is not going to get the support it needs then shale oil is a must.
If anyone of you would like to personally talk about any of these topics in a deeper discussion or have any topics that you would like to talk about or want me to research please feel free to contact me at (352) 267-4254 to do so. Until next time...
Thank You and God Bless,
Gage Nicholas
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)