BY AMY BALTODANO
Hays Post
Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Hays, spoke to a full house on Saturday morning at the Hays Welcome Center, 2700 Vine. Moran was on his third round touring the 105 counties in Kansas.
Moran emphasized he is working hard at prioritizing issues and paying close attention to the conversations he has with Kansans, including “the things I hear in church on Sunday and in the grocery store and the post office.”
Moran also thanked audience for attending — and for making sure he stays true to his Kansas roots. He said Washington is a place that can make you someone you do not want to become.
“It has a habit of changing you, your perspective changes, you see things differently,” he said. “There are people in Washington, D.C., who tell me how smart I am, what a star I am, what a rising opportunity I have — those people are lobbyists, and you can begin to believe them.”
Moran said the two most challenging issues facing the Senate right now involve a trade issue and national security. Moran said when he returns to Washington on Monday, senators will be discussing the national defense authorization bill.
Senators are working on trying to pass 12 appropriations bills for the first time in several years.
Moran said he is happy they now have a budget to operate under now that the House and Senate reconciled and passed a budget.
“Every city council, every county commissioner, every school board could pass a budget, but the United States Congress has been unable to do so for a long time,” Moran said. “Once the budget gets passed, you get 12 appropriations and then get to decide how the money is spent within several different categories within that budget.”
The last time Congress passed all 12 bills and sent them to the president was over ten years ago — another example, Moran said, of how things are not going the way they should.
That said, he believes this Senate — now under Republican control — is different than in previous years.
“The passing of the budget is a pretty good example of that,” Moran said. “The fixing the doc issue — the reductions in the payments under Medicare to physicians — getting it fixed after 18 years of trying. There is some evidence of us coming together to solve the country’s problems.”
He added about half the calls his office receives are complimentary of Moran’s performance, with the the other half saying, “Why can’t you all just get along and fix this?”
Moran said Kansas is unique nationally, and a part of his duty to reflecting those differences in the Senate.
“Almost no one realizes the lifestyle or the way we live our lives. Part of my job is trying to explain to folks who have no appreciation and, in some instances, who have no interest in what life is like in rural America,” he said. “Where I come from, the economic development is often whether or not there is a grocery store in town, trying to keep a hardware store, a newspaper and the things that make up our lives in rural America.”
The second issue he spoke about was veteran’s issues, including the ongoing battle with the Department of Veteran’s Affairs and the scandal in VA hospitals involving falsified waiting lists that showed vets were receiving better care than they really were.
Moran said this has allowed him to push something to Congress that has been wanting for some time.
“We pushed the VA to open up outpatient clinics, including the one in Hays, but I would say the same thing: If you are 92-year-old World War II veteran, how do you get to hays or Burlington, Colo., from Atwood to access VA care? The answer is you probably don’t.”
The recently passed Choice Act now offers veterans in-home care if they live more than 40 miles from a VA facility or is it takes the VA more than 30 days to provide services.