By James Bell
Hays Post
Monday morning U.S. Rep. Tim Huelskamp spoke to constituents in Hays on a variety of topics at a town hall meeting, but before taking questions, Huelskamp spoke about his thoughts of the expanding national debt.
“If we get this wrong, our debt is going to eat us alive,” Huelskamp said. “When the current president was elected they have added about seven trillion dollars in new debt.”
“As of today it’s over $19 trillion,” he said. “That’s going to take away our sovereignty, eat up our futures and we won’t be able to fund anything we’d like, if we’re spending so much to service this debt,” he said.
Huelskamp also had harsh words about fellow congressmen on handling the debt.
“I’m very concerned about that, I will say most of my colleagues, they like to talk about it, but they generally don’t vote like they’re worried about it,” he said. “Currently they are adding about $1.5 billion every day.”
Following an audience question Huelskamp shared information about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement with Pacific Rim countries, that has been a part of the Obama Administration’s trade policy goals.
“My expectation is it has been finally signed, it will be submitted formally to congress, I think this month, but I don’t think Congress is going to take it up this year,” Huelskamp said.
“It’s probably the biggest trade deal in human history and it deserves our time and attention.”
“When Congress told the President to continue to negotiate that, because he had been negotiating this for about five or six years, we identified 100 different things we told the President these are priorities you must address,” Huelskamp said about currency manipulation in the TPP.
“For agriculture, for wheat for example, currently if you hit the quota, you have a 100 percent tariff on wheat,” he said.
“If you want to trade with us, Japan or any other country, you’ve got to do it on a level playing filed,” Huelskamp said, “That’s what TPP tries to do.”
Huelskamp also spoke about the appointment of a replacement for Antonin Scalia, associate justice, U.S. Supreme Court, who died over the weekend.
“The biggest backbone you would probability be looking for in the next few months would be in the U.S. Senate of what they are going to do if there’s a nominee to replace Justice Scalia,” he said. “That would be a real battle.”