Last week, I held a town hall meeting at the John Wesley Powell River History Museum in Green River. I spoke with several county commissioners, the mayor of Green River, and other local officials, but more importantly I spoke with everyday citizens about the issues that they found to be most important.
Normally, the focus of this sort of event is on local issues. In this case, however, I was struck by the consistent worries surrounding the direction of the nation as a whole. Utahns are increasingly troubled by the national-level policies that are interfering in their lives, and with good reason—the federal government has never been larger, more intrusive, or more expensive.
I had several conversations with business leaders who find their enterprises stuck in neutral, unable to expand because of a wide variety of problems created in Washington, from the difficulty of complying with the tax code to excessive and seemingly never-ending EPA “studies” and lawsuits. It should come as no surprise that unemployment remains above 8% after a year in which over 80,000 pages of new federal regulations went into effect.
Many of the town hall attendees were also extremely frustrated with the continued state of inactivity produced by Washington’s control of the majority of Utah’s land. Not only does this overreach prevent countless businesses from growing their normal operations, but technological developments in recent years would specifically allow energy companies to tap vast reserves of oil and natural gas if only the federal government would let them.
Concerns about the future of the nation’s finances were raised repeatedly. Utahns see annual deficits of nearly one and a half trillion dollars and know that such spending is unsustainable. Moreover, they have become aware of just how many budgetary gimmicks are used to hide the reality of our spending from voters. This is why I will continue to fight for real reform like the Honest Budget Act, so that a cut will truly be a cut.
Perhaps most importantly, the people who gave their time to share their opinions with me were disturbed by what they perceived to be the loss of America’s most basic principles. They have become afraid of a government that is attempting to break its own constraints as established in the country’s founding document, the Constitution. As our Founding Fathers knew more than two centuries ago, the people I spoke with knew that government without limits leads to tyranny, and therefore how important it is to maintain limits on federal power.
I am deeply grateful to those who attended this town hall meeting, and indeed to every single Utahn who reaches out to me in any way. I will always remain committed to listening to Utah’s citizens and representing them well in Congress.
