Rep. Bob Goodlatte spoke to about 20 business and community leaders last week at Traveler’s restaurant on South Main Street, about national topics ranging from the national debt to stimulus spending.
Goodlatte’s No. 1 concern, he said, was the national debt, calling it “the largest problem facing the United States.”
Using charts prepared by the Republican Party, Goodlatte illustrated President Barack Obama’s proposed budget for the coming year, with a 1.6 trillion deficit, as higher compared to previous years, noting that it’s significantly higher than a previous historic high of $400 billion.
The increase in the deficit is largely due to entitlement programs, he said, which he identified as a reason he opposed the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.
“We simply cannot afford a new entitlement program for 30 million-plus American citizens,” Goodlatte said. He added that he has co-sponsored legislation to repeal the act.
Concerning Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s lawsuit against the federal health care law, pertaining to a government mandate to purchase health care, Goodlatte said, “It’ll be a close call.” He said that the interstate commerce clause has been “stretched” before in previous cases.
Goodlatte identified what he termed wasteful uses of stimulus money, including $193,000 for a university to study the public’s perception of the stimulus and an undetermined amount to provide money for Siberians in Russia to learn how to lobby their government.
He also identified local wastes of stimulus money, including a $51 million renovation of the Poff Federal Building in Roanoke.
Goodlatte said he would try to cancel the renovation and said that the original cost of constructing the building was $12 million in 1975.
“I think that’s pretty wasteful,” he said.
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