Media

I always look forward to August recess when I am able to spend time traveling across the Fourth District visiting with constituents and local officials to hear directly from them about the challenges their families, businesses, and communities are facing. When I hear the unvarnished truth from the people who are living with the choices made in Washington, D.C., I can do a better job of making government work with you and for you, not against you.

This week marks the 21^st anniversary of the horrific attacks on our nation that look nearly 3,000 innocent lives on September 11, 2001. 9/11 is known as one of the darkest days of American history. It changed the world forever and shaped a generation. In the days following the shocking attack, we turned as a country to process our grief and consider our next steps forward. The horrors of those days transformed into something the terrorists never intended. We came together to comfort and support each other in unprecedented unity.

President Joe Biden issued an Executive Order this week to transfer $500 billion of student loan debt onto the American taxpayers over the next ten years and extended the freeze on student debt repayments until January 2023, costing the taxpayers $5 billion per month.

This week, Congressional Democrats used a special procedural tool called “reconciliation” to pass a $745 billion bill through both chambers of Congress on a party line vote. The misleadingly named “Inflation Reduction Act,” (IRA) will raise taxes on every income bracket, hire 87,000 additional IRS agents to enforce those taxes, cut jobs, reduce medical innovation opportunities, and certainly worsen inflation. Moreover, this bill will result in approximately $130 billion in new debt that will be carried by our children and grandchildren.

President Joe Biden and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas quietly approved a plan to complete a section of the border wall near Yuma, Arizona, filling four major gaps in the wall. Those four gaps have resulted in the Yuma area becoming one of the busiest hubs of illegal immigration.