By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Northern Missouri Congressman Sam Graves says the new Congress has work to do.
Graves, a Republican, says reforming the country’s immigration policy needs to top the list of priorities for this Congress.
“That’s going to be one of the very top priorities, getting the border secure and we still have really no good idea of how many individuals have been let into this country that are dangerous to citizens and to the public,” Graves tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post.
Graves says while immigration reform might top the list of priorities for the incoming Congress, the federal debt cannot be far behind. Graves says Congress must slow down what he calls runaway spending and the start needs to be reforming the process used to create a federal budget.
“The way budgeting is done in Washington, and this is completely contrary to everybody else’s, you know, their business’, their home’s budgets, whatever the case may be, but in Washington, even if there is an increase in what an agency got the year before, if there’s a decrease in the increase then it’s considered a cut,” according to Graves. “And that just simply isn’t the case. If you got more than you got last year before, then your budget has gone up.”
And Graves says budgets must shrink. He says Congress should begin by putting an end to mandatory spending.
“So, we’re going to have to take a good, hard look at the way budgeting is done and take a good, hard look at how we can get into some of this mandatory spending that gets plugged in, again, no matter what.”
The Treasury Department reports the federal deficit in the latest federal fiscal year topped $624 billion. The United States has a national debt of more than $36 trillion.
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