“I’m from the Federal Government and I’m here to help”
Congressman Jim Matheson visited the House chamber yesterday and began his comments to us with the line, “I’m from the Federal Government and I’m here to help.” That garnered a lot of laughter as his visit followed an intense debate we had just been having over the past several days about the appropriate level of intervention for the federal government to impose on the states. As you can imagine the skew is heavily towards states rights in the House right now with many issues being examined under that lense: health care reform, climate change policy, gun rights, women’s reproductive rights, and on and on.
Congressman Matheson also stated we have a long list of serious challenges right now. What he is hoping happens is that instead of people at every level trying to leverage every issue for political gain that we will emulate what happened in 1983, Tip O’Neil met with Ronald Reagan and a few hours later they came back with a solution to the federal medicare issues. They locked arms across the aisle and committed to solve an issue that was too important to get mired in partisanship.
It is my feeling that at the end of the day what people want is to have legislators roll up their sleeves and make progress on the issues. To face the challenges and make good decisions. Whether you represent and serve 30,000 people as I do or 900,000 people as Congressman Matheson does, this should be our shared goal as well. I know it is mine.
February 19th, 2010 at 2:48 am
The Congressman’s name is Jim. His brother and father are named Scott.
February 19th, 2010 at 2:53 pm
Thanks…evidence of a late night posting.
February 20th, 2010 at 9:20 am
The tone in government is becoming increasingly strident and, frankly, filled with rhetoric that is not only non-productive but creates a mob like mentality among segments of the public. The legislature needs to be a productive force in quelling this anger. How about having a joint resolution not to have resolutions that don’t accomplish anything other than anger people like the MLK/Browning holiday, the “climate change isn’t happening”, the federal government is violating article 10 of the constitution, etc. etc. Well there I go, ranting again!