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April 8, 2016 Conaway Chronicle: Visiting Midland College, Exhibit Honoring Texas Heroes in San Angelo, Town Hall Meetings __________________________________________ |
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Thank you for reading The Conaway Chronicle, a review of my activities in Congress and the 11th District. Visiting Midland College This week, I got the chance to speak with students at Midland College. They asked very insightful questions about many topics, making it a great conversation about the future of our country. It's obvious that this group of students is going places!
Here are just a few of the questions the students and other guests asked, and my answers: Our country has a large amount of debt. What can we do to pay it off? It’s pretty straight forward: first, you have to stop running deficits. Then, if you can run surpluses you can apply that money to paying off the debt. Unfortunately, President Obama has never released a budget that ever breaks even. Congress has passed a budget previously that balanced after 10 years, which was vetoed by the President. I've signed on to support the Republican Study Committee budget, which stopped running deficits after 7 years. In July, I’ll retire after 20 years of service in the military. I’m worried about the VA, and its treatment of our veterans. What can be done? Thank you for your service. First, I want to separate those within the VA system that work day-in and day-out to serve our veterans with professionalism and care from the high level bureaucrats within the VA that weren’t doing their job or those that manipulated schedules and broke the rules. Congress empowered the administration to fire hundreds of employees, but the Secretary and administration have not acted. Leadership comes from the top, and people that will do the job of actually providing care for veterans need to be in those positions- instead of the career bureaucrats there now. Generations to come will take note of how we treat our veterans, and it will have an impact on their willingness to serve their country. Do you think we need to increase the size of our military to confront growing global challenges? The effect of sequestration and lack of increased investment in our military means that we’re going to have the smallest fighting force our country has seen in decades. We have B52s in service that are older than nearly everyone in this room. Our aircraft carriers are struggling to meet their commitments worldwide. Does anyone think that we live in a safer world than we did a few years ago? Protecting our nation is the most important thing our federal government should do, and we need to provide our service members with the tools to do so. Exhibit Honoring Texas Heroes in San Angelo Today and tomorrow, a wall honoring Texas military heroes will be displayed at the Tom Green County Stephens Central Library. The exhibit, which was created in 2010, recognizes the more than 600 military service members from Texas who have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you're in San Angelo today or tomorrow, admission to view the wall is free to the public. What: “Remembering Our Fallen” display honoring Texas service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan When: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday Where: Stephens Central Library, 33 W. Beauregard Ave.
Town Hall Meetings Thanks to all who made it out to the two town hall meetings this week in Odessa and Midland. You can always find the latest information about upcoming town hall meetings on my Facebook page or the website. I hope to see you at a town hall soon!
As always, you can follow me on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Sincerely,  Rep. Mike Conaway, 11th District |
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