U.S. Senate candidate comes calling
July 12, 2012
The Kearney Courier
By Mark Johnson
Sarah Steelman, Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, has definitive ideas on how to address issues affecting citizens across Missouri.
“I know there are a whole lot of things that need to be done, but we need to start with getting our budget under control,” she said Monday, July 9, at the Walters farm near Kearney. “No one can continue to run a country like we are and not end up suffering.”
Steelman, a former Missouri state treasurer and state senator, used Greece and Spain as examples of countries facing that suffering right now and said America’s budget needs to be balanced within five years, not decades from now. The candidate also favors zero-based budgeting.
“I want to do things differently,” the candidate said, including listening to her constituents — which she does not see too many leaders doing at this time, she said.
“They have become very disconnected to what normal everyday people have to deal with,” she said of officeholders in Washington, D.C
Along this line, Steelman said there is another important step that should be taken for the betterment of citizens.
“We need to have a moratorium on any new regulations,” Steelman said, citing a need to go through the ones already in place and determine which regulations make sense and which ones need to be eliminated.
Two particular regulations she cited that affect agriculture deal with dust control and age requirements that could have strictly limited what work younger farm family members have been doing for years.
Fred Walters, one of the event hosts, agrees with Steelman’s stance on regulations.
“We need limited government,” he said.
Steelman is visiting agricultural areas throughout western and southern Missouri this week on her Flatbed Forum Tour, stressing that she want to hear what’s on the minds of Missourians.
A major concern of one area resident Monday dealt with the need for job creation.
Steelman went back to her first priority if elected to the U.S. Senate: “We need to deal with our economic crisis first,” she said. “Everything else spins off of that.”
Steelman also stressed the need for the government not to hold the private sector back.
Where elected representatives are concerned, she blamed the culture in part that has created career politicians in the nation’s capital, providing them with benefits the ordinary citizen does not receive, including a higher degree of medical care and substantial pensions
“I believe in term limits,” Steelman said. I also want to eliminate congressional pensions.”
The candidate said she would have no problem leaving office after two terms