Weekly Updates
On Sunday, the House of Representatives passed the Senate version of the healthcare reform bill by a vote of 219-212. Instead of this moment being a time for celebration of bipartisanship and reform, it's come to represent what folks deeply resent about Washington.
When Congress first met, legislators rode on horseback for days to reach Washington, and received stacks of mail from constituents back home. Today, the travel is must faster (it only takes me a couple of hours from Montross to DC) but the mail remains a large part of the job. I receive thousands of emails, phone calls, tweets, faxes, and letters each week. These are just a few of the mediums I use to keep in touch with First District citizens.
During these trying economic times every elected official's top three priorities should be: jobs, jobs, and jobs. With our national unemployment rate at just under 10%, and our economy continuing to struggle, government should be listening and lending a hand to our small businesses. Small businesses accounts for 70% of the jobs created each year in our country and are essential to economic growth.
This week President Obama signed an executive order to establish the "National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform," co-chaired by President Clinton's former White House Chief of Staff, Erskine Bowles, and former Senator Alan Simpson (R-WY).
Telecommuting offers flexibility for workers to accomplish their tasks from home.
On Tuesday, I hosted a broadband roundtable in Warsaw, to bring together broadband expansion stakeholders in the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula. We had a great group of participants including Ellen Matthews Davis from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Development office, representatives from the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula Planning Districts, telecommunications companies, private citizens, and representatives from NeckTech, which on that day officially became the Northern Neck Broadband Authority.
This past Monday I toured the Veterans Administration Medical Center (VAMC) at Hampton. This Veterans Hospital, the fourth oldest medical center in the VA system, is a 468-bed facility which serves a 15-county area in eastern Virginia and a 10-county area in northeastern North Carolina. I received a brief tour of the center, a briefing from hospital administrators, and met with both patients and doctors.
I started off this week by continuing to hold town hall meetings, to hear directly from my constituents on their thoughts and concerns about the happenings in Washington. I focused on reaching out to our senior citizens, by holding events at retirement communities in Fredericksburg and Newport News. The seniors I spoke with echoed what I've been hearing for months: we need healthcare reform, but not in this form and certainly not in the manner it's been conducted; behind closed doors with no transparency or bipartisan input - and I couldn't agree more.
This week Congress returned to Washington to begin the second session of the 111th Congress. There are many items on the agenda as we start the year, including healthcare reform, financial services regulatory reform, as well as appropriations bills to fund the government's operations. This week I've focused on working with the Marine Corps, who are currently in the process of deciding where to move three Marine Corps Security Force companies currently based at Norfolk, Virginia.
As Congress is wrapping up its Winter District Work Period, I've spent a great deal of time attending events and visiting with folks around the First District. I was pleased to visit with Advanced Placement Government students at Fredericksburg Academy and 5th Graders at Cople Elementary in Hague. I was also supposed to meet with Ni River Middle School's 7th graders, but this morning's snow had other plans for the students.