McCarthy: Congress must reduce our nation's debt

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) gives us his weekly report from Capitol Hill. In his words:

 "After returning to Bakersfield to start the August work period back home, Speaker Pelosi unexpectedly called all House Members back into session for a day to pass one more $26 billion state bailout bill.
The question I have is if the stimulus bill was working, why would Congress need to pass another “temporary” bailout?  We need to get the economy back on track and Americans back to work. Unfortunately, this new legislation includes $9.6 billion in new taxes that make U.S. companies less competitive in the global economy.
 "  In addition, it is a false claim this bill is fully offset by reductions in other spending.  However, the spending reductions in this new bailout bill come from repealing spending in the original stimulus bill—spending that was not offset and added directly to the deficit.  Thus, this bill actually adds $12.6 billion to the current deficit.  Just like hardworking Americans are making tough decisions to live within their budgets, so must the federal government and California.  This means setting priorities and reducing spending—not continually raising taxes, which would hurt economic growth and job creation.

 "After getting back from Washington, I traveled to Taft on Wednesday and had a great discussion with members of the Taft Rotary Club about ideas and solutions that could help shape the future direction of our country. We talked about the need to reduce our nation’s debt and the need to start cutting spending.  And most important, they shared with me about the need for more private sector jobs.  Currently, the Taft community is busy planning their Oildorado Celebration as Taft celebrates their 100th birthday, which I look forward to attending Also, I would like to wish the best of luck to Bob Leikam, who owns the local Domino’s Pizza, and is in the process of planning an attempt to break the world record of pizzas baked and sold in a 24 hour period.

 "Also, next week two new interns from the district will begin working in my Washington office. Joining the team will be Aaron Thiele, a graduate of Cabrillo High school and current junior at Cal Poly SLO studying political science, and Krista Azevedo, a 2009 graduate of Cal Poly SLO who also majored in political science. It’s great to have more interns joining the team as they play a significant role in assisting our office staff in serving the 22nd District. As a former intern myself, I know what a valuable experience interning can be and if you or someone you know is interested in working in my office, the application can be found at KevinMcCarthy.house.gov.

 "Thanks for reading, have a great weekend, and if you have time, tune in on Sunday I'll be on CNN's State of the Union.