Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Kansas Congressman Dennis Moore pulled out a guitar and requested that everyone join him in singing “This Land is your Land,” during a speech at Delta Chi fraternity Monday night.
Moore said, this land belongs to all Americans together and that means putting bipartisan politics aside to focus on what we have in common.
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“They failed on September 11, 2001, and now we need to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
—Rep. Dennis Moore
“By no means is America perfect,” Moore said, “but we have more rights than any country in the world, and you are so lucky to be born here.”
Moore said people were so concerned with political differences, they don’t see that. Moore was mostly concerned that American spending was getting out of control.
He said that when he went into office in 1999 the national debt was $5.3 trillion. It is now $9.4 trillion and rising.
Moore said that the three most significant contributions to the national debt were Department of Defense spending, health care services — Medicare and Medicaid — and interest on the national debt itself. He said he told President Bush that as a grandfather, he felt it was wrong to pass on that kind of debt.
“It is time that the government starts living on a budget like every American family has to,” Moore said.
He said he agreed with President Bush in that the federal government’s first concern in spending should be to defend all Americans.
“They failed on September 11, 2001,” Moore said, “and now we need to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
He said America already won the military victory in Iraq, but now it was time for the Iraqi people to step up and take over their government.
“We saved the Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein,” Moore said. “We can’t save the Iraqi people from the Iraqi people.”
He said that the amount of money we were spending on keeping troops there was crippling America’s economic future.
“Whether we withdraw now or in 50 years, there is still going to be violence,” Moore said. “They have been fighting over there for over a thousand years.”
Moore said that no matter how people felt about the occupation, supporting American troops was imperative. He said he worked on a bill that raised the amount of money given to families of dead soldiers from $12,000 to $100,000.
“No matter what we think about foreign policy,” Moore said, “this shows that we value our troops.”
Zach Wisdom, Manhattan junior, said this issue touched him the most because he had family friends in the military.
“He is just so down to Earth,” Wisdom said about Moore. “He knows the president, but talking to him you wouldn’t know it. He’s just a passionate guy.”
Moore said that health care had vast opportunities to save money if America could bring it into the 21st century.
“We have this wonderful thing called the Internet,” Moore said.
He said he was currently advocating for an opt-in medical record database online that would save $260 to $270 billion a year in medical spending.
“In a few years time, that kind of money really adds up,” Moore said.
Moore said he was very concerned about how he would leave this land for his children’s children.
He said that education from kindergarten through college or even tech school should be a main priority for state governments.
“On a federal level, defense is the most important issue,” Moore said, “but on a state level, I think it is education. And the federal government should be a junior partner in that.”
Marc Langston, Wichita senior, said that President Bush tried to cut student loan budgets in half, but Moore and the democratic congress doubled that budget.
Langston, who met Moore while he was president of KU Young Democrats, said he suggested to Moore that he come speak at a fraternity.
“He promised he would come speak at my fraternity before I graduated,” Langston said, “and he really did come though.”
—Edited by Mandy Earles
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