More than 60 residents showed up to a town hall meeting hosted
by Congressman Sam Farr July 18, at 6 p.m., in the County Board of
Supervisors Chamber, some with personal concerns with which they
sought the politician’s help and others with more general concerns
about the federal government.
More than 60 residents showed up to a town hall meeting hosted by Congressman Sam Farr July 18, at 6 p.m., in the County Board of Supervisors Chamber, some with personal concerns with which they sought the politician’s help and others with more general concerns about the federal government.
San Benito County Supervisor Margie Barrios introduced the elected official, who talked for about 45 minutes before opening up the forum to questions from the public.
“It’s a delight always to be back in San Benito County,” he said. “There is a lot of federal activity and we’ve tried to figure out what all of those are and try to get better bank for our buck…San Benito County has always been the little sister of somebody else. It’s at the end of Santa Clara, with it’s incredible wealth and size. It’s the east side of Monterey County and Salinas, which has ag, and the east side of Santa Cruz. We were all one county at one time.”
Farr touted thinking regionally and said that he has worked with local organizations to meet with different federal agencies to help make connections that could lead to more federal money in the county. Farr said that San Benito County receives less federal money than other similar-rural counties because some of those other counties have large portions of federal land, mining operations or other programs that bring in federal revenue.
“San Benito unemployment is one of the highest in the state,” Farr said. “Government shouldn’t be most of the economy, but the person teaching school or paving a street, they receive a salary. The money is spent on rent, cars and sales. It’s always a balance between having a good government and a good, strong private sector.”
As he spoke, Farr’s staff members showed a slide with a graph that showed the source of the current federal deficit. The decifit included economic stimulus, the bail out of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Bush era tax cuts, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and TARP.
“I’ve never seen so many issues on the table in my life and these are big issues,” he said.
Farr tried to explain the debt ceiling, which was still being debated by the legislators and the president as of the Pinnacle deadline, in terms of the Hollister Street Festival.
“Congress has to authorize how much money they can borrow,” he said. “It’s like a line of equity, a line of credit, that you are borrowing from yourself…You know there are times when income comes in. For instance a business that knows when there is a car rally (the Hollister Street Festival) is a time when income comes in. But some of you had to spend money to get ready. You might have had to borrow money to hire staff. But you regain that money and go back and pay the bank.”
Farr said the debt ceiling had been raised 70 times in the past without issue.
“It’s essentially a financial responsibility that the government has,” he said. “The reason why its front page news for the first time is someone put conditionality on it.”
Farr was referring to Republican legislators who have said they will only approve the debt ceiling if there are no tax increases included in the plan.
See the full story in the Pinnacle on Friday.
