Hartzler: Get big government off my back!

In her weekly report, Fourth District Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler says that the only thing she heard during a tour of her district Monday was "Get the government off my back."

Monday was a day traveling the northern counties of the Fourth District, meeting with leaders in agriculture and small business. It could have been called "Get Government Out of Our Lives Day" due to the continued theme I heard from people throughout the day. Farmers expressed outrage that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is trying to regulate dust; make the application of crop protection products more difficult; and pull Atrazine from the list of approved herbicides helping to reduce soil loss. As a lifelong farmer I couldn't agree more with the comments I heard: "Block the federal government intrusions into farming." "Stop the reach of the EPA with its stifling rules created by Washington bureaucrats." "Get Washington out of the way and let farmers feed America."

Similar comments were voiced by small business leaders I visited with in Higginsville. Every business there cited government rules and regulations that were increasing costs and stifling job creation. These regulations must be stopped if we are ever to get jobs back in America and turn around our economy. It's a real problem. We need jobs. Despite the president telling us last year's stimulus package would keep unemployment below 8 percent we are dealing with a national jobless rate of 9 percent – and it’s higher in some parts of the 4th Congressional District. That figure only includes people filing for unemployment benefits. It doesn’t count the 8.4 million Americans who are only working part-time because they can’t find full-time work.

A big part of the solution to the problem involves cutting government regulations. This week we passed a rule directing every House Committee to "inventory and review existing, pending, and proposed regulations and orders from agencies of the Federal Government, particularly with respect to their effect on jobs and economic growth." We are going to try to weed out every job-destroying rule and regulation, shine the light of day on it, and beat it back if at all possible. I spoke on the House floor about the onerous rules harming agriculture (attached is text of my speech) and will be sharing other stories I heard this week from the people in the 4th District. Washington needs to know what it's doing to farmers, small businesses, and families here in Missouri and across this nation. If you have a story of how a government rule or regulation is impacting you or your family, let me know. I'll be more than happy to share them with the government agencies here in Washington! You can email me at: www.hartzler.house.gov.

In other action, we in the House tried to get back some of your hard-earned tax dollars this week with a piece of legislation to require President Obama to demand the United Nations repay about $179 million in U.S. overpayments. Sadly, liberals in the House stood in the way of this effort, refusing to give us the two-thirds’ majority needed to move the legislation along to the Senate. What baffles me and probably frustrates every right-thinking 4th District Missourian is that they stood in the way, knowing that the U.N. plans to use this money for building renovations at the organization’s headquarters in New York City! Your tax dollars at work!

Pro-life issues are very important to me and I had the chance to join pro-life groups and supporters who are demanding the government put an end to its funding of abortion-provider Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood gets about a third of its funding - $363 million – from taxpayers. It’s bad enough that abortion opponents are forced to fund the taking of innocent life, but we learned recently that some Planned Parenthood employees have been caught, on camera, aiding and abetting alleged sex trafficking involving minors. Why are our tax dollars supporting this organization? We must strip the funding now!

Our men and women in uniform are always very much in my thoughts and prayers. This week, I was given the opportunity to specifically support our women in uniform as I helped stuff USO care packages. (See the attached photo.) This particular package recognizes the service and sacrifice of American women serving in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other locations. 2,000 care packages are being sent. They contain international calling cards, toiletries, and other items. The USO is continuing its decades-long mission of extending a ‘touch of home’ to our troops and their families.

Finally, I was invited to stop by BlogBash ’11, which was part of the conservative CPAC gathering in Washington. I got to mingle with about 200 bloggers who are making a difference as they reach out to people in Missouri and throughout the country. The dissemination of news has changed with so many of us learning from bloggers about issues that are ignored by the mainstream media. It was fun to meet with these patriots whose goal is to make sure the public gets the information needed to make informed choices.

Next week, President Obama formally sends his Fiscal Year 2012 budget proposal to Congress. Expect another busy week!