On Monday, July 1, the Farmville Area Chamber of Commerce hosted a local forum with U.S. Congressman Robert Hurt. The event was located at Charley’s Waterfront Café at 12 p.m. and featured a question and answer portion by the end of the event.
Hurt spoke on his political stance on various issues, including job creation, immigration reform, healthcare and more.
Hurt represents Virginia’s fifth district in the House of Representatives. The fifth district is Virginia’s largest district, encompassing Southern and Central Virginia counties, including Prince Edward County.
Hurt is a Pittsylvania County native and a Hampden-Sydney College alumnus from 1991. He received his degree in law from Mississippi College in 1995. From 2002 to 2007, Hurt served in the Virginia House of Delegates, and from 2008 to 2010, Hurt represented the 19th district of Virginia in the Senate.
Hurt referred to his attendance at the Farmville Area Chamber of Commerce forum as a part of his “Route 15 Tour,” beginning at Southern Virginia and continuing past South-Central Virginia to Fauquier County.
“We can’t do our job unless we hear from the people that we represent, and I am grateful for that opportunity,” Hurt said.
Hurt spoke briefly on job creation, mentioning The Small Business Capital Access and Job Preservation Act that was recently introduced on May 13. The act works to reduce government mandates and regulations implemented by the Dodd-Frank law.
He described government mandates and regulations as a “burden” and “unnecessary.”
While speaking on energy, Hurt spoke on the Offshore Energy and Jobs Act that was passed June 28. The Act allows for drilling for oil off the coast of Virginia.
With the goal of low-priced and affordable energy, Hurt described the act as having “bipartisan support” and that the act will create “tens of thousands of jobs for the short term, hundreds of thousands of jobs in the long term.”
Turning to immigration reform, Hurt said, “We got to where we are because the federal government totally failed to do what it said it was going to do back in the ‘80s when we had immigration reform the first time.”
Hurt referred to the immigration reform bill signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986 that gave amnesty to undocumented immigrants. Hurt criticized that the Mexico-United States border should be secured, regarding it as a “moral imperative” and a “national security concern.”
Hurt attributed the 9/11 terrorist attacks as a result of the issue. He said, “If you look at the folks who were involved in the 9/11 tragedy – that horrible, horrible event – many of them were people who came here legally, and then they overstayed, and we lost track of them. That shouldn’t happen.”
While speaking on healthcare, Hurt acknowledged that he is against ObamaCare, describing it as “well-intentioned,” but with “unforeseen, unintended consequences [that] are going to be huge.”
On the Congressman Robert Hurt website, it states, “I voted to repeal the government takeover of health care that raises costs, increases taxes, spends trillions of dollars that we don’t have, cuts Medicare by $500 billion, and destroys jobs.”
“We have a limited number of providers to begin with, and ... minimizing the relationship between doctors and patients is only going to lead to bad things,” Hurt said.
Hurt stated that he believes “market-oriented practices” would be the best solution to lower cost for healthcare.
Hurt moved on to speak about gun rights, saying, “In terms of telling people how many bullets can go in a clip or what the style of the stock – those are things that aren’t helpful to the issue and frankly again goes at the very heart between the government’s relationship with its citizens.”
He further stated, “They’re arbitrary policies that frankly don’t make anybody safer, and you know what else? They just give politicians cover.”
When addressing student debt, Hurt stated that “education is largely a state issue,” but that “it is a very important issue that does not get enough attention.”
He noted the doubling of interest rates on Stafford subsidized loans that went into effect July 1 and added that he believes interest rates should reflect the market place as opposed to being fixed and imposed by a congressional fiat.
To learn more about Congressman Robert Hurt, go online to his website at hurt.house.gov. The next forum hosted by the Farmville Area Chamber of Commerce at Charley’s Waterfront Café will be on Sept. 9.
