Hoosiers know what’s best for our state, not out of touch Washington bureaucrats.
That’s why I promised to visit every single county in Indiana every year – to hear directly from Hoosiers about the issues we care most about.
Over two weeks around Easter last month, I visited nearly 30 counties in Indiana to talk with folks, and I’ll keep your concerns at the top of my mind as I vote in the Senate.
From Jefferson County, on the banks of the Ohio River, all the way up north to St. Joseph’s County, along the Michigan border, I heard time and time again how Biden’s inflation and high prices are hurting our communities.
In Decatur County, I toured a fertilizer plant where I heard firsthand how the 40-year-high inflation rate has increased business costs and how pandemic shut-downs impacted the supply chain.
I heard similar worries from local business owners at the Carroll County Economic Development Lunch and in Dearborn County.
Even though the mask mandate for transportation has now ended, the damage from the Biden administration’s blatant federal overreach has already been done. Biden’s vaccine mandate put millions of jobs in jeopardy when the economy was just starting to recover, and though this vaccine mandate for private businesses was shut down – due in part to the challenge I lead against it in the Senate – many companies took their cue from the White House and fired employees for their decision not to get vaccinated.
I also visited nearly a dozen small businesses. I spent 38 years creating jobs in my hometown, so I can really appreciate the Hoosier innovation taking place throughout the state, like Brightmark in DeKalb County or EDP Renewables in Winchester County. I also recognized the wet blanket of bad economic policies from the Biden administration stifling small business growth.
Indiana has a knack for coming up with solutions at the grassroot level, and it was so great to see ideas like the workforce development program for students at Madison High School in action. Students there are developing skills in manufacturing, welding, engineering and industrial maintenance at an earlier age than many of their peers. Every high school student in America needs to know you don’t have to go to college to have a great career. Programs like the workforce development program at Madison High School do great work preparing Indiana’s next generation and help fill a much-needed gap in our workforce.
As we see supply chain shortages hurting American communities, I will continue to take an active role in addressing inflation and supporting small businesses. Ramming a massive spending plan through Congress that will raise taxes and drive up prices even more is not the answer, but that’s all that D.C. seems to be interested in. You can’t spend your way out of a problem you spent your way into.
That is why just this month I introduced the Responsible Budget Targets Act to rein in the growth of federal spending in the coming decades by implementing flexible budget caps and promoting investment in American workers and industry.
Inflation is a tax on every American. We need to put a cap on the Biden administration’s reckless spending and get our nation back on the path of prosperity.
As long as the federal government keeps spending money we don’t have, families in Indiana and across the country will continue to feel the pain.
But when I travel Indiana on my 92 County Tour, I see 92 communities full of Hoosiers working together and innovating at the grassroots level to solve our problems, not waiting for the federal government to swoop in with more problems disguised as solutions.
I hope to see you on the next leg of my yearly 92 County Tour. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to get in touch with my office if I can be of service to you.
