BBQ With Bob (at CN)

Bob Corker made his way to Carson-Newman yesterday and had some BBQ with the students. The food was pretty good, and I didn't have to eat in the cafeteria so that was pretty cool. Anyways. He made sure to meet everyone in the room and ask what county that they were from; I proudly said "Hawkins County." After everyone was finished eating, he gave a little speech about his goals as a Senator; he presented four principles that he said that he would abide by if elect to Congress. One was economic growth and raise the standard of living, another was making sure that we are safe and secure, preserving faith and family, and constraining the growth of the Federal government. That all sounded nice, but I felt it was usual candidate rhetoric that looked good on paper. There were a few things in his little speech that I liked. Most plans of his that I liked came from the "constraining government" principle. I think myself that we are just spending way too much! I don't think that we have enough tax revenue to cover all the expenses so Congress definitely needs to do something about that. We need to either raise taxes or cut spending. I don't care which one we do, but we are building up way too much debt in my opinion. Some of his proposals included reducing spending, reforming conference committees to help eliminate pork projects, support a line-item veto for the President (the most specific plan he mentioned), and reducing entitlements. He also mentioned how he started into politics; Bob said that he took a missions trip to Haiti, and he came back wanting to serve the inner-city of Chattanooga (he was former mayor of that town). It sounds nice, but again it sounds like usually candidate talk. I also favored his view of not requiring businesses to basically become INS agents; this would put a big undue burden on companies, especially small, local operations. Then a few questions popped up for me. He wants to lower taxes, find alternative fuels, and make health care affordable for all; my question: how? America would be paradise if someone knew how. He also wants to knock down trade barriers for manufacturers and farmers, which I think will lead to more outsourcing. He also made a big deal about cutting crime 51% while serving as Chattanooga's mayor; good job, but how does that compare to reducing terrorism? He also mentioned that the country needs an constitutional amendment that requires lawmakers to balance the budget. I'm all for reducing spending and a balance budget, but sometimes we need excess spending. When economic times get hard, the government needs to spend more than revenues to help spur the economy; I think such an amendment would reduce the amount of tools that Congress has to help the economy in tough times. All in all, I think he was a pretty nice and had some good ideas. I do think, however, that he might have trouble picking up the Republican nomination. If he wants to win the primary, he needs to make himself different and better than the other two candidates. All three seem to think alike so one of them needs to do something to make himself stand out. Corker does have one disadvantage; some thinks that he is more supportive of Democrats than he should. Well, this Senate race could certainly get interesting once we get into the campaign season.

(Picture provided by Melissa McKeehan)

filed under: 06election, tennessee, politics, college

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