The Almanac: Murphy Discusses Deficit at Town Hall Meeting

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

The recent Town Hall meeting held in Green Tree by Congressman Tim Murphy was one of nearly 290 he has hosted.

"I do it because I want to hear from you," Murphy said. On July 31, he focused on the deficit.

"Deficit spending has tripled in the last couple years." Concerned with future numbers, he noted that in the next couple of years that 90 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product will be in debt.

"It is always important to put it in terms of GDP: The sum total of all goods and services sold in the country," said Murphy.

He discussed the many tax increases. "Medical devices such as artificial parts, glucose test strips, hospital beds, hearing aids, pacemakers, sutures, power wheelchairs etc. will be taxed."

Later he noted, "This is something important about the Medicare tax for you to know: It is a tax on Medicare that is not a tax going to the Medicare bill; it is part of the Health Care bill..." He finished with, "While we have a recession, I don't think that is the time to raise so many taxes."

Once the floor was open to the public, Jim Benning, a retired Air Force pilot from Upper St. Clair asked about military presence in Afghanistan.

"We are in a quagmire that will not work. We are supposed to be chasing the Al-Qaida." After hearing a news report stating there are possibly as little as 50 to 100 Al-Qaida members in Afghanistan, he was compelled to ask the congressman, "Why are we fighting the Taliban? Those people have a culture and that is what they want. We need to get out of there." Applause filled the room.

After thanking him for his service, Murphy responded, "I know President Obama put 30,000 more troops there. And yes, the actual number of Al-Qaida [in Afghanistan] is assumed to be about that number. Although, whenever I have asked some of our military leaders for the exact numbers they are not clear.

"The strategy needs to be clearly defined: 'How does this end, what is our target and strategy to achieve that? ...You have two choices in war, you fight or you get out."

President Obama Aug. 2 confirmed the end of all combat operations in Iraq by the end of the month.

Another man asked about immigration. Murphy stated, "I don't think we should be any shortcut to citizenship. I am okay with expanding visas, but if you don't have one, you can't stay here. I do not like the idea of blanket amnesty. Our nation was made great by immigrants, we are all rooted in immigrants."

Linda Benning of Upper St. Clair asked if the moratorium for offshore oil drilling could be lifted. "I don't think we should have a moratorium on drilling. This is a huge economic issue. We have rigs leaving the US now and heading to Africa and they are not going to come back. They are extremely expensive to set up, so they are not going to come back."

At one point Murphy discussed the federal budget. We will not have a budget this year [fiscal year 2011.] A couple weeks ago however, there was a line inserted into a bill that deemed a budget to be passed. I am not kidding you, I can't make this stuff up...We are going to pretend we have a budget... Remember the story 'The Emperors new clothes?' They pretended the clothes were still there? This is the fairytale come to life. We are going to pretend we have a budget."

Eveline York of Scott Township wanted to know how to get more conservatives in office. "I want to stick to my rule that I don't want to get into political campaign issues during these meetings... but in terms of the wishes of American people, you've got choices in November for that," stated Murphy.

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