U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev. said he’ll return to Washington, D.C. next week, but Congress will only be in session two and a half weeks, during which time Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said approving a budget for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 will be their main priority.
Heller visited the Pahrump Senior Center, where Lance Schaus asked whether Congress would pass another temporary spending bill. The senator said Congress will probably pass another extension that gets the federal government to the end of the next fiscal year. Heller took the occasion to publicize his “no budget, no pay” bill, he also introduced while in the U.S. House of Representatives.
“In the last 200 years we put a budget together and in the last five years we decided it doesn’t matter any more and what are the consequences? There’s a $17 trillion debt because we can’t match our revenues with our expenditures,” Heller said. “If you didn’t do your job you probably didn’t get paid. I believe that’s the way it should work in Washington. if we don’t do our job and we don’t pass a budget we should not be paid until that budget passes.”
If his no budget, no pay law was enacted, Heller predicted Congress would pass an official budget within a few weeks.
“I only want this to happen once, just once and if it happens once, it will never happen again and we’ll get this country back on a solid footing,” Heller said.
While he endorsed that bill, the senator isn’t in favor of another government shutdown like the one that occurred last October.
“We had to furlough most of our staff. By the way I was answering my own phones at the front desk and people were very unhappy, you can imagine how unhappy people were,” Heller said.
Lorrie Ramsey inquired about money to help people pay their electric bills and other expenses, like the $32 per month she spends at the senior center. Heller said he was the only member of the Nevada congressional delegation to vote against the budget sequestration two years ago, because the cuts were too deep, hurting people who needed it the most.
“Sequestration is no budget,” he said. “If you’re not going to budget then you have to make some pretty onerous decisions.”
When asked about the crisis in Iraq with the terrorist group ISIS, Heller said he’d like to see President Obama be engaged and have a plan, if it’s a good plan he’ll support it. Heller wants the U.S. to get Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia and other countries affected by groups like ISIS to be involved, not take action unilaterally.
Donald Tribble asked about immigrants taking jobs. Heller said there will be a huge announcement in the next couple of days about manufacturing in Nevada. Exports are one of the few growth industries, Heller said, but he said America has the highest corporate tax rate in the world of 35 percent. Recently, companies like Burger King began buying smaller companies in foreign countries, a process called corporate inversion, so they don’t have to pay the corporate tax rate to bring capital back in the country.
“I think tax reform in this country will make America more competitive. You can’t have the highest corporate tax rate in the world and think you’re going to be competitive,” Heller said.
Another woman complained about immigrants flooding the country when she lived in Florida. Heller repeated the standard Republican line.
“I’m for immigration reform. It’s got to start with border security first and then at that point we have to figure out what to do with the 11 million people that are here illegally,” Heller said.
While the session leading up to Nov. 4 will concentrate primarily on the budget, which funds 12 government departments, Heller said Congress passed a veterans bill before the recess. It allows veterans to use other medical providers than the VA, and other reforms designed to speed up the process. Heller said he has been pressuring the secretary of veterans’ affairs every time they meet about two issues: the lengthy period for the state VA office in Reno to process claims and the new veterans clinic in Pahrump.
“The turnaround time for these veterans coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq, they’re waiting too long. We want to make sure we speed up your benefits through the VA so your paperwork can be all turned around within 120 days,” Heller said. “It takes 355 days in the State of Nevada in order for that paperwork to go through and for me that’s unacceptable.”
He said the new Secretary of Veterans Affairs Bob McDonald is a change for the better.
Looking ahead after the Nov. 4 election, Heller told the Pahrump Valley Times if the Republicans gain the majority in the U.S. Senate it will change everything.
“It’s one thing to pass bills when you’re in the majority, it’s tough passing bills when you’re in the minority. I served in the minority when I was in the House. We got the majority, then I moved over to the Senate and I was back in the minority and I think under those circumstances I’ve been pretty successful getting certain legislation passed. Being in the majority, working with the majority party, working with my chairman, life’s going to be a lot different. I think if you have two houses and the Republicans have control of the vote I think we’re going to be sending to the president a number of pieces of legislation. He’s going to veto some of them but we’ll keep sending it to him. Take welfare reform. When the House was in control of Republicans they got Clinton to sign welfare reform, but he vetoed it two times before he signed it the third time.”