Rep. Jodey Arrington Visits Olney

On Oct. 5, U.S. Representative for Texas District 19, Jodey Arrington, and Texas House of Representative for District 68, David Spiller, visited Olney for an intimate town hall meeting with the local community and business leaders.

The event, hosted by Hometown Coffee & Tea in Olney was a mixture of socializing, a question-and-answer session and an update on Arrington’s and Spiller’s agendas relative to their constituents. After socializing, the group headed to the back dining area for dinner and fellowship. After the meal, U.S. Rep. Arrington addressed the group.

Before the town hall, Arrington sat down with the Olney Enterprise to give some insight on what he is working on for U.S. District 19 and a general update about what is going on in Washington.

Arrington said, “Being in the minority, as a Republican in the U.S. House, we are limited in what we can do. Right now, we’re looking down the barrel of the largest tax and spending bill in the history of the United States.

My mission will be, until this bill is killed, to fend off the down payment for socialism in this country, which is a three and a half trillion dollar tax and spend bill that has the elements of the radical ideology of the Green New Deal, which would be the death of oil and gas—the mainstay energy source for our country’s economy but also, it’s hugely important to rural economies in West Texas and throughout the country. It’s got an expansion of the welfare state that I think has trapped generations of people’s independence on the government and in poverty.

This expansion—the likes of which we haven’t seen since LBJ and FDR—will not only trap people in poverty, it’s going to bankrupt our country. We can’t afford that. You can’t afford Medicare and Social Security. Those are entitlement programs that are earned benefits that are insolvent effectively. Why would we expand programs that we know will only add to that and expedite the insolvency of these programs that are important safety nets for seniors? You’ve got progressive policies that are completely out of step with America’s traditional values—the values that we hold in West Texas, like the expansion of “Obamacare” in a single-payer system for health care, where we as citizens and as patients don’t have the choice, and the doctors we see and the providers that we affiliate with.

We have amnesty and citizenship for people who come here illegally. We’re seeing the lawlessness and chaos at our southern border. The Democrats solution isn’t to enforce the law and secure the border. It’s offering amnesty and citizenship, which will only invite more millions of people to violate our sovereignty and the laws of the land.

All of these things I’m talking about are wrapped up in one form or another, in this reconciliation bill or what I would say is the $3.5trillion-dollar tax and spend bill, and that’s what I’m spending the vast majority of my time because if this were to pass, in any form, whether it’s $3.5 trillion or $2 trillion or $1 trillion.

It will be the biggest expansion of the government. It will be the biggest redistribution of the wealth in this country. It will be the most radical reimagination of the government’s role in the lives of its citizens. I think it fundamentally changes the covenantal relationship between ‘we the people’ and our government.

I think if it empowers the federal government to the point that it can be abused and it can be tyrannical, and we’re seeing that in forced vaccinations.

We’re seeing proposals where the IRS will take over our bank accounts and see literally everything from the $600 on up inflow and outflow. It’ll be a surveillance state censorship.

We need less, Washington and more West Texas in Washington.”