GOP officials encourage local involvement
PENN TWP — The Butler County Republican Committee's annual dinner on Thursday included a video conference with a former Trump administration official.
K.T. McFarland, who served as a deputy national security adviser under President Donald Trump, joined the Butler County Republican Committee Thursday evening via Zoom.
McFarland spoke to the people in attendance about her time in the White House, and said her time advising Trump resembled that of her first presidential boss, Ronald Reagan, because the two had similar ideas about policy.
“When President Trump came in, a lot of what he was saying was really the same things Ronald Reagan had as policies,” she said. “He was really talking about the same things — only in the Donald Trump way.”
The Butler County Republican Committee had its annual fall dinner at the Butler Country Club, which allowed people to network with one another, and also meet local and state candidates running for office prior to the statewide elections on Nov. 2.
Committee chairman Al Lindsay encouraged everyone in attendance to meet with candidates and vote in the election in his introduction in the program book.
In her keynote speech, McFarland also encouraged people to vote. She said the United States goes through a revolution every few years that is brought about by the voters, which is seemingly by design.
“We are now kind of clashing with each other — the left, the right,” McFarland said. “The country decides what direction they want to go in.”
State treasurer Stacy Garrity attended the dinner. As a veteran of the Army Reserve, Garrity explained the fallen soldier's table that was set up at the diner, and gave the reason for each of the items placed on the table. She said one of her goals as state treasurer is to return as many lost decorations as possible to the family of fallen soldiers throughout the state.
So far since January, she said she has returned 121 decorations, including two Purple Hearts.
She also advised everyone in the room to check if they had unclaimed property because the country has about $4 billion in unclaimed property dollars. People can see if they have unclaimed property at patreasury.com.
“One in 10 Pennsylvanians have unclaimed property, and the average claim is about $2,000,” Garrity said. “I guarantee you that the people in this room have unclaimed property, your families do, your friends do.”
Garrity also said she is starting a webpage to keep track of state money that falls under “Ledger 5,” which is money spent that had not been included in the budget. She said the state spent about $1.2 billion this past year that was not budgeted, and she plans to launch the tracking website in a few weeks.
“This is money that belongs to the taxpayers,” Garrity said. “You'll be able to see every single dollar that we spend that wasn't budgeted.”
McFarland also spoke to the people in attendance about the importance of being involved in politics on a local level. She used her daughter as an example, who had knocked on doors in Sarasota, Fla. to win her first election to public office.
She said local committees like the Butler Republican committee can make a difference in their communities and beyond.
“Get really involved at a grassroots level,” McFarland said. “They're only going to get there if we do our part.”
