Kelly discusses issues facing all Americans
PENN TWP — U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-3rd, told those at Friday’s annual Community Development Corporation of Butler County breakfast that the nation is facing many problems and challenges, but he knows how to solve them.
“We’ve got to face these issues not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans,” Kelly said, speaking at the Butler Country Club. “And we have to do it now. These problems have been put off for too long.”
Some of the national problems Kelly, a Butler businessman and owner of the Kelly Automotive Group, listed include health care reform, fair trade, too much governmental regulation and taxation of business, the lack of an energy policy, government’s failure to cut spending or to pass the 2011 federal budget.
“If they had just passed the (2011) budget, we could now be addressing the 2012 budget which is going to be crucial to this nation,” he said.
Kelly said he is appalled at government spending and the lack of forethought about what is really important.
“It’s what’s in your wallet — pictures of your children and your grandchildren. They are the reason we do all of this and the government is spending their futures,” he said.
“If the government needs money, it either increases taxes or prints more money and that’s your money.”
The representative said he is stunned that U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials pass regulations for jobs they have never done.
“They’re in my place all the time with regulations about how I can change 5 quarts of oil in your car, but they’ve never been in the Gulf of Mexico when BP’s drilling a well,” he said referring to his car dealership.
Kelly also questioned the lack of a national energy policy.
“Why have we stopped drilling in the gulf? It’s like if we opened up (Interstate) 79 and someone had an accident and we’d say, ‘Wow, that’s a dangerous road. We’d better close it down,’” he said.
Pennsylvania’s continuing oil and coal industry along with the new Marcellus Shale natural gas industry places the United State’s energy future here, Kelly said.
“I don’t understand why we are so happy to line up to send our money overseas to fund countries that hate us and want to destroy us. We have the energy here and we should use it,” he said.
“Its time we measure twice and cut once,” Kelly said. “We need jobs in the private sector. Another government job is making the job harder.
“Businesses will make jobs and be able to pay their taxes when they are making a profit, and working together is the only way this is going to happen.”
