Photo by Brent Addleman Congressman Glenn "GT" Thompson shows off Nancy Pelosi's Health Care bill during last night's Town Hall meeting at the Johnsonburg Fire Hall.

By Brent Addleman

Editor

Congressman Glenn "GT" Thompson fielded an array of questions last night at the Johnsonburg Fire Department as part of the Elk County Tea Party-sponsored Town Hall meeting.

The rookie legislator thoughtfully answered inquiries ranging from President Barack Obama's birth certificate, health care issues, the federal debt and what some view as an attack on the country's constitutional rights.

One of the first questions the congressman fielded was in regards to President Obama's birth certificate.

"There has been a lot of interest within Congress," Thompson said. "There are members that have worked very hard researching that. What they have found is the birth certificate has never been produced. The evidence they found was birth announcements in Hawaii. My colleagues have done their homework. They went through newspaper clippings and they found birth announcements on the island of Hawaii. These were people that were very skeptical about the birth certificate. The court rules on it at that point [of researching the issue.] I don't think we've ever seen a birth certificate, but there is evidence that shows he was born in Hawaii."

The congressman was then asked if he were willing to stand up and tell his colleagues to look further into the birth certificate issue.

"We've already been doing that," Thompson said. "I sat down and talked with one of the Supreme Court Justices on this issue. The justice I talked to is a good guy to talk to. Based on the evidence he has seen as far as he is concerned this is a done issue."

Talk then shifted to the economy and the fact that the United States is accepting money from China. Thompson expressed that even though he is a Republican, he does not fully agree with all the spending done by his party over the years.

"I'm not here to defend one party over another, and I am a Republican but I am thoroughly disgusted with the performance of the Republicans in the past in terms of their careless spending," Thompson said. "I will defend the spending we did on the War on Terror.

"Constitutionally, I see that as a first and foremost responsibility. I see that as a threat to our people."

Thompson then brought to the attention to the crowd the specifics of how much debt has been created.

"When you look at the deficit spending since January we have spent more and we have had to borrow, and we have spent more in deficit spending that the deficit spending that occurred from George Washington to George W. Bush," Thompson said. "That's how much. To that extreme, we have to borrow this money. We get it from a lot of different places, but China is the winner. That scares me. I think that is a threat to our national security."

The issue with the country accepting money from China isn't all bad, according to Thompson.

"Here is the good news," Thompson said. "Our economies are so intertwined that when Freddie Mac and Fannie May went into a meltdown with aggressive lending practices, with that meltdown, our economy went into a spiral. So did China's. That was a saving grace for us. If China's economy would be independent of ours and if they wanted to bring us to our knees all they would have to do is call our loans. We have to commit to work aggressively to be debt free."

The congressman was questioned about what some view as attacks on our constitutional rights and to the degree of the attack.

"It's huge," Thompson said. "There is no constitutional basis to mandate that every American buy health insurance. That's the wrong debate, too. That's what drives me nuts. Let's debate about access to health insurance. If you are going to debate, let's debate about access to quality health care. That's a good debate to have."

Thompson stressed some of the items that are contained in the Cap and Trade bill and the direct effect it will have on all Americans.

"Let's start with Cap and Tax," Thompson said. "There is a provision in there you may not know. We have local, we have state building codes. They serve a pretty good purpose for the communities. If Cap and Trade passes, we will now have a national building code that supercedes any local or state building codes."

The congressman went on to discuss that if someone were to build a home under the bill, the house will be required to have a plug somewhere on the outside of the house to plug in an electric car.

Question was also raised about how to create jobs, specifically to get manufacturing jobs back in our economy.

"We've got to get government out of the way," Thompson said. "Government is our worst enemy that we have with jobs. We have the second-highest corporate income tax in the world, second only to Japan. And you wonder why we don't create jobs here. We have regulations that are just tremendous. We have this agency called the EPA. The Excessive Punishment Agency. You realize under President Obama's administration, and this is scary, we have tripled their budget this year. That is not good news for American business and industry."