Candidate will aim to decrease gov’t spending
Education needs to be the prerogative of the states, U.S. Senate Republican candidate Mike Lee said to a crowd at USU Tuesday evening.
In other words, decisions about Utah State University need to be made in Utah and not in Washington, D.C., Lee said.
“We need to get the federal government out of micromanaging university education. We are a long way from this, but we need to move in this direction,” he said.
Lee also touched on federal government earmarking or federal appropriations for research at Utah State. When asked a question about this issue, Lee said most research funding at Utah State is based on competitive bidding for research dollars, and not earmarking or appropriations.
Lee said any earmarking that is done must be vetted better than it is now. If better vetting is done, a “great research university such as Utah State” will benefit.
Lee didn’t deny that earmarking occurs, but he said earmarking for research dollars, at least, needs to be done so that the money goes to the place that best benefits the nation.
Jack Cheney, a Logan resident and Coast Guard veteran asked Lee if he, if elected, would support young women and men being sent to war without a Congressional vote to go to war.
Lee said, if elected, he will support the President sending troops into war without Congressional approval only if he can be convinced that going to war is in the interest of American national security. Lee said sometimes a decision about going to war can be gray.
He said sometimes it is hard to tell when the situation is a “discrete military action and a war begins.”
“When you are at war, you need to declare a war for the sanctity of human life,” Lee said.
“Sometimes the margins are fuzzy,” he said. War should not be declared based on a person’s corporate endeavor, Lee said.
Lee’s speech focused on reducing government spending.
“The Congress cannot be all things to all people,” he said.
Lee said he is very concerned about the federal budget deficit and the federal debt.
“We’ll end up like Greece, if we don’t do something,” Lee said. Greece needed loans from the International Monetary Fund and other European countries to make payments on its debt, according to the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) World Factbook website.
He also said the federal debt of the United States is also a burden to future generations. Future generations have to pay back the amount of debt that Congress accrues now, which is like taxation without representation to future generations.
In addition to that, the 13 original American colonies revolted against England to start the American Revolution because the colonies were subject to “a large and distant government that didn’t respect the leaders in the colonies,” Lee said.
“National governments have a tendency to become tyrants,” Lee said. We have to limit the federal government to where it can act, and give all other powers to the states, he said.
The list of the federal government’s powers are listed in Article 1, Section 8, of the Constitution, and include providing for national defense and protecting trademarks and copyrights, among the other powers listed in the Constitution.
Lee said the focus of his campaign is limiting those powers.
“At the end of the day, this is what my candidacy is all about,” Lee said.
He said although the Supreme Court has the ability to limit Congress’ powers, a lot of the time the court allows Congress to do what it wants.
“Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should,” Lee said, speaking about Congress’ use of powers not its own.
Congress has been using powers not its own since the 1930s, Lee said, but the Supreme Court won’t interfere. This has resulted in hundreds of thousands of pages of federal regulations, which wastes taxes, he said.
“We need to focus our scarce tax resources on what Congress is supposed to do,” Lee said. He said he supports a constitutional amendment to balance the budget to 2/3 of gross domestic product (GDP) each year.
This means Congress can spend not more than 67 percent of the GDP, which is the total value of all goods and services produced in the nation.
The Utah State University College Republicans hosted the speech, and Terry Camp, chairman of the College Republicans emceed the meeting. Camp is a senior and political science major.
Lee encouraged everyone to vote and asked for student support.
“We live in a time that is scary,” Lee said. “We’re at a pivotal moment in history.”
– keith.burbank@aggiemail.usu.edu