Representative Schock began by expressing how honored he was to represent his district in Washington DC. He went on to express how seriously he took the responsibility of his office. The main topic of the town hall was debt, deficits, and government spending. Mr. Schock explained our current situation was a result of deficit spending and overspending by both Republican and Democratic congresses. He felt the message of the 2010 election was for Congress to curtail government spending. He said of the 86 Freshman elected to the House of Representatives 40 had never been elected to office before. He said this sent a large block to the legislature with no government experience of any kind. Mr. Schock explained that these members came with a message from their districts confirmed by polls that the message was to control spending and get our debt under control by ending foreign aid, cutting waste, and cutting the salaries of Congress. Mr. Schock pointed out eliminating all salaries and all foreign aid amounted to 1.8% of the annual expenditures. He then went on to explain the debate and actualities of government spending.
schock.house.gov
Mr. Schock said three main deficit debates have occurred in 2011. A budget debate over the continuing resolution expiration, the House GOP or Ryan Budget, and the debt ceiling debate which lead to Standard and Poor's credit downgrade (explanatory link) . He displayed two poster board charts, a pie chart showing the division of the 3.5 trillion annual budget. It was prepared by CBO in August 2010 entitled auto pilot spending. He preceded to display a chart to represent the trend of the growing percentage of the Federal budget spent on so-called entitlements. His chart was from the CBO the timeframe was from 1970 to 2080. Since known numbers represented a small percentage of this chart, it was really a graphic based on speculation. The curtailment of entitlement spending, social security and medicare, were the focus of much of his talk. Schock blamed the Democratic Senate and President Obama for lack of action in response to the Ryan Budget, and spent a little time defending the specifics of the Ryan budget. He moved on to the debt limit deal emphasizing the spending reductions achieved. He expressed hope in the Super Committee, his opposition to raising taxes, but he did recognize the need to end special provisions and give a way's in the tax code as spending by other means. After his careful explanation to his supporters of the past year in Washington, he answered questions from some of those in attendance at the town hall.
Click to Read My Response and Question I didn't get to ask