Bustos tours Ag Lab; expressed budget concerns
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- Published on Wednesday, 20 February 2013 17:51
- Written by Paul Gordon
U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos would have liked to give certainty to her constituents and their businesses while touring the 17th Congressional District the past week or so.
But she could not and that has the Democrat from East Moline unhappy, she said Wednesday after touring the Peoria Ag Lab to see what happens there and learn it importance to the country.
"Sequestration is just days away and it will affect everyone across the board. This is a time I want to give certainty, when Congress and the administration need to offer some certainty," Bustos told reporters after the tour of the Ag Lab, formally known as the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research. Bustos, the first-term Congresswoman, is a member of the House Agriculture Committee and the Farm Commodities and Risk Management Subcommittee and the Livestock and Rural Development Subcommittee.
The Ag Lab, she said, has proven through the years how important it is not only to Peoria but to the country and even the world. She cited some of its history, including the fact the method of distributing penicillin worldwide was development there. The Ag Lab is a place where "for every dollar we invest we get more in return. We need to understand that kind of investment is a good thing and a place like the Ag Lab in Peoria is a good place to invest in," Bustos said.
However, she noted, it will not be safe from mandatory budget cuts that will be wrought by sequestration if a new permanent agreement to reduce the federal deficit is not approved in Congress by March 1. Nor will anything else that relies upon federal money, including the defense industry that is so prominent in Bustos' district.
"These are across the board cuts. There is not one thing that would not be affected, from Head Start programs on up. The potential impact on people's everyday lives is tremendous," she said.
The largest employer in her district is the Rock Island Arsenal and it and the thousands of jobs connected to it, through suppliers and so forth, are in jeopardy. So is the Air National Guard base in Peoria.
"I'm hearing real concern from constituents who are worried about the trickle down effect of sequestration, including jobs and discretionary spending," she said.
The decision in Congress late last fall, just before the November election, to put off resolving the problem and setting a new deadline of March 1 was "irresponsible" and one should would have voted against had she had the chance. It occurred before she took office.
The purpose of the delay was to make sure people knew the cuts made through sequestration would be so severe and harmful that it would never come to that, Bustos said. "And yet here we are, just days away from the severe and harmful cuts," she said.
That is why she urged Speaker of the House John Boehner to keep Congress in Washington over the current break instead of allowing them to return to their home districts. "We should have stayed. We should still be in Washington doing the country's work and trying to resolve this," she said.
Bustos said one thing she learned during her Congressional campaign was that Americans want the two major parties to work together to resolve the country's problems. "The need for bipartisanship is there. All of us in Congress just came off a campaign trail in which that was a growing message, a message that is getting louder and louder and louder. In my first six weeks in Congress I have met with all the other 82 freshmen and I believe there is a willingness to do that, to work together," she said. "I'm encouraged so far."
Bustos also discussed the need for a new Farm Bill, to replace a five-year bill that expired and was not replaced by the previous Congress. She said she is optimistic a new bill will be passed by this Congress.
"Farmers deserve the certainty a new Farm Bill would bring them," she said.
(Photo courtesy of Peoria Ag Lab) Congresswoman Cheri Bustos, left, stands next to a display of pennycress while discussing with a scientist at the Peoria Ag Lab the process of turning pennycress into biofuel. Bustos, the 17th District Democrat, toured the lab Wednesday.
