U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) is in Gillette to attend a Chamber of Commerce after-hours mixer at Century 21 following by an appearance at the Kiwanis Club in downtown Gillette.
“It’s always good to be traveling around the state,” Barrasso says during an interview with News/Talk 1270 KIML talk show host Glenn Woods Thursday afternoon.
Barrasso tells Woods that he hears a consistent message from his Wyoming constituents. “For the most part they say, ‘When you go back to Washington tell them to leave us alone,’” explains Barrasso.
One of the many topics Barrasso discussed was the proposed oil pipeline from Canada to Texas. President Barack Obama and many republican are playing the blame game following the President’s decision on Wednesday to reject the application for the $7 billion Keystone XL project.
“As he said he didn’t want to make a decision until after the election. That’s what his plan was,” remarks Barrasso. “He said, ‘No don’t ask me to say anything until after the election’ because he doesn’t want to alienate some of his environmental extremists who really don’t want the pipeline built and he doesn’t want to tell them he wants it built.”
In all, Barrasso says the president made a very bad mistake telling Canada that the U.S. doesn’t want their oil.
“I visited with the folks from Canada and they said, ‘Fine. We’ll sell it [Canadian oil] to China.’”
Regarding the upcoming debate over raising the nation’s debt ceiling yet again, Woods pressed Barrasso on why Congress turned their authority over to the president on this issue.
“I think the best way to take it back is to have a new President of the United States,” Barrasso responded.
Woods believes Congress gave the president authority to raise the debt ceiling as a way to avoid responsibility for the country’s growing deficit. Nevertheless, Woods tells Barrasso the public will blame Congress and both parties.
“I think that’s legitimate and we’ve got to cut the spending,” responded Barrasso. “The bottom line is we’re spending too much. It’s not that we’re taxed too little and the president wants to raise taxes. I think that’s not the way to go. I want to cut spending and we can go through ways to do it—you can put a hiring freeze on federal workers, you can cut salaries, you can cut staff sizes, get back to the 2008 levels which is where most families are living at.”
Bold Republic with Glenn Woods is Northeast Wyoming’s most popular talk radio show. It airs each weekday from 6:00 am to 10:00 am on News/Talk 1270-AM KIML. Visit Glenn’s website at www.BoldRepublic.com for past archives of his radio program, or to listen to his entire Thursday interview with Senator John Barrasso.
