Below U. S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger takes questions from the crowd at City Hall.

Congressman Adam Kinzinger's town hall meeting drew a large crowd at Minonk City Hall Saturday morning.   The newly elected Representative to the U. S. House explained his goals and objectives and entertained questions from the audience for over an hour and a half.

Representative Kinzinger said hard decisions will have to be made as Congress voted to cut the budget by 5%.  He said the government has spent 3.3 trillion dollars more than it took in last year and its current debt stands at 14 trillion dollars.  He said nobody believes that their grandkids will have a better standard of living than what we have enjoyed.

Rep. Kinzinger explained that the government has been operating on a continual resolution until this March.  He stated, "We want to make even deeper cuts than the proposed 5%.  We want a budget reduction compared to President Obama's proposal for a budget freeze."

He said the current budget stands at $3.3 trillion.  Of that budget, $670 billion is discretionary spending, $700 billion is for defense, and $2 trillion is mandatory spending for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.  Kinzinger said, "We will be talking about the $670 billion discretionary spending.  We will not cut the military budget with two wars going on.  Democrats and Republicans want the same thing but we have different opinions on how to get there."

Rep. Kinzinger said the House's repeal of the health care reform bill was not a symbolic vote.  He said much work remains to be done on health care.

Being on the Energy and Commerce Committee gives Rep. Kinzinger an opportunity to help change the way things are done.  Among his goals on the committee are (1) Put into law that no federal funds being used for abortion, (2) Lawsuit abuse reform, (3) Be able to buy health insurance beyond state borders under the new health care system.

Rep. Kinzinger concluded his comments by stating that government does not create jobs.  Instead we must create an environment in which jobs can be created through the private sector.  He stated that Illinois will have a tough sell in drawing new businesses to the state since it has the highest corporate tax in the world.

In response to Minonk resident Michael Willis' questions on how to eliminate the $100 billion in earmarks, Rep. Kinzinger said there are many examples of bad earmarks and he and other Republicans will try to reduce the number of earmarks.

Rep. Kinzinger said he does not have an answer to the funding gap looming from reduced gas tax receipts as gas prices go up and gas consumption goes down.  He said to expect $4 per gallon gas prices this summer.  Kinzinger said, "The drilling ban in the Gulf Coast resulted in drilling rigs pulling out and going to other parts of the world.  Domestic energy production was reduced by 12%.  We definitely need a long term approach to energy."

In response to questions on the EPA, Rep. Kinzinger said," The EPA in effect has become a legislative body rather than a regulatory body.  It takes too long to pass EPA approval and our country loses business to the rest of the world.  The EPA has had a free hand with no oversight.  We need regulatory oversight tp prevent misuse of regulations."

In response to questions on entitlements, Rep. Kinzinger said we don't need to cut entitlements, but need to do handle entitlements more efficiently.  He said, "We have created a toxic environment for discussing entitlements.  Social Security is the 'third rail'.  You don't touch it.  The current generation is covered  but Social Security need to be changed to reflect the needs of the future generation."

On Medicare, Rep. Kinzinger said we need to address the problem of Medicare fraud.  Fraud cost the Medicare program over $50 billion a year which pushes up the cost to everyone else.  He said, "Part of the problem is the government's policy of 'Pay and Chase' in which the government automatically pays out medicare claims before examining the validity of the claim.  Financial firms have reduced the cost of fraud to 1% of their total cost, why can't the government reduce its 10% fraud as well."

Minonk resident Dave Uphoff said the government should be helping the health care industry to reduce cost citing an example where 1% of the population of Camden, NJ contributed to 30% of the medical costs in the city.  Forming an organization that zeroed in and helped that 1%, reduced ER visits by 25% the first year and cut medical costs by 56% for that group.  Rep. Kinzinger agreed that medical costs must be lowered.  He said "We are the world's leader in medical innovation with our research on drugs and medical technology but we are subsidizing the rest of the world."

In response to his position on the Second Amendment, Rep. Kinzinger said he is a huge supporter of the Second Amendment and thinks we need a conceal and carry law.

On the matters of immigration, Rep. Kinzinger said we can't do step 3 until we do step 1 and step 1 is to secure our borders.  He said we can do it but we need the political will to do it.

Regarding the global economy, Rep. Kinzinger said, "We live in a world economy.  Every product we produce, we add 40% for taxes which makes it difficult for us to sell in a world market."

A final question was asked as to why Congress cannot come up with single bills and why can't the bills be written in a language understandable to the average layman.

Rep. Kinzinger concluded the town hall meeting by stating, "It is my passion to restore contact between my consituents and the government.  We are not creating an elite class of people for governing.  I want to restore trust in Congress.  We are not past the point of no return, we can turn things around.  I wouldn't do this job if I didn't believe we could do it.  The American people have never failed in the past and I do not believe they will fail in the future."

Mayor Bill Koos on the left introduced Rep. Kinzinger at the town hall meeting.