Congressman Gus Bilirakis holds townhall meeting

During the summer break, Gus Bilirakis is holding several townhall meetings at various locations within District 9. Over 20 people attended Friday’s meeting at his office in Plant City, mostly familiar members of the various tea party groups in the Tampa Bay area. He was very receptive and open to our questions. The main points he wanted to communicate to this group was that he told us that Washington was definitely aware of the tea party movement and to continue speaking out and communicating with members of Congress. When the session convenes after the break, the House’s first issue they will address is the out of control regulations of the administration through the EPA, USDA, etc. They are committed to holding Washington’s feet to the fire on these job and business killing regulations. The new regulations from these departments will result in the loss of over 14,000 jobs in agriculture in Florida alone. This already can be confirmed by this report in Newsmax today. They intend to work on the repeal of the health care bill, but wanted us to understand that the House has already repealed it, even though they knew that it could not go further due to the Democratic majority in the Senate and the White House. They intend to address the backdoor amnesty of illegal immigrants. On the subject of Fast and Furious, or Project Gunrunner, Bilirakis said that they were all inept at the Justice Department and that they will hold Eric Holder accountable. I asked if it might touch the White House and the President but did not get a clear response. He wanted to assure us that he believed that Speaker Boehner was working hard under difficult circumstances. He asked us to keep up the pressure for a balanced budget amendment.

The Heritage Foundation has prepared a ScoreCard that assigns a grade for every person in Congress. Gus Bilirakis scored a 63.