Because again you have Flood Insurance. All of this misinformation but i was told the need to get an electrician. Ive been calling around trying to get an electrician and yesterday paid 50 over the phone to secure an appointment for an estimate for an electrician to do work at one of my houses. Its just such a difficult time with so many obstacles. I went on the web site to see if i have to raise my house. Both of my houses arent flood zone a. The estimate of damage on one of my homes is 30 to 60 . 30 to 60 , what does that mean . What should i do . I get stuff i had a question it would be is there anyplace that i could go to get guidance about how to solve all these problems . I have no idea. My house at 5 feet of water. My contractor said i think you should just told us it. Prc brought in people out who said dont bulldoze this house, rebuild it. I go to a workshop on home rated rated remediation where the guy said were going to have issues for years with mold. So as an individual who has tried to be educated is there somebody that can guide me . Thank you. Unfortunately there is not. What you are dealing with is agencies through Different Levels of government, the federal government come in the State Government of the local government. What we try to do is put out as much information as we get the truth and then me put it out. Unfortunately when we put information out we have all these other experts to come to the table and present counter views and its causing an incredible amount of confusion. I dont know how to combat that other than to take some peoples mouth but we cant really do that. You will have to figure out who you trust in this situation and if you see the city is putting out consistent information and that looks good to you and the you trust that the mess we should go. If the state is putting out consistent information, because what im learning in this particular situation is that everyone has an opinion and there are more expert than we need at this moment. Its creating a lot of confusion so we will try to get you as much Accurate Information as possible. He contracted doublecheck as much as you can but at the end of the day you will have to make the calls because there is no clear roadmap. Like i said when i look at the web site of the damage to my house it said 30 to 60 . If you were a1 and they are saying that you are in good shape. I would interpret that to mean if i dont raise my house house. You dont have to raise your house. Once you work coded as being above the floodplain all they are doing is giving you an estimate of how much its going to cost to fix your home, thats it. So you are okay. I thank you. Thank you. Yes sir or maam whos next . Can you move closer to the mic please . Thank you. Im here trying to find out about midcity. I applied to fema and they refused to help me and then they sent in inspectors two months later. I cleaned up the house with bleach and everything. We pulled out everything. We were the first in the neighborhood. We used bleach and put matt wet mattress vape problem is the inspector called me and i came back unopened the house. He said this is an abandoned house because he didnt seem to furniture. I said listen i have some pictures out of everything that was here. I have to mail it to you because i have to go to city hall because i lost a lot of papers. Then they denied me and i made an appeal but i dont know whats going to happen. I applied to the sba and the sba they say they will lend me some money. I went through a lot of papers and sent them to them but its been three months and im getting no help. Thats the problem. From what i understand of your particular problem is you apply to fema to inspect the damage isnt to come in and help you to restore your home. You have also applied to the sba . They told me that i can apply to the sba and the sba, they told me i need to send a bunch of papers and fema now, they say like i told them the inspector came two months later and everything out of the house. We did clean it up but it was the wrong thing to do that i should have left everything they are. The fema guys are shaking their heads saying they can help you. If you can go to the side we will get somebody to work with dnc they can get you straightened out. Okay thank you. Thank you. Yes sir. How are you doing mr. Mayor . Whos mike is back . Nbc . Nbc. My name is Tyrone Butler and that the Small Business in new orleans, butlers entertainment. I didnt know much about the jefferson area. Recently ive moved to new orleans that want to commend you and thank you for everything you have done here. Some nights i cant even sleep because i just want to be a part of helping you and whatever i can do. My services are free right now to you to bring new orleans back. I can offer dj music stuff to you, whatever you have in the area. Out of town, and free. Ive information everything that i can leave with someone and i just want to thank you guys again. What you give your information to this lady right here and we will see if we can take advantage of your services. Thank you sir. Yes maam. Hello. I live on romaine street. 5 feet of water was in my house. This other mike is in the way and we need to get that either lowered or removed. They need to lower it so its not the first mike that somebody is talking in. In the future we need to not allow mics to be attached to our primary mics. Its got to be lowered. Everybodys doing documentaries. Everybody wants to do a documentary. Thank you. Get as close to the mic as you can. I live on romaine street and my house had 5 feet of water in it so it flooded but my question is i received money from the city in 2002. The plan is to live in the house between five and 10 years but my Flood Insurance that i received is not enough to rebuild my house. My question is what do i do . You have to live in a house between five to 10 years or you owe money back to the city. I dont have the money to get back to the city so i need to know what i need to do. Also i am living in the fema trailer and im living with my brother and their eight of us on top of each other. We have a property to put it on but they told me was coming and still not here. We are going to get you to talk to the fema people to see if we can find out where you are on the list. As it relates to the you said you did not have enough Flood Insurance so you dont think you have enough money to rebuild . Right, its not enough to rebuild. The actual value and rebuilding cost is just not enough. We need to get your information. Maybe you can write us a letter or something. We will work with you as it relates to it. If you can fill out the questionnaire for the department give it to that young lady right there before you head over to the fema guy. Dont forget to talk about to fema by her situation by now that theres any support they can give you and rebuilding your house. Are you doing . I have three houses in the same area between princess and fillmore. All of them were flooded out, totaled out and i came here to find out what your specific plans for the area as far as the rebuilding process . Now i have, and i was participating in the section 8 program. I have housing that i cant live then, housing that my ranchers cant live in pretty want to rebuild but right now i dont know what to do because i dont have a plan for my specific area. I have over 50 damage in the houses are ready raised and similar to her situation i have enough coverage to cover the house and things like that but the price that i paid for the houses and the amount that is going to cost me to rebuild i cant do it. Does the city have any plans as far as helping homeowners rebuild because not only has the cost gone up, the Interest Rates have gone up. Then i was halfway finished paying for my house so now i have to start over from the beginning. Id estimate i would be finished with my houses by the time im in my 50s and that was part of my retirement money. I can depend on retirement so now i have to start over and 30 years from now by the time i finish i will probably be dead. As far as plans, we plan to rebuild. I live right there by the canal, three houses from one of the houses they say they may bias out. I dont know what to do. As i started to say the city will be rebuilt. Do you have electricity . I have nothing. My house is a mess. Electrical services should be coming pretty soon. I cant live there so why are they putting electricity and . I dont know if that will help you, if you decide to rebuild the would have electricity there. I may have to be pulled to the side but who can i talk to about raising the house and things of that nature . How can i rebuild so i can move on with my life . If you have already raised the home, all you need to do is go on to our web site or go to city hall and determined that you are at the 100 year flood plane and you can start to gut in rehab. The issue with the levees and whether they are going to be expanded or the corps of engineers will be purchasing properties, that is a possibility. You will have to talk to the corps of engineers about that. Thats what im saying why when i got my house out is that a possibility . I dont have that kind of money to just wait. I understand that you have to find out from the court if they plan to expand the levees footprint and that will help you to make the decision. If they expand and they are going to write you a check. If they are not expanding then you need to go to the process of figuring out how to rehab your house and whether you want to use the sba 2. 67 loan money thats available or some other other. You are saying that but thats not helping me though. I can only give you the facts as i know them today. Today the issue is we dont know exactly what the corps of engineers is going to do other than build another levee. I dont know they are going to buy your home or anybody elses home. I know thats not answering your question. I dont even have a house. Then you can go to city hall on the seventh floor and they have all the information for you to access that information or go to any library and use their computer and gain access to it. You need somebody else to help you to do anything else. We can have someone meet on the side to help you. The young lady behind you. The sba gentleman is going to speak with you. Maam, the gentleman over here with sba is going to speak to you if you could step to the side. All right, next up. How are you doing . I am hanging in there. How was your vacation . It was fine. My house as you say my entire village is one of the largest neighbor is in new orleans east and most of the houses, not most, 99. 9 of those houses are at least damaged 50 plus or better. Whove made the determination because most people in the village are working people. They are not folks that is going to pay for a . I went through betsy. Thats only one question. My other question is after the hurricane what kind of contract awarded by the city and who have the authority to receive the contract . My understanding is that the trustees are being paid 20 an hour to do the work. My question is what is the population that you represent at this present time . U. S. The question at one time in the past. If i were in your shoes i would reduce my salary 25 and i would make an executive order that my people that are not classified to receive the same thing, to at least be able to help other people. I would not be able to vote up montego bay or to make that this present time. At this present time mr. Mayor we need your help. I need to rebuild but i cant afford after 30,000 at the city is going to give me. I applied for a trailer and still have not received that. Could you answer some of those questions . I appreciate the folks over here. An elderly lady, the same thing in pine village. Mostly working people and elderly. They can afford to pay 60,000. I would have to raise my house 7 feet. I would have to have an escalator. Thats unfair and thats improper for folks from washington to come here and determined that we would have to rays that kind of leverage up that high. I went through all the floods. Could you explain that form a . Thank you. What are you running for . Excuse me. Dont catch it. Im not running. I remember when i put that ad and i was there so im not running for anything. Im just a working person. Im not looking for any public office. I just asked the question. [applause] let me try to answer. You wont answer any questions. Enough of the political ads. Let me try to answer some of your questions. Im not political. Its a general question. Pine village is an area that really needs electricity and energy is working to get you electricity and the commitment is to have electricity there by january. Once you get electricity its going to change out there. As it relates to you elevating your home or not thats a personal decision that the homeowner has to make. If you want to elevate your home, elevated. If you choose not to elevate it then thats your own personal decision. All they can do is state the federal laws on the book and try try to get give people as much information as we possibly can. If you want to talk to the people, the representatives we can get them to talk to a little bit about where you can get a trailer. But i mean i was not devastated and most people down there did not have 50 plus or under. I never went through the flood. Its not my fault that the levee broke. If the levee broke they should be replacing it. C i totally agree with you but based upon the current information that we have youll have to make decisions on how you want to rebuild and the baker act that is in congress, maybe that would give you some more options or some support for how to rebuild. Thats all i can tell you right now. Thank you. Yes sir. Hello. Im here to talk about various theories of strategies for rebuilding and what i would like to say is in the cities you have to be very careful who you listen to. There are a lot of people who dont understand the city who think our problems are what make us unique, that make us we need to stop listening to people who make us sound like we are authentic as we were the murder capital. That could make this authentic. That made us frightened that we need to stop listening to people from the New York Times you live in some suburb of new york. Its very clean and safe saying that they miss the shoe shine stand on canal street and they miss people who grab your wallet out of your hand and ran down the street with it. I know the city never did anything about that beforehand and now we dont seem to have that problem anymore. There are a lot of people now who are cynical even though theres only been one murder since the mandatory evacuation. They think a lot of the criminals will be coming back. They think that the people who run the city kind of rely on the criminals to be elected. We also have to stop thinking all or nothing thinking that we are either the authentic murder capital or we are disneyland. Why isnt there any middle ground . We said no to rush her high school and of course we have a rush or high school. We want to have good schools. We said no to Police Residency and now we have police from everywhere and seems to be helping. We need a category 5 levee but we are not going to get it if we tell washington we are going to go back to being the same way we were. Do you have a question . I dont have a question. Im just saying how can we make the city a better place . If we try to do anything to make the city nicer there is an attack an attack knott. Thank you sir, thank you for your comments. Next up. My name is leigh and im from lakeview and ive been educated and live in the orland pierce my entire life. I would like to set the record straight for the media that this is not a poor or black issue. Katrina, there were poor white people, poor black people, middle class white people and middleclass black people and wealthy white people and wealthy black people. Who were all involved in this act of congress which was the levee not eating secure enough to protect their city. Now its not a political problem. Right now it is our problem and we are living through this nightmare. Mayor nagin who is that when you refer do we and us in contacting we and us to get the army corps of engineers to demolish the homes of the homeowners who want their homes demolished . Could you answer that one question please . If you could provide us with the information on your home and you would like to have it demolished you can send that information to the city and we will forward that to the corps of engineers for demolition work c okay because it is my understanding that Orleans Parish and the Mayors Office needs to ask the state coordinating office in baton rouge to ask fema to direct the army corps of engineers to demolish the homes. You have been doing a little homework. C yes sir i have. I got it from the horses mouth which is the army corps of engineers. I would like to ask you mr. Mayor, i will get to that. You mr. Mayor, to ask the state coordinating officer, to ask fema to direct the army corps of engineers after we signed a waiver so that we do not have to pay for this demolition alone our own because Congress Allowed my home in lake view to be demolished or flooded not god. So i believe fema now needs to step up to the plate to help me pay for me to demolish my home so i can rebuild it up to code, to give me the 30,000 to raze my house so fema doesnt have to come in to my neighborhood again like this because i wont be flooded anymore. I dont even have to pay you for insurance. That is one situation so i will contact you sir, i will. You understand the process. Send us a letter saying i would like my home demolished. Go through the state coordinating office and we will get to or to somebody who will get to the work. On the baker bill sir. I would ask you for one more minute paid it doesnt sound like its going to be advantageous to allow the United States corporation to buy our homes out and if they sell them to a set of the complete infrastructure and the rebuilding of the home when its going to be at market value which will probably be double or triple what are homes were worth prekatrina. So somebody could clarify that issue i would be very grateful. Is minder standing the way the bill author has designed it and their modifications that have to come out. They will set a preconstruction price for you to buy back into which wont be the ask weighted value after everything is done in the neighborhood. Thats really good to know. The second thing is if you do not want to participate in the program you dont have to. If you do not rebuild and we are all going to be in line for contractor after rebuilding and if you dont rebuild within a year it says they can force you to sell out to them or force you to start building. Its my understanding they are going to take that language out. Thank you. I have a million things. One thing for fema. My mother is 86 years old and she is an addict because she would not evacuate and i would not leave my mother. She lost everything and she was renting and now i am ineligible for help from fema because i have Flood Insurance and ive gotten out letter and now my mother has received the first penny from fema. Now i signed a lease for her on a wednesday 41,125 on thursday morning the landlord called the agent had told her she wanted to raise the rents by 400, so i signed a lease for next morning for 200 more. We split the difference because i needed to put my mother in a safe place. The rentgouging is overthetop my mother is on a fixed income, needs help from fema and i cannot even i have gone to jcc and im going back tomorrow morning again to talk to them. Another thing that is happening i paid for 212 thousand dollars worth of Flood Insurance and fema is trying to give me 139,000 worth of Flood Insurance. I am quite a lot of issues here and i know im not the only one having those issues. We will have to take up some more of your issues of the next town hall meeting if you dont mind. If you want to talk about your mothers issues we will see if we can get you some support. Thank you. There is one in dallas and algiers. And we are almost complete with the cleaning out of their course. Within the next couple weeks they should be open for business. You can go to algiers is the closest area for civil district court. I have another question for my friends. She came to new orleans from houston and i brought her to foster river and she was looking to try to get some help to find somewhere to stay. In houston they are doing the vouchers and today they told her they could not help her if she was not under section 8 in housing. Is there any kind of help for her . This is through hand over or hud . Hand over . The best ad vice i can give you friend is to talk to fema and see if she can qualify for housing. You speak with fema maam . That is her friend. Yes, sir . I have been live in this city for over 30 years and i have had contact with the city of new orleans for the last ten years. I have a contract signed by you enforced. We have not been contacted by fema for any type of tree work. Not once. I have a contract with you. What chance does anybody have locally to get any work if they dont even contact me who is contracted with you guys . I am disgusted. All right. I understand. We have been hearing a lot of stories like this. You know . We have turned over our entire authorized contract list to fema and the core of engineers. They gave us assurance they would contact you. Fema has never contacted me. If you come on the side lets get your information and we will advocate on your behalf and try to break through some of the burrocracy. My name is kim jones. I live in what i feel to be one of the most ignored parts of the city. New orleans east. We pay a lot of money to live in these homes and it cost us a lot to live with family and friends that is not covered by fema and i want to know how long do you think we can all hold on paying these enormous house notes and to live elsewhere also . You know, it is my understanding that most of the Mortgage Companies have given everyone a reprieve from paying their mortgages. That is going to end at some point. I am not sure of the exact date of when it will end. It will be 90120 days from that particular point in time. After that, it is my understanding that you will have to start paying your house bill. And hopefully by that time you will have some time of support either from the federal government or have a decent job that can cover those cost you know as you move forward. But that is the best information we have today. And also i understand that you signed a proclamation about the blue roofs. Why are they not being put in new orleans east . We can help you with that. They are supposed to be putting the blue roof everywhere in the city. Give that young lady your address and we will see if we can get you expedited and moved up on the list and get you a blue roof. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, sir . Good afternoon, everyone. I live in algiers in jefferson parish. My area was one of the first areas you invited back to new orleans but it is end of november and i dont have any power still. My wife who is asthmatic and grew up in atlanta was on a breathing machine and now she is back here and, you know, she is living in the house with the stale air. I mean, the eelectrlectrician c out, carpenter, but i cant get the city to do their work. The city inspectors are busy and i dont know if someone is dropping the ball or what is going on. I dont know. You need an inspector come out to get energy to hook up the power . That is what i am told. We can take care of that for sure. Give that lady behind you and well get that expedited. You sure . I have been on your phone leaving messages. Write it down and give it to me. Write your address down. If you come approve it i will do that. Give me the address and i will make sure it gets done. I am going to hold you to that. I know you will. Yes, sir . All right. Yes, sir . Good evening. I have the upmost respect for you. I am here for a different reason. First off, i am on a fixed income and i am renting during the time of the flood i was out of town. When i returned, a lot of stuff in my house was missing to be able to help my house and functioning again. I spent thanksgiving alone without my family and i dont want to go through christmas like that. That is my problem. I guess people say i am here for help and what do i do from here. What do you need . You need help you have a home you are living in . I am renting and i have been there going on six years. During the time when there was water around the house and i was out of the city somewhere or another someone left my door wide open but at the same time a lot of my stuff was taken like my stove, washing machine, drier, stuff like that. And my house feels empty. And it feels even more empty without my family. I refuse to send for my family with my house like that. And being on a fixed income it is a very hard task to deal with. You need assistance with getting the things that were stolen from your home replaced . Sgr yes, sir. And fema knows about it. I wasnt going to say my house wasnt flooded when it wasnt but my stuff was taken out of the house. Nothing was flooded. I dont know if that equalifies for fema assistance. No, they sent a letter saying i cannot get help. I tell you what, we will get your information. The only thing i can think of is there is a fund that president clinton has raised some money for and maybe we can help you apply for that fund. This fund, the money they raised is designed to fill in gaps as far as helping people that fema or the city or the state or the feds cant help with. So maybe that is a way we can go to get you assistance. I need phone numbers or whatever. The lady sitting down there in the blue. If you can give her your information we will see if we can get you some help. Thanks. All right. That is concluding our town hall meeting. We will see you the next time. Maam, i have to go to another meeting. I am going to be moving away from the mike. You can make the announcement. [applause] tomorrow, the Democratic National Committee Summer meeting in minneapolis with declared president ial candidate members joining to speak to the group. Tomorrow morning starting at 11 a. M. We will hear from clinton and in the afternoon starting at 2 30 omalley and sanders will speak. One of our congressional freshman profiles up next with Illinois Republican mike bost. We welcome congressman mike bost of the 12th district of illinois. I see by your house pen there is a marine core flag on there. How does a former marine, firefighter, and beauty shop owner want to run for congress . I served 20 years in the general assembly. I have ten grandchildren. It was a situation where i wasnt happy with the things happening out here. Everything from obamacare to the overregulations on business. I was in the salon business but also the trucking business. My grandfather started a trucking business in 1933 and i came home from the marine core and ran it for ten years. The frustration of dealing with that and talking to the family took a lot of prayer and Decision Making and act have just thrown up my hands and said i am done with politics but i said i want to try to make it better for the grand kids. When did you decide to run for the house . For the state house . For your seat in congress . For my seat in congress . It would have been in february of 2014. Well, no, right after the other elections i was trying to weigh out. After 13. Your race in 14 you defeated incumbent democrat in one of the most expensive races. Guest it was an expensive market. The southern part is the kentucky market and that is not expensive in terms of advertising. But the st. Louis market is expensive. Host your district reaches up that far . Guest yes, it goes to alton which is north of st. Louis still, but not quite in the area called grapin. It is 11 and 1 3rd county. Host how did you do it from raising money and what was your argument to beat the former congressman . Guest let me explain to you we had Jerry Costello who was a conservative democrat there for many years. He represented the area well. He was constantly in touch with the people. The concern that came up was this congress, or bill inger was not keeping in touch with the people. They were used to Jerry Costello style. They knew him all over the district. And in a short period of time i realized that was not occurring. I talked to a Democratic State legislature who told me i dont know him and i never met him and he was in the district. That is not what these jobs are about. They are about serving positions and i was able to look at that and then spring board on the other issues out there. And of course we also had a video tape that was from my experience on the floor as a floor leader that we didnt know whether they would use or not but we had to try to build our name recognition. This is the one that got you the nickname of guest melt down mike. Host explain to our viewers this became viral. Guest it is rated as the second greatest rant according to cnn so basically what happened is right after here in congress they had passed the obamacare and the statement had been made we have to pass until we find out what it says. Host so 2010. Guest yes, and i am a floor leader. We are working on the illinois pension problem. We have been working on it for a year and a half. I am one of the floor leaders and one of the leaders. I come in that morning we are supposed to pass the bill we have been working on for a year and a half. I come up seeing a staffer and say i need information on the bill because there is people i need to talk to about it. And he said they changed it. And i said what part . And he said all of. And i said who changed and and he said the democratic speaker. So things went on that day. They actually moved the bill in a partisan manner out of committee and were bringing it to the floor. My job is to protect the rights of my members and two argue our points but this was more than that. It was a case where 30 years plus of having the same speaker bypassing rules and basically what happened is i had enough. I threw the bill in the air. If you listen to it there was specific arguments. It was loud but there was specific arguments i was talking about. Host it went viral and in the end you thing helped the campaign. How does it feel to be the spotlight with the media and other members criticizing you for how you guest right. You wish that it wasnt a case where you had to do that. But sometimes what we discovered specifically with this is majority of the people who contacted me after it happened and in the campaign, matter of fact the opponent said, you dont want to send somebody else like this to washington and the answer on the street was we want somebody like that in washington that will stand up for us and say things are not right. Host now you are in the Nations Capital and congress, what have you found so far . Is it different from the expectations you had coming in . Guest it is quite a bit different. One is the control and rule as far as your debate and everything like that is not about being a floor leader in illinois where the chair was a moderator. It is different in that respect. Just the level of work and the amount of subjects you need to be abreast of and the sheer size of the job in comparison to being a state legislature. Host you talked about Jerry Costello keeping in touch with the district. How do you do that . Guest we do that with social media and when i am in the district with the 11 and a third counties and people say you are home. Well, no. My population base is quite a bit away from my home. For instance during easter we were there one week before and one week after. Of those 16 days we were home i slept in my bed was four. You make sure you out in constant contact. Everything from town halls to listening sessions and going out and meeting with Different Community leaders and the general public. They know we are out there and we are getting comments on that. Host you dont have duties as a volunteer firefighter but you brought along a helmet. We will show it to the viewers. Tell us guest that was a gift from one of the fire departments. I was a fulltime firefighter with the city of murphysboro. You get to do all of the things your mother doesnt want you to do as a kid. Running into buildings, getting dirty, being around fire, getting wet and people like you because of it. And it truly was one of the most exciting jobs i ever had. Even with the marine core this was right up there. Host you were a volunteer . Guest i was a fulltime firefighter for two years and then a paid per call so if you are in town you respond. And i was that from 1988until i was a state legislature until 2008. Host you talked about the busy schedule on capitol hill. What are the committees you serve on . Guest i am on Small Business, Veterans Affairs and ag which is appropriate. Host does it seem like a lot . Guest it actually is. They told me you probably dont want three committees but it worked out. It is a busy time. Host how do you keep it all straight . Guest i have very good staff. Spend a lot of time reading and studying those issues. And one of the more difficult things is a lot of these issues are things that are from other congresss before and you have to play catch up in your mind and that was difficult. We are getting to the point where we are smooth. Host you have several witnesses and only get a few minutes. Guest that is a rough part of this job. You think call them in but not as far as committee work. By the time you get down to the frenchman members most of the questions have been asked, it is drawn out over a long period of time, but some of the subcommittees i have been able to get into what i need to know during the actual combat committee. But we have to come back quite often. Host what is on the top of the dodo list in terms of what the district would like to do in congress . Todo guest we have Scott Air Force base and i will be working to make sure that there is a system that is needed to relocate and we are hoping we can get it there. Wh the most important thing has to do it coal and oil and overburdensome regulation from the epa and other agencies that have just caused why do we strangle our businesses in this nation . When we are trying to complete on a world wide market with so many agencies with duplicate rules. We dont want to make sure this isnt happening. We find out government does everything it can to be difficult. Host give us an example of that. Trucking business and salon business. What was a regulation you kept coming up against . Guest in the trucking business there is a Driver Shortage. Well the Driver Shortage is not occurring because there are not people wanting to do the jobs it is that the people doing the jobs cant sell enough hours because of a mishandling of the road hour rules and the log book rules. You dont want to go back to where it was in the 70s. That was a dangerous time. But if you are on a run for instance and you are coming up on your amount of hours you are scheduled to have in a week and you are an hour or half an hour from your destination you have to stop the struck and wait 36 hours to move forward or they have to send a driver and not only that that driver then, if this week falls with a weird break in the middle, he or she cannot sell 40 hours. That is when you have people here in washington, d. C. Writing rules that have never sat in a truck. They dont understand. It is the same way with all business. Not necessarily from the standpoint of the federal government but in the beauty salon business we had tanning beds one time. We got so overregulated on the tanning beds we sold them. Host federal and state . Guest federal and state both. Host in a state like illinois how prohibitive is it . Guest the level of taxation on the Trucking Industry was prohibitive in illinois and the cost of doing business is high. Host you mention Scott Air Force base. The house passed a shortterm highway transportation bill through july. What is the biggest infrastructure needs in your district and how do we go about resolving them . Guest as we move forward and i dont know if you can put the votes together for a gas tax they can say why they want it but the reality is the people in the coffee shops and beauty shops are a little bothered by that. We want to watch and find a funding stream for long term purposes. I will be working with the colleagues to figure out what that is. Truly our job as the u. S. Congress unfortunately there is many things we dabble in that should be stakes but the one thing is interstate commerce is our job and the highways are our job. We need to be working to make sure bridge and roads are kept up and havent been doing a good job of that. Host what are the conditions of the roads in your district . Guest they are rough. It is constant construction but i think they patch work things because of the funding problems. They dont go into the depth they need to to restore them to the point they were when they were first built. Host you are one of the several new members of congress with military experience. How long were you in the marines . Guest i served three years. Went to san diego to boot camp to palms, california and then yuma, arizona. Host are there similarities between the military and house of representatives organizational wise . Guest no, and let me explain why. In the marine core our job was we had spears and immediate obediance order and that would save your life quite often. We are independence representing our own district. There might be those who want to rule over because you have leadership but leadership has to understand each one of us represent our district. Host have you been in a situation where you wanted to vote one way but had to hold your ground . Guest not in the congress. There were times after 20 years. Will that come up some time . It may. I have a way out to my district and it may upset people. I have a lot of coal mines, a lot of union in the district, i was a Union Firefighter but i am a republican. It is about jobs and keeping people working and straightening out the economy versus Foreign Affairs and the border and all of these things. But when it comes to my district i will be voting by district. Host were you born and raised in your district . Guest lived there all of my life. Host did you join the core after high cool . Guest i joined the core 1979. I was driving for the Family Trucking business and got hit on a motorcycle by a drunk driver but it was in october. I had a lot of close on and helmet and got hit hard. I ended up with a twisted ankle and back out of place. I was at home and not in the truck when the situation came up. 18 years old you think you can change the world and you will change everything and i looked up and waited it out and next thing i know i woke up in boot camp. It was the hostage situation for you. Looking back 36 years or whatever to that incident where we are with iran and you realize your motivation to join the core. What are your feelings . Guest i am not a big fan of what the president is trying to do as far as his negotiation with iran. They have a history we have had to deal with. We want to be careful. I want to make sure we make sure they dont have a Nuclear Weapon so i am going to be standing very, very strong my voice is heard. You are in your first term here campaigning. Tell us about the process of winning reelection to your seat in 2016. Has that started . It has. It always does. 20 years in the illinois general ass assembly where i ran. You go back to running in the state of illinois because of the early primary. It is seven months from the time you are sworn in and circulating petitions to run again. We will be out and doing that shortly. It is part of the process. Someone said i think we should change the constitution. I dont think so that all. I think the best way we can keep your congress in check is that every two years they have to go back. Host do you feel the bill of Citizen Legislature . Guest i would like to say yes, you know. But in a moment, if they dont want me, i will go back to being and doing whether it is the beauty salon or the grandchildren or anything else. Sure. I think we need people with experience and that is also a reason i dont agree with term limits because we have states around us that have term limits. Host you talked about your grandkids a moment ago. You brought along a picture that sits in your office. Guest we had to tape one of the newest one on top. There are ten of them ranging from 14 to new born and they all live within six miles of the house. Host how many kids do you have . Guest i have three children. I think they are done now. I dont know. My wife made the statement because there was no more room in the car. She said i think we had enough and i said i dont know if you know this but we dont make the call. Host have your kids and grand kids been back east to washington . Guest they have. I had one of t
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