MANSFIELD – Rep. Pat Tiberi spent time delivering tough truths while heralding Republican accomplishments at the Richland Area Chamber of Commerce’s first legislative luncheon of the year.
From the start, Tiberi outlined a number of measures Congress has accomplished despite a checkered perception.
“We actually have gotten some things done,” he said. “Social Security, Medicare, taxes, trade – those are all issues in our jurisdiction. On all those issues, we have fundamentally different views than the president of the United States.”
The crux of Tiberi’s visit on Thursday addressed the looming debt crisis coming with entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Without significant reforms, Tiberi said, Medicare will be insolvent in 10 years and Social Security will be cut by 14 percent across the board.
“We have a debt crisis at our door,” he said. “In 1965, mandatory spending was 34 percent of the budget. Now, discretionary and mandatory are flipped. It’s a huge problem.”
To that end, Tiberi also called for tax reform, particularly lowering rates, getting rid of double taxes and making America more competitive.
“From a global perspective we’re falling behind,” he said. “If you’re a public company and you’re competing around the world, you’re going to move your company. It’s not that you’re un-American, it’s just you’re trying to survive and compete.”
When the Social Security disability program was in the red in the fall of 2015, Tiberi played a part in reforming the program while also not raising taxes nor cutting benefits. He noted he helped pass nine tax bills in the Senate last year.
“Things can get done, but you have to work across the aisle,” Tiberi said. “The president was opposed to some of them, but in the end he signed the bill. There are people running for president who haven’t had nine bills get done. But you can get it done if you work hard and work with the other side.”
Tiberi also called for tax reform to make it simpler and more competitive for small businesses as well.
“Wouldn’t it be great if we could say we had a tax code that did what it used to do, and companies around the world said I want to headquarter my company in the Midwest?” Tiberi declared, slapping the podium for emphasis. “That doesn’t happen anymore, because we’re not competitive on trade or tax.”
Tiberi acknowledged that trade is a very emotional issue.
“We in Ohio have lost a lot of manufacturing jobs,” he said. “My dad was a steelworker who lost his job to a southern state when the first bi-lateral trade agreement passed in the United States.”
However, he also noted that trade is happening across the globe, with or without the United States.
“What I’m telling you is not popular,” Tiberi said. “We cannot put our heads in the sand and let the rest of the world trade around us. If you’re Donald Trump, that means we’ve done a terrible job and he can do better. Or that we don’t have to trade, we can just ignore the rest of the world.
“That’s insane.”
When asked if there have been any “closed-door” discussions of how to prevent businessman Donald Trump from being the Republican party’s nominee for the presidential race, Tiberi said party leaders are “befuddled.”
“Some will say let it play out, if Donald Trump is the nominee he probably can’t win against Hillary, so let him fund his own campaign and we can focus on keeping the House and Senate,” Tiberi said. “Others say it will be a disaster, we will have record losses down the line, and you never know what he might say.
“Worse, if he becomes president, you never know what he might do.”
Tiberi was present to support Ohio Gov. John Kasich at his Mansfield rally on March 12. He noted that a majority of polls show Kasich performing best against the Democratic party’s likely nominee, Hillary Clinton.
In addition, Tiberi noted over the Republican party’s 160-year history, seven successful nominees on the Republican side became president without having the most delegates going into the convention.
“Rutherford B. Hayes, a great Ohioan who became president, was fifth in delegates going into the convention. And he won it on the ninth ballot,” Tiberi said. “James A. Garfield, another Ohioan, was third going into the convention, and he won on the fifth ballot.
“So for Donald Trump to say, ‘I’ve got the most so I should be the guy,’ goes against 160 years of history.”
