Weekly Columns and Op-Eds

Speaking with students last week at Hanford High School in the Tri-Cities gave me a surprising realization. The students were curious about how our government operates and also about daily life working in Congress. I realized that more people might actually be interested in what it is like for me to work as your representative. To give you an idea, I wanted to share a few insights as well as important events last week in Central Washington.

The U.S. and the Paris-based United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) have had a long, contentious history over the organization's controversial stances. The aim of UNESCO—to promote greater cross-cultural understanding—is well-intentioned. In fact, the U.S. had a formative role in creating UNESCO as an organization meant to promote freedom and democratic values. But in practice, UNESCO has departed from that mission and acted as a platform for anti-Israel and anti-Western totalitarians. U.S.

The past few weeks, much of the nation's attention has focused on devastating hurricanes on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts as well as in the Caribbean. We have come together as a nation to care for those suffering and offer assistance to Americans affected by hurricanes. But in the Pacific Northwest and across the West, thousands of Americans have struggled with a very different kind of natural disaster: wildfires. Since January 1^st, more than eight million acres of land have burned in wildfires across the U.S.

As a conservative who believes in the free market, I believe that American businesses hire more workers and families thrive when you are able to spend and invest more of your own hard-earned paychecks. The complexity and distortions created by our current broken tax code are holding back economic growth and job creation.

Simplifying the tax code to make it more fair and allowing our businesses to be more competitive will help realize our nation's economic potential. That is why last week, House Republicans released the unified framework for pro-growth tax reform.

When consumers in Tokyo or Hong Kong want delicious fresh fruit, meat, or other products, they are likely to know that the best is grown here in the United States. American farmers produce the highest quality produce in the world, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) provides assistance that help our farmers gain access to foreign markets that can be tricky to tap into. Access to foreign markets translates into billions of dollars of exports and countless jobs here at home, but without additional support, USDA's tools for promoting exports will fall behind the competition.

When Barbara Johnston realized she was going blind, it changed everything. She could not read the numbers on her prescription, nor could she tell which medications needed refilling, including her blood pressure medication. She also realized her vision problems, the result of macular degeneration, were getting worse. I was thankful to hear from Yakima Neighborhood Health Services how they were able to connect her with a care coordinator where she received help for her vision problems and assistance with managing her blood pressure to prevent a stroke.

When President Trump's administration announced that it would give six months to wind down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, many young people called ‘Dreamers,' immigrants who grew up in the U.S., were once again faced with uncertainty regarding their future here.

In the Fourth Congressional District, the August district work period has been a busy time for me traveling up and down Central Washington to meet with constituents and hear their concerns firsthand.