by: Teresa Lawrence

Congressman Austin Scott came to visit VSU on Monday and I was in the audience. He told the audience to be wary if the information that you absorb from the media because it may be a distortion of the truth. Congressman Scott informed us that it costs $10 billion per day to run the US government and that the corporate tax increase that Obama proposed would generate $200 billion in revenue. At an additional 20 days of funding, that was not enough to justify passing his proposal. I saw many people in the audience nod in agreement.

Congressman Scott is a member of the Agriculture Committee and voted last week to pass a farm bill that will impose time limits for food stamp benefits. When he mentioned this, people in the audience applauded.

Why, yes, thank you for saving us from those deadbeats that are eating away our tax dollars.

He did not mention the saving generated by this bill, so I looked it up. Would you believe that this bill will save the US government a whopping $10 billion over the next 10 years? This according to Congressman Scott’s calculations is .4 days per year of additional funding.

So let me get this straight, it is not okay to gain 20 days of revenue at the expense of corporations? But perfectly fine to gain .4 days at the expense of families that need to eat. Where have our values gone!

Congressman Scott, I think we also need to be wary of the messages that we are getting from our representatives.

Teresa Lawrence
VSU Student