Meridian Q&A With Harper

The Meridian Star recently interviewed Gregg Harper.

The Star: Do you plan a home in Washington, or will you be commuting?

Harper: "I'm definitely a commuter. The plan right now is to fly in on Monday and fly back either late Thursday or sometime Friday. Then, on the weekends, I'll be working from home. But it's important that I make time for my family. That is a must."

The Star: What is the most important piece of legislation Congress is dealing with at this time?

Harper: "One of them is the SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program) that we voted on last week. (The legislation is a $31.5 billion measure to expand the program for another 4 1/2 years). I support the reauthorization of SCHIP, but the version that the liberal Democrats put forward so expanded the program — took it from $30 billion to $65 billion — and will now cover folks that make close to $80,000 a year, and adults. The thing that bothered me the most is that they're saying $5 billion of that will go to provide benefits to illegals. It also removes the face-to-face meeting, which absolutely opens the program to fraud. We have to remember that this was a Republican-led bill more than a decade ago as part of the Welfare Reform Act.

It was a very good concept to take those on welfare and prepare them for the workforce. And it's now, as most government programs do, grown into something too big.

The Star: What is the most pressing issue that your constituency will be facing in the coming year that you hope to address?

Harper: "Most of our folks back home — yes there were foreclosures and lost jobs — but most were doing OK until $4 a gallon of gas. That hurt our students, our low income folks, our seniors ... and we haven't fixed it. We're already seeing it inch back up. We've done absolutely nothing to fix it. We have some folks over here in government policy positions and their goal is the reduction and use of fossil fuels. They have a micro goal when they should have an overall goal that includes some control that allows us to drill offshore and any place when can get natural gas ... and things like clean coal technology in Kemper County. And we have to explore nuclear. We should be about anything that keeps us from sending our nation's wealth to the Middle East or other foreign countries. I just don't think we can afford going back to $4 gas. We've got to fix that."