Wednesday Update

Divided We Fail, a coalition that includes AARP, the National Federation of Independent Business, the Business Roundtable and the Service Employees International Union, will be hosting a town hall meeting with Gregg Harper.

Monday, Gregg Harper spoke at an AARP program in Rankin County.

Travis Childers has put a "Recovery Tracker" on his web site to see where stimulus money is going: a list of contacts for relevant Mississippi departments and organizations, as well as a constantly updated record of allocations for the First District and the State of Mississippi.

The Merchants Payment Coalition has begun an advertising campaign in the congressional districts of several junior members of the House Financial Services Committee including Travis Childers. The ads are intended to raise public awareness of the charges known as interchange fees imposed on the merchants by the major credit companies, Visa and Master Card. More here.

Gregg Harper talks with TRNS correspondent Christina Lovato at the 2009 House Republican Radio & Blog Row about how middle-class families and small businesses are having to make sacrifices in their budget for bailouts, the G-20 summit and how the U.S. is seeing the highest level of borrowing ever. Harper believes the biggest issue we are going to have is what to do about cap and trade. Audio clip.

Bennie Thompson is on the southern border along with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

Bennie Thompson on DHS proposal to forgive Hurricane Katrina loans: "This is a great opportunity for the Gulf region to direct their resources to other recovery projects rather than worrying about how they are going to pay back the federal government. This was the most catastrophic disaster to ever hit the U.S." Gene Taylor on the proposal: "I know that several of our cities, counties, and school districts are still far below the revenues they had before the storm. They desperately need to have their loans forgiven. I thank Secretary Napolitano for taking this action and I am especially grateful to House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn for making Katrina loan forgiveness a priority when the Democrats took control of Congress in 2007."