James Lankford represents Oklahoma's 5th district. A vocal and articulate member of the freshman GOP class, Lankford recently talked with ConservativeHome's Ryan Streeter about the debt, the GOP's Medicare plan, and how Washington is making life difficult for new, small businesses.
RS: When you're back home in Oklahoma, what is the number one thing your constituents are asking you to get done in Washington?
Lankford: By far, everyone wants to talk about the debt. People in central Oklahoma are concerned about how much we owe as a country, how much the interest on our debt is going to be. They want to know how we are going to handle such a huge and growing problem. We just can’t be carrying so much debt, and the people back home are really anxious about it.
RS: What about jobs?
Lankford: Actually, our unemployment rate back home is 5.7%. A lot of people envy us for that. So jobs are not the issue for the vast number of my constituents, though of course we are eager to see more of our unemployed people find work. But overall, people are just really, really concerned about the debt.
RS: You've voted for the House Republican budget, so you're on record supporting one of the most sweeping reform proposals to entitlements and the tax code. What would say is the most important thing the American people need to know about the budget and the ideas in it?
Lankford: That it’s not the draconian monster that MSNBC and a whole bunch of pundits say it is. It’s actually a very common sense way of dealing with the nation’s budget and the big issues we face. There are a lot of people who even say it doesn’t go far enough.
Here’s why it’s a common sense approach to the problems we face: First, the budget treats the debt as you’d treat a mortgage. We need to take steps to get out of it, to pay it down, over time. And we can do it, if we pursue the right policies and maintain discipline.
Of course, I and the others have been accused of throwing the elderly off a cliff, even throwing adults and children off cliffs. But we’re doing nothing of the sort. What we’re proposing is actually quite simple to understand, and as I said, a common sense approach. So, in the case of Medicare, we’re merely taking the parts of Medicare that do work and applying them to the whole program. We take the means-testing that is already a part of part B, and we’re applying it to the entire program. We’re using the competition in part D and applying it to the entire program. We’re taking what has been tested and has worked, and then proposing to restructure the entire program around those things. And we’re trying to be as clear as possible about what we’re doing.
I sincerely believe the “Mediscare” tactics will backfire on the Democrats as we continue to get the facts out to the public and people grow more comfortable with what are really very common sense reforms.
RS: What's been your greatest surprise - disappointment or otherwise - since arriving in Washington?
Lankford: The greatest surprise has been the amount of time conversations circle around problems. I was enough of a neophyte when I arrived in Washington that I thought people here would devote most of their time to kicking around ideas for solving problems, and debating those ideas. But instead, we spend a lot of time defining and analyzing problems. I wish we’d spend more time talking about what we’re going to do, not just talking about problems we already know about. You know, there’s the saying about consulting, “If you can’t be part of the solution, there’s good money to be made in prolonging the problem.” That mindset seems alive and well around here.
RS: A lot of people are worried that even if our economy starts growing and we start making progress on our deficit, that middle class families won't enjoy the benefits of growth as they used to. What do you think Republicans are doing, or need to be doing, to make sure the American Dream is as widely available to as many Americans as possible?
Lankford: There are absolutely things we need to be doing. One really important reality to recognize is the tendency of the federal government to deal with only the largest companies, the largest entities, when designed regulatory and other compliance requirements for businesses. Because there are so industries and so many companies within each industry, regulators, Congress, the administration all tend to reach out to, and work with, the largest representatives of those industries.
Now, this isn’t a devious conspiracy or anything. It’s just the way things have come to function in policymaking. So regulations, compliance measures and the like favor the interests and ideas of the “big guys.” They can pay for what’s needed to comply with the law, and they can hire the people needed to make navigate the mazes of requirements the government keeps creating.
Small and medium sized enterprises can’t do that, so they are increasingly forced to sell out of what they’re doing or quit doing it. We are really complicating the marketplace for smaller enterprises such that they can’t keep up. The death of the American Dream is when I can no longer go start a business in my garage that grows, employs people, and creates real value. The more we continue in the direction we’re going, the more we are pushing the American Dream out of reach for more and more people. We need to make real progress on regulatory and tax reform in ways that make it easier to start new, smaller companies, and appealing to do so.
RS: There aren't too many former youth camp directors in Congress.* What would you say about your background has uniquely prepared you for what you're doing now?
Lankford: There are just two things I’d say about this. First, I hope my background suggests I’m just a normal American who ran for office to help fix problems we’re facing. I’ve always done a lot of research on issues, was in speech and debate clubs since the 4th grade, and since I was a child I’ve always been an avid reader of the news and current events. So I was always as engaged in the issues facing my community as I could be while running Falls Creek Youth Camp. Now, at 43, I’m still as engaged as ever, this time while serving my community in Congress.
The second thing I’d say is, as a vocation, running such large camp is one of the best ways to understand families, what they face, what they are dealing with. And I’ve always considered that to be pretty valuable experience. We dealt with such a great variety of situations, and dealt with wealthy families, poor families, in tact families, broken families. In that role I really got to know what parents, teens, and children care about, worry about, deal with each day.
*Editor’s note: Lankford directed the Falls Creek Youth Camp from 1996 to 2009, which is the largest Christian camp in the nation with more than 50,000 guests every summer – no small enterprise.
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