(IMAGE: Courtesy of the office of Congressman Mike Gallagher)
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – Mike Gallagher will once again represent northeast Wisconsin in Washington, after a convincing victory in Tuesday’s election.
“I promise to continue my approach of just being a problem solver and working to represent everybody in northeast Wisconsin,” Gallagher told the WTAQ Morning News with Matt and Earl. “Even if people disagree with you, if you give them an honest assessment of why you feel the way you do about certain issues, they appreciate that.”
One of Gallagher’s top goals in his third term will be addressing the coronavirus pandemic.
“Well there’s no question that we have a lot of work yet to do with the pandemic, figuring out how we get out of this as quickly and as safely as possible,” Gallagher said. “Still $30 billion in unspent PPP money that we could get out there to help our small businesses…Rather than waiting for a massive, gigantic bill with a lot of unrelated provisions, there some targeted things we could do immediately like getting that PPP money out there – which makes a lot of sense to me.”
But what may be the hottest topic on Capitol Hill right now isn’t his only focus.
“Shoring up our supply chain bringing some of that manufacturing back to the United States so that we’re not in a situation where a hostile foreign country can threaten us in the midst of the crisis like we saw with China,” Gallagher said. “We’ve done over the last few years and particularly build on the ship contract we got in Marinette and make northeast Wisconsin that shipbuilding powerhouse worldwide…There’s a lot of issues I’ve worked on the last 4 years, whether it’s cyber security or technological competition with China, where those aren’t necessarily partisan issues. And I’ve actually I had good relationships across the aisle.”
Those relationships, he says, are vital to getting things done in Washington. But he says there’s a serious gap between where the country currently sits and where it needs to be.
“There’s no question looking at the initial election results but the country remains very divided and so I think everybody, right-left-center, needs to figure out ways where we can bridge that divide,” Gallagher said. “I think the American people are demanding change. You can look at the election of Trump in 2016 as this massive signal from the American people that they are dissatisfied with the status quo.”
That’s why Gallagher says he’s interested in having outsiders in Congress, and shared excitement to see so many other former military service members throwing their hats in the ring. He also continues to call for Congressional term limits.
“I just want that next generation to come in and kind of shake the status quo because there’s no question that D.C. is a swamp, and it’s a bipartisan swamp,” Gallagher said. “Regardless of how you feel on certain policies, you need Congress to be functional. You need committee work to go well. And you need Congress to do robust oversight of the executive branch so we don’t put the whole darn federal government on auto pilot…We can not continue to fund failure, and we can reinforce success. Too often that doesn’t happen just because of the perpetual campaign cycles.”
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