Published: October 11, 2006 08:44 am      

Q&A with U.S. Congressman Joe Barton

As U.S. Congressman Joe Barton (R-Ennis) readies for a re-election bid in November, his stop Monday was Corsicana for a visit with the local republican party.



The Chairman of the House’s Energy and Commerce committee, Barton is one of the most tenured and powerful Texans in Washington.

Barton faces David T. Harris (Democrat) and Carl Nulsen (Libertarian) in November.

He took a few minutes Monday to talk to the Daily Sun about a handful of issues the country faces today:



On the water situation:



We can’t make it rain. Some of our counties been declared disaster areas but there is very limited financial assistance that the ranchers and farmers can apply for. The best thing that can happen is to get some rain and get our water tables back up. ... There’s a little bit the federal government can do, but the good Lord’s got to help us with getting us some above average rain, hopefully, over the next two to three months.



On the Foley page scandal:



I think that (Mark) Foley was absolutely wrong to initiate any kind of social contact with sexual overtones to pages. ... It’s inexcusable to have any type of contact with them through e-mails or in person that have sexual overtones, That’s just wrong. Having said that, Foley is gone, he’s resigned, and we have an internal investigation by the House Standard of Official Conduct and we have an external investigation with the FBI. Both of those investigations were initiated by the speaker (Dennis Hastert). I support both investigations.



On the war in Iraq:



You’ve got the international terrorists still trying to go after us, and within in Iraq you’ve got some of the groups not used to democracy jockeying for power. You’ve got a double whammy against the provisional government. ... I think we just need to stay the course, keep training the Iraqi military and keep supporting their emerging democratic institutions and I think we will end up with an ally that’s a real beacon of democracy in the Middle East. It’s taking longer than we thought it was going to take but it’s still worth the effort.



On new power plants:



I think TXU has announced they are going to try and build, I believe, 10 new plants. The company has said it’s going to use technology that will have (far) less emissions than current technology. Some of the environmental groups have indicated they either don’t believe that, or don’t believe the technology will work. They are going through the hearing process and that will sort itself out. I support power plants being built. ... I’m confident we can handle the emissions.



On Social Security:



Sooner or later we’re going to have to reform the program so that the people paying the taxes now will have a retirement benefit when they retire. I think the president was right to put on the table (a plan) where individuals under a certain age could take some of their taxes and put them into an account that could go into something other than the social security trust fund. ... If you are under 45, or basically a young worker just starting out, reforming social security ought to be a real high priority.



On a possible shift in majority:



You’ve got to acknowledge it’s a possibility, but I don’t think it’s a probability. There are a lot of races around the country that will determine that and I think we as Republicans are ahead in two-thirds of those races. ... We’ve got an economy that’s going well, a stock market that just hit an all-time high, we’ve got gasoline prices finally down to $2, and that will hopefully go a little lower in the next few month. All the basics are there for the Republicans to stay in the majority.