McClintock Visits Local Students, Businesses
Sonora, CA — With the June primary less than a week away, California’s 4th District U.S. Congressman Tom McClintock spent a busy day buzzing through the Mother Lode, also stopping in at Clarke Broadcasting.
The Republican House member, who has served since 2009 and currently chairs the Committee on Natural Resources and also sits on the Budget Committee, shared cautious optimism over retaining his seat while recounting his schedule and topics of conversation.
Today began with a visit to Tioga High School. McClintock enthused, “I had a great visit with the entire student body of the school all 42 of them — sharp kids, great questions.” He says he stressed to them the importance of the Constitution and their role and responsibilities as voters — America’s sovereign power — to both be informed of the issues and understand the nation’s founding principles in order to be able to hear and weigh in over governmental debate.
Economy Improving, Deficit, Trade War Concerns
Other stops included the Sonora Rotary Club and Tuolumne County Board of Realtors, where he said concerns generally centered on the economy. “The general consensus…it is improving and has been improving steadily for the past year or so but there are certain threats along the way, a burgeoning federal deficit…a possibility of a trade war…but the regulatory and the tax relief that we have put into place seem to be having a very positive effect across the country, including in this district,” he stated.
Pointing to about $1,900 of tax relief now coming in for the average family in the district, McClintock noted that it is $1,900 more that can be spent in local shops where the dollars will ripple through the economy. “People are feeling that,” he emphasized.
He admitted, “I do worry though about undermining it through running massive deficits or starting a trade war…history teaches us a lot of lessons and one of the clearest is that any country that engages in a trade war suffers as a result — there are no winners in trade wars.” Likening tariffs to economic trade sanctions, he asked rhetorically, “Why would we do to ourselves something that we only do to our worst enemies? It makes no sense.”
Budgetary, Natural Resources Focus
McClintock stated that his current areas of focus remain on the budget and natural resources, calling the former is s absolutely essential to the future of the country and our economy; the latter, absolutely essential to the future of the district.
“As Chair of the Federal Lands Committee, we are starting to make significant progress on restoring active forest management so we can to begin to thin out the morbidly overgrown forests that have developed over the past 45 years since we passed laws that have made active forest management virtually impossible,” he expressed with some satisfaction. He added, “That is not only going to improve forest health, it is also going to dramatically improve the local economy.”
Asked about his thoughts regarding President Trump’s performance since taking office, he stated, “I think he is generally moving us very dramatically in the right direction. The regulatory relief we have seen is bigger than the regulatory rollbacks we had under Ronald Reagan. We have seen about a two-thirds in major federal regulations…a one-third reduction in overall regulations. We have stopped about 1,500 burdensome regulations from being imposed either by Congressional or Administrative action and that has had a tremendous effect on the economy.”
He also credited Trump for spurring on a revival of businesses, new business investments. he maintained, “There is a lot of capital coming back into the country…an expanding jobs market…wages going up and a lot of folks who had given up on looking for work are now getting back into the workforce.” Although he lamented current inabilities of Congress to properly deal with gaping budget deficits, he takes Trump’s appointment of Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney as a positive sign, confiding, “Mulvaney is the best budget hawk I have ever served with.”
