From our Congressman - The Durango Herald

New tax plan is ‘voodoo economics’ all over again

According to many reports, Donald Trump is getting frantic as his administration nears the 100-day mark. It’s an arbitrary line in the sand, but one he himself touted in many pre-inauguratio...

DATE: Apr 25, 2017 | CATEGORY: From our Congressman

With North Korea, we do have some cards to play

WASHINGTON – The crisis with North Korea may appear trumped up. It’s not. Given that Pyongyang has had nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles for more than a decade, why the panic...

DATE: Apr 22, 2017 | CATEGORY: From our Congressman

A dog’s death in the rural West teaches an uncommon lesson

One day this winter, as the light was fading, my 12-year-old Basset hound mutt, Belle, joined the rest of us on a walk down the way. The road is gravel, largely untraveled and follows a nort...

DATE: Apr 22, 2017 | CATEGORY: From our Congressman

Voting the first step on new path for LPEA

Ballots for the election of directors to the board of La Plata Electric Association are in this week’s mail. If you have an electric meter, you are an LPEA member/owner of our electric utili...

DATE: Apr 22, 2017 | CATEGORY: From our Congressman

N.Y. college plan tries, fails to do good with government

Donald Trump sets the bar very high, but the award for the worst public policy idea of the year goes to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo presides over a state with a rich diversi...

DATE: Apr 19, 2017 | CATEGORY: From our Congressman

The Financial CHOICE Act is needed to create jobs and opportunities for Americans

The months following the 2008 financial crisis were devastating for many Americans. Hardworking men and women lost their jobs, their savings, their pensions, and their homes. But instead of ...

DATE: Apr 18, 2017 | CATEGORY: From our Congressman

Why don’t all jobs matter?

President Donald Trump is still promising to bring back coal jobs. But the underlying reasons for coal employment’s decline – automation, falling electricity demand, cheap natural gas, techn...

DATE: Apr 18, 2017 | CATEGORY: From our Congressman

Trump’s stunning foreign policy reversal is an overdue wake up call

WASHINGTON – The world is agog at Donald Trump’s head-snapping foreign policy reversal. He runs on a platform of America First. He renounces the role of world policeman. He excoriates parasi...

DATE: Apr 17, 2017 | CATEGORY: From our Congressman

Publicity stunts do not add up to sound policy

Does anyone still remember the Carrier deal? Back in December, President-elect Donald Trump announced, triumphantly, that he had reached a deal with the air-conditioner manufactu...

DATE: Apr 15, 2017 | CATEGORY: From our Congressman

Why the natural gas industry opposes the BLM’s new “methane rule.”

At the end of 2016, the Bureau of Land Management adopted a controversial new rule, “Waste Prevention, Production Subject to Royalties, and Resource Conservation,” also known as the “methane...

DATE: Apr 15, 2017 | CATEGORY: From our Congressman

The coming incompetence crisis in Washington

I just read that the Trump administration has filled only 22 of the 553 key positions that require Senate confirmation. This makes me worry that the administration will not have enough manpo...

DATE: Apr 12, 2017 | CATEGORY: From our Congressman

Karma, precedent and now we have the nuclear option

WASHINGTON – For euphemism, dissimulation and outright hypocrisy, there is nothing quite as entertaining as the periodic Senate dust-ups over Supreme Court appointments and the filibuster. T...

DATE: Apr 10, 2017 | CATEGORY: From our Congressman