Luetkemeyer visits Fulton, talks issues

U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (standing, center) speaks with constituents Wednesday morning at the Callaway Chamber of Commerce's business breakfast. He offered his opinions about the proposed border wall with Mexico, necessary cuts to senior programs Medicare and Social Security, and other topics.
U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (standing, center) speaks with constituents Wednesday morning at the Callaway Chamber of Commerce's business breakfast. He offered his opinions about the proposed border wall with Mexico, necessary cuts to senior programs Medicare and Social Security, and other topics.

U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer said there's a method to President Donald Trump's negotiation skills that many people don't understand.

"He's a business guy; this is how he sees things," Luetkemeyer said during a visit to Fulton early Wednesday morning. "He's thinking in the long term."

That disrupts people in Washington, D.C., he added.

"It really spins them around and they don't know what they're doing," Luetkemeyer said.

The Congressman talked at Wednesday morning's monthly business gathering at the Callaway County Chamber of Commerce. He said that during the president's recent visit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un in Hanoi, Vietnam, talks broke down and Trump flew home early. Luetkemeyer said he believe that is just the president's way of negotiating deals.

"The president is using every leverage he's got to make sure we get good deals, or he'll walk away, just like he did with North Korea," Luetkemeyer said. "What the president did with North Korea will give him more leverage when he goes to make other deals. You're going to see a two-steps-forward, one-step-back. He walks away from the table and he goes back."

Luetkemeyer added the president is planning more negotiations soon with China over trade restrictions. China, he also said later in an answer to a question, holds some American government debt, along with public holdings, banks and insurance companies.

"China holds about 10-12 percent; they did hold 25 percent but have been selling it off," Luetkemeyer added.

He also talked about paid entitlements including Medicare and Social Security, which people pay for out of every paycheck.

"Medicare's going off a cliff," he said, adding the government needs to cut back Medicare and Social Security programs. "There's a limit to how much you can cut."

Luetkemeyer praised a growing American economy and nay-sayed complaints about higher income taxes. He said the perception that income taxes have increased is a fallacy because people are getting more money in their paychecks instead of in annual refunds. He also blamed poor accounting, misinformation, the media and human resources officials for not convincing people to check on and increase their withholding amounts.

"It's not a matter of you not getting money back," he added.

Luetkemeyer also talked about the need for a wall on the border between Mexico and the United States.

"I believe there is a crisis at the border," he said. "This isn't a border crisis; it's a national crisis."

He talked about drugs, terrorists and gang members coming across the border illegally, some carrying illegal drugs.

He also said there is a humanitarian crisis, with many refugees having been physically and sexually abused.

"It's men, too," he said of the abuse. "I'm behind him (the president) 110 percent; I believe in what he's doing. The wall doesn't solve all the problems, but it slows it down."

Luetkemeyer said the amount of illegal immigrants coming across per month has recently risen from about 60,000 to 77,000.

On March 5, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol reported 76,103 people were apprehended in February 2019. The number in January was 58,295. People can read data from other months and years at:

cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration.

Because Democrats now lead the U.S. House of Representatives, they also lead committees. Luetkemeyer, 66, serves Central Missouri as a member of the Republican Party, and has supported a constitutional amendment defining marriage as being between a man and a woman, plus legislation supporting carrying concealed firearms, banning partial-birth abortions and reformed worker compensation laws. He also supports deregulation of the financial industry, specifically, the lending industry. He served in the Missouri House of Representatives from 1999-2005, and then became a member of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2009. In 2016, he won re-election by 67.84 percent.

He currently sits on the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services.

"It's chaired by Maxine Waters, a California congresswoman," Luetkemeyer said. "Guess who else is on that committee? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez."

He said he opposes the proposed Green New Deal, a set of proposed economic stimulus programs that addresses climate change and economic inequality.

"It's not practical," Luetkemeyer said, adding some new Congresspersons are too "naive" and "immature" to govern.

He also told his audience to keep a close eye on federal politics.

"This is going to affect you," he said.