U.S. Senator Bob Corker, speaking in Smithville on Wednesday, said that it’s unlikely either Presidential candidate will emphasize what he considers one of the key issues facing the U.S., the federal budget deficit.
“One of the things that won’t be discussed, unfortunately, is the deficit issue and the huge amount of indebtedness in our country,” said Corker, who spoke to a crowd of invited guests — mainly city, county, and state officials and community business leaders during an appearance at the courthouse.
Corker, a Republican and former mayor of Chattanooga, said that the country is $19 trillion in debt, and tough decisions have to be made that are important to the nation’s future. “ Projections are that in ten years the country will be $29 trillion in debt. We have $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities where we’ve made commitments to people that we don’t have the money to honor. I think this is the number one threat to our country. Military leaders that you talk with will say Russia or China is a threat overtime. ISIS is a threat. Certainly Iran getting a nuclear weapon is a threat. But the greatest threat to our nation is our own inability to deal with our fiscal issues. Yet, my guess is that during this campaign there will be zero discussion about that issue which is disappointing,” said Senator Corker.
“This Presidential race has been something very different than what I think a lot of people thought it was going to be a year ago. A big part of that I think has been driven by some of the economic insecurity people are feeling. If you look around our state, people who have high school degrees and have done everything they thought was right in life or even those with a couple of years of community college, in many cases people are just not seeing the opportunities they thought they would see. Wages have been stagnant in many ways and that has spread a lot of concern. The world is changing. Technology is changing and its changing the way we do business and a lot of folks are being left behind. Its creating insecurities and I think in many ways that has affected this race. I hope by the time we all do the early voting or reach the first Tuesday in November we’ll have a good sense of what the main Presidential candidates are going to propose as it relates to economic growth,” said Senator Corker.
Corker, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also spoke about the importance of U.S. leadership in the world. “We’ve had a lot of foreign policy decisions made by people on both sides of the aisle that have turned out to be mistakes and that has caused a retrenchment to take place in many of Americans minds relative to what the U.S. role in the world needs to be. A world without U.S. leadership is a world that I don’t think that people here would want to live in. We don’t need to be the cops of the world but we do need to continue our leadership in the world. We cannot just focus within our borders. While we’re paying a lot of attention to this Presidential race, people around the world are doing the same thing even if they don’t agree with us on a number of things because they are aware of the tremendous difference that the United States makes in the world in espousing free enterprise and making sure the world moves more in that direction which has made our nation great. We also need to do what we can diplomatically to try and diffuse conflicts before they turn into a great problem,” said Corker.
Corker’s visit in DeKalb County is part of his four-week, 32 county tour meeting with community and business leaders. The senator is traveling across the state this month to hear from Tennesseans and share his perspective on how to address some of the major challenges facing our nation. The senator has visited 21 counties over the last two weeks and will visit a total of nine counties this week.