Dr. Michael Burgess M.D. is running for reelection to the 26th Congressional District, located in the heart of North Texas. The District includes most of Denton County as well as large portions of Tarrant and Cooke Counties and a small portion of Dallas County. After spending 25 years practicing medicine (Ob/Gyn) in North Texas, Burgess was elected to Congress in 2002. He serves on the prestigious House Energy and Commerce Committee and three of its subcommittees: Health Care, Energy & Environment, and Oversight and Investigations. He is also a member of the bicameral Joint Economic Committee, and Dr. Burgess recently founded and is Chairman of the Congressional Health Care Caucus which can be found online at: healthcaucus.org

During a recent interview at The News Connection office, Burgess talked about some of the most significant issues facing the country today. He said the number one priority is reducing unemployment. “We’re still pretty fortunate here (Texas) compared to other parts of the country. But joblessness is undoubtedly the thing that’s still on everyone’s mind. A close second to that is the level of federal spending that’s occurring. How are we ever going to sustain this level of spending that we’ve embarked upon and what are the unforeseen consequences when we have to monetize a lot of this debt down the road and start paying it back?” Recently, Congress voted to allow the government to go $1.9 trillion deeper in debt; or about $6,000 more for every U.S. resident. The measure, which Burgess and other Republicans voted against, raised the cap on federal borrowing to $14.3 trillion. That's enough to keep Congress from having to vote again before the November elections on an issue that is feeding a sense among voters that the government is spending too much and putting future generations under a mountain of debt to do it. Already, the accumulated debt amounts to roughly $40,000 per person. And the debt is increasingly held by foreign nations, such as China.

“For this president to not show any spending restraint is just wrong,” said Burgess. “The president put out this budget that will spend $3.8 trillion, with revenues of $2.6 trillion and then has the audacity to say we can up the debt limit. Then he says he’s going to put a freeze on spending, but it won’t start until the 2011 fiscal year. We’ve increased discretionary spending so much in the past 2 years that it seems meaningless to freeze it at this level. If we were to go back to a baseline of 2007, and freeze it at that level, it would be meaningful.” Burgess said the Scott Brown Senate election in Massachusetts was a “game-changer,” as far as the healthcare bill was concerned. “Remember, on Christmas Eve they got their sixtieth vote on the healthcare bill and it looked like there was nothing you could do to stop that. The weekend before, I was at a conference where there were a lot of Democrats talking about what they had accomplished by getting a deal with the unions, getting a deal with the drug companies, and they looked like they were ready to push this thing over the finish line. Then, there was that special election in Massachusetts and it was like all the air went out of their tires,” Burgess said.

Dr. Burgess spoke briefly about the upcoming Healthcare Summit at the White House with key members of the GOP. “If I get the invitation, of course I’ll go. If the president sits down at the table with a blank piece of paper and asks Republicans for their input; that would be a great start. But, if it’s just an opportunity for him to have some Republicans in the room while he knocks some of the rough edges off of a very bad Senate bill, I would have no interest in participating.”


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