Tiffany seeks new term to keep fighting old problems

The times may always change but that doesn’t mean the nation doesn’t face age-old problems, and that’s the case this year as Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany seeks another term representing northern Wisconsin in Congress.

Tiffany, first elected to the seventh congressional district seat in a 2020 special election and then re-elected later that year and again in 2022, says he will continue to urge his fellow lawmakers to have the courage to take a stand to solve the most persistent problems.

“We all know the problems that exist in America,” Tiffany told The Lakeland Times in a recent interview. “The solutions just require the will to do it. Number one, you secure the border. Number two, you stop the deficit spending. Let’s get back to a balanced budget and have work requirements. Make sure that we’re energy independent and we will get this economy going once again.”

In addition, Tiffany said, we have to reverse the nation’s slide into weakness abroad. 

“We need a strong chief executive,” he said. “We need a strong foreign policy because the tyrants do not kick sand in our face when we have a strong America.”

When it comes to the national debt, Tiffany says the nation is in a place it has never been before.

“In regards to a $35-trillion debt, we are in uncharted territory and no one’s seen anything like this before, so they don’t know where it’s going to end or what is going to precipitate that event,” he said. “That is going to mean serious trouble for our country. But everybody knows that it can’t go on forever and there will be a day of reckoning.”

It’s not that lawmakers don’t realize the seriousness of the situation, Tiffany said.

“We talk about it regularly,” he said. “We’ve introduced bills to get control of it. I’m on a bill that requires a balanced federal budget. We know some of the things that need to be done.”

Tiffany says he is a member of the Republican Study Committee and it is the only organization in Washington that provides an annual budget.

“We have found that we can get to balance in 10 years,” he said. “So yes,  there are things that I’ve proposed and worked on to get it to balance, but it is not taken with the seriousness in Washington, D.C. that it should.”

Attacking budget deficits has always been a top priority for Tiffany — he says a $3-billion state budget deficit was the reason he first ran for the state legislature and now he is motivated by the national budget deficit.

Tiffany says Congress can do a number of things.

“In particular on discretionary spending, we have proposed reductions,” he said. “We have this catch-all of waste, fraud, and abuse. But there is significant waste out there that if we, and in particular the executive branch, took it seriously, you could root out a lot of that waste, fraud, and abuse.”

Tiffany cited one example in Minnesota where he said $1.3 million was siphoned out of the federal Feeding Our Future program. 

“She bought a Tesla and a new home with it,” he said. “It’s those type of things that really need to be rooted out.”

Tiffany said there was another component, one that was tied directly to illegal immigration.

“Many of those illegal immigrants get their care via Medicaid,” he said. “I think in Wisconsin 58 percent comes from federal dollars and the other part comes from the state. So it hits both state and federal budgets and that’s a significant amount of money, especially when you bring over 10 million people into the country.”

Tiffany acknowledged that there was no silver bullet.

“It is a whole series of good budgeting decisions that need to be made,” he said. “The same thing we did in Wisconsin over the course of a decade. I helped write three of those budgets. We did a whole series of responsible budgets over the course of a decade, and that’s how we fixed Wisconsin’s budget problem and now they sit with a surplus and the largest rainy day fund ever. The federal government needs to do the same thing.”

And what happens if the debt problem isn’t fixed?

“For other countries we’ve seen their ruin,” he said. “You’re seeing an effect already and that’s inflation. I mean inflation is directly tied to the excessive spending that went on. And remember Larry Summers told Joe Biden when he signed the American Recovery Plan —  the first big trillion-dollar bill, it was almost $2 trillion when he agreed to sign that — the Democratic economist Larry Summers said, ‘you are going to trigger inflation.’ And it did.”

Again, Tiffany said, it just requires the will to do it, but he doubts whether Congress will have that will.

“I’m skeptical that they will have the will to do significant reductions, but I think there are significant things that can be done,” he said. “And by the way, I would support the elimination of the Department of Education. I mean, that’s where you would start [in cutting spending].”

More broadly, Tiffany said, Congress needs to deal with the regulatory state because it’s impeding economic growth, and he said there are two approaches to doing that.

“One is if we just froze spending where it’s at, you would see over time that it would reduce the deficit because if you reduce spending, you send a clear message to the job creators of America that ‘hey, you guys can now grow, you’re going to have a lighter touch by this bureaucracy that guides your life,’” he said. “And so if we just cap spending and left it static for a decade, it would get us to a much better place.”

Tiffany said the other side of the equation is to put pro-growth policies in place.

“If you have pro-growth policies as Trump did back in his first term, you see significant growth in the amount of money coming into the federal government,” he said. “Tax receipts go up significantly, but you also see significant growth in the private sector.”

There are several components to that strategy, Tiffany said.

“First of all, we should not raise taxes,” he said. “Second of all, we need to rein in the regulatory state. The Chevron decision [the courts no longer have to automatically defer to the reasoning of government agencies] is very important in that the Supreme Court came down with making the executive agencies accountable, but it also opened up an opportunity for Congress to do a better job of writing bills, to be much more specific about how we are writing bills so we don’t simply turn over authority to those executive agencies.”

Congress should pass the REINS Act, Tiffany said., whereby any regulation that is proposed by the agencies of more than $100 million dollars has to have a vote of Congress to be enacted.

“If we would implement the REINS Act, you would see economic growth really take off because regulations are stymieing the economy,” he said. “I believe more than taxes are at this point. We have become such a regulated country. They need to leave people alone and they will grow.”

Energy independence 

Tiffany said it’s critical for the nation to re-establish energy independence and energy abundance, especially in the fight against inflation.

“Diesel fuel moves the world,” he said. “If you want to bring inflation down, if you want to have growth, we have to be energy independent. You bring crude oil down to $50 a barrel and to $2 a gallon diesel fuel or lower, and also bring electricity costs down and you will see significant growth in the economy.”

Tiffany said we never see a growing America when we have high energy prices, but we almost always see a prosperous America when we have low energy prices. 

Work requirements are also needed, the congressman said, because Covid benefits incentivized millions of people not to work.

“So we’ve got upwards of 10 million people who could be working,” he said. 

Debates about spending invariably lead to discussions about the solvency of Social Security, but Tiffany says he does not believe it needs to be fixed.

“The biggest threat to Social Security at this point is creating more new programs,” he said. “What's driving the deficit at this point? It is all these new programs — Green New Deal programs, you name it, whatever they are — to the tune of trillions of dollars. That’s what jeopardizes Social Security and Medicare.”

The solutions only take getting government back to the basics, Tiffany said.

“Let's get back to basics,” he said. “Here in the United States, there’s a couple programs that I think are important to the American people like Social Security, like Medicare, people would like to have their mail delivered on time. I think those things have traditionally been done by the federal government. Do those things well and stop trying to do all this other stuff to perfect society and just leave Americans alone.”

Monopolies and competition

Tiffany said one of the biggest things needed is to inject and sustain competition in the American economy.

To be sure, the congressman said, while reducing energy costs will certainly lead to lower prices, including grocery prices, so would reducing regulatory costs.

“We’ve made it so expensive to adhere to regulations, and while it may be a hidden cost, it is a cost that is there when we’re seeing that it takes 10 to 15 years to get permits issued for just a whole variety of things, whether it’s bridges or you name it,” he said. “For some agricultural enterprises, for forest products companies, it’ll take them years sometimes to be able to get the permits to do an expansion, for example. That costs money and that drives up the cost of everything, including food. I actually believe we can bring costs down by allowing producers to produce and just bringing the cost of energy down. I mean, energy is all important to controlling inflation.”

Monopolistic practices also affect prices — just four companies control the beef industry, for example, but Tiffany said reducing the role of the regulatory state is the answer there, too.

“Whether it’s beef processing or a number of other industries, it goes back to the regulatory state because it builds barriers to entry and whether it’s done under the guise of safety, safety in terms of physical safety, or perhaps saying we want to make sure that someone does not defraud the public, that is where we need to roll back some of these regulations that benefit the incumbent players.”

The regulatory state is so all encompassing that it creates barriers to entry for the entrepreneurs that want to get in, Tiffany said. 

“And this is not just the beef industry,” he said. “It is health care, it’s everything. And the federal government needs to stop trying to solve every problem out there because they’re making it worse and they’re shutting down entrepreneurial activity. That is a big part of the reason why we need to reconsider the regulations that are being put out there.”

The bottom line is, Tiffany said, monopolies exist that hinder free enterprise, but he said it all goes back to administrative state.

“I would say the regulatory state that's been built in America has led to those monopolies,” he said. “Let’s make sure that we have competition.”

The question becomes, if more regulation makes it difficult for new or smaller firms to compete with incumbent large firms that can better afford the regulations, and if deregulation then allows the already big firms to vastly expand even more, how can balance be restored?

Tiffany says it’s two-fold. 

“One is to rein in the regulatory state, but the second then is to have a robust Federal Trade Commission that does ride herd on this,” he said. “I’m supportive of that, making sure that monopolies or oligopolies do not exist now. So the Federal Trade Commission has a role in regards to that.”

Immigration

The first thing Tiffany stresses about the nation’s open southern border is that it is a choice made by the Biden administration.

“The president can secure the border immediately,” he said. “President Biden unsecured it and he can fix it any time that he wants to.”

Beyond that, Tiffany calls for Congress to pass his bill reinstating the Remain in Mexico policy.

“You do not get your asylum hearing here in the United States,” he said. “You have to have it in Mexico in order to be able to get in here.”

Second, Tiffany said, you build a wall.

“Let’s finish construction of the wall and make sure people are going through designated checkpoints rather than crossing the border wherever they want to,” he said. “I’ve been to the border numerous times. I’ve seen it. It’s everywhere that people are coming across the southern border where you have no barriers to prevent people from being able to come in.”

Then, too, Tiffany says we should bolster the number of people in border patrol. 

“Border Patrol has been turned into a babysitting service by the Biden-Harris administration where they just pass people in rather than doing their job of securing the border,” he said. 

Immigration parole for humanitarian reasons should be changed, Tiffany said, because the administration is using parole enforcement en masse to bring people in by the tens of thousands. 

“Parole is meant to be done on a case by case basis,” he said. “It was enacted in a law in the 1950s and was meant for a special case. Let’s say a kid from Africa that needs surgery as a result of a debilitating condition they may have. They can come into America, get that treatment, and then they go back home. But [the administration] has turned it into a mass immigration policy where 80,000 Afghans came in on parole. I think it’s 30,000 a month that are coming from Cuba and Nicaragua, Venezuela on parole. It's being used in a way that it was never intended to.”

Finally, Tiffany says the nation needs a rational immigration system. 

“We believe in legal immigration, but what’s happening at this point is illegal,” he said. “Immigrants are jumping ahead of those filing to come in here legally. It’s wrong, and we should have a legal immigration system that matches up with the needs for America that benefits Americans.”

Free speech

During his four-year tenure, Tiffany says that defense of free speech has unexpectedly become a top issue.

“So when I went to Washington, D.C., a little over four years ago, I knew I would argue with Democrats in regards to taxes and regulations,” he said. “I knew that that’s oftentimes what we did in the state legislature. I did not think that I would see a full-throated effort to eliminate the First Amendment to the Constitution as well as the Second Amendment to the Constitution, and some of the others.”

And so sitting on the Judiciary Committee has been very enlightening about where the Democratic Party has gone, at least its leadership, Tiffany said.

“It’s why you’re seeing people who are traditionally Democrats, whether it’s Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Elon Musk and others, who have now said, ‘we are going to vote Republican’ because they do not recognize the party they once belonged to,” he said.

Tiffany said one of the best examples is Matt Taibbi, the liberal journalist who dared to call into question the coverage of Covid. 

“And as a result of that, the federal government sent the IRS to his home when he was testifying before a committee of the United States Congress sending a clear message to him that, be careful what you’re saying because we will come and get you,” he said. “It is no coincidence that the IRS goes to his home the day that he’s testifying before Congress and leaves a note that, ‘hey, we stopped by to discuss your taxes with you.’”

It is those types of actions by federal agencies that are chilling in regards to the First Amendment, Tiffany said.

“You have a party now that no longer believes in the First Amendment to the Constitution, and they use the Department of Justice in league with the big tech companies to suppress information from being able to come out,” he said. “Censorship is a serious problem at this point. And it is amazing to me that you have thought leaders like John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, that are saying, ‘yeah, we maybe need to rein in free speech.’ They’re very open about it. I think that’s the most important thing we’ve done in the Judiciary Committee is do a full-throated support of free speech in America.”

Women’s rights

Tiffany said the GOP is becoming the party that stands up for women’s rights, and he says also that abortion is a matter that should be left up to the states.

“I do believe that abortion is a state issue,” he said. “The states should be deciding where they’re going to stand. Look at Wisconsin at this point. We’re at 20 weeks. That’s a bill I voted for. It was a backstop in case Roe v. Wade went away, and we thought it was a reasonable compromise at the time, at five months and after that, abortions would be illegal.”

Tiffany says we can protect both babies and women.

“Allowing abortions up to the final trimester, I do not believe that we should be doing that,” he said. “And the other thing is that Democrats are treating women as single issue voters on this. I think for most women that there are more things going on in their life other than just considering abortion, whether it be health care, the inflation that’s eating up their paychecks, and the family budget.”

Tiffany says women also believe public safety is important.

“I think women also consider public safety when it’s not safe to be able to travel the streets because there’s a gang member from Venezuela that has been let in illegally by Biden and Harris, and that woman gets beat up as a result of it,” he said. “Public safety has been diminished under this administration.”

Another issue important to women is Title IX, Tiffany said.

“You notice Democrats never bring up Title IX in context with abortion,” he said. “And I think it’s just unconscionable that Democrats adopt diminishing Title IX as one of their policies because they have, and remember, by doing so, those scholarships that are supposed to go to women can now go to men under the proposal that the Biden-Harris administration has put out.”

So women’s issue are much larger than just abortion, Tiffany said.

Richard Moore is the author of “Dark State” and may be reached at richardd3d.substack.com.