Kansas Listening Tour: Jerry Moran speaks for rural communities

Jerry Moran has represented Kansans for 23 years, first in the Kansas House, as a U.S. Representative and since 2010 as a U.S. Senator. At a Kansas Listening Tour stop last Friday in Greensburg, the Plainville Republican presented himself as a legislator working to make changes that favor rural Kansans.

About 30 people attended the meeting at Kiowa County Memorial Hospital.

Moran discussed the Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability amendment to the federal budget that requires the Veterans Administration to provide care closer to home for veterans who live 40 miles or more from the nearest VA hospital.

“The VA doesn’t like the law; they want to keep all the dollars within the agency,” Moran said. “We’re going to do everything we can to make them do it right.”

A first hurdle was getting the VA to redefine 40 miles from “as the crow flies” to actual highway distance.

Moran doesn’t think the VA has taken full advantage of the provision and too few veterans know the VA will cover treatment close to home.

Hospital administrator Mary Sweet commented that KCMH had signed an ARCH (Access Received Closer to Home) contract for the 2010 pilot project of the Veterans Administration, centered in the Pratt area. Although Moran disagreed with the selection of Pratt as one of six sites in the country — a location farther west, like Tribune or Atwood would have been more appropriate, he believes — he hopes ARCH will expand beyond the pilot program.

In the second of two topics generated by Moran, he indicated that he is still working to get a permanent “real” post office for Greensburg, instead of the modular system with outdoor boxes currently in use.

During the open question-and-answer period, Moran responded to a simplistic national defense solution proposed by M.T. Liggett of Mullinville by saying that he has recently been appointed to an appropriations subcommittee for defense and is working hard to become more educated about the issues.

“ISIS is a real threat,” Moran said, “and the nation has to have a strong military to carry out policies. We have to have a leader who says, ‘there’s a line and if you cross it, there are consequences.’ Our enemies don’t fear us and our allies don’t trust us. We don’t do what we say we will do.”

“If we don’t do something about (persecution and killing of Christians around the world) that’s going to be over here,” said Gene West. “As a nation we need to speak out more strongly.”

Moran answered that he was working with other legislators, “trying to get our administration to shine a light on it,” but was doubtful there would be any action.

Sweet, the administrator of one of 83 critical access hospitals in Kansas, said she tried to comply with federal mandates, even when they don’t fit rural hospitals. She mentioned a requirement to provide an online patient portal, when even on her board of directors, only two of the seven have Internet access.

She believes the perception in Washington is that people live in Greensburg because they were stranded there, not because they choose to live in a small town.

Moran said that he has tried to get the people who make decisions about rural hospitals to visit some in Kansas, and that when the CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) names a new administrator, he will try again.

“We figure out how in generally pretty challenging circumstances to make it work,” Moran commented, and promised to continue “beating back the regulations that drive up the costs but don’t improve care.”

Moran promoted the sale of agricultural commodities to Cuba and said that the United States was the only country that has declined to do business there, making the 55-year embargo ineffective.

“If we don’t sell wheat, France does,” he said. “What we’re doing isn’t working.”

In a January press release, Moran wrote that Cuba imports 80 percent of its food and that wheat is the largest food commodity import. Industry experts estimate that U.S. wheat could grow up to 90 percent of the market share in Cuba if trade restrictions were eased, according to Moran.

He also took the opportunity to promote FairTax (S.155) of which he is a primary sponsor. The bill would replace the current tax system with a flat national consumption tax and eventually close the Internal Revenue Service.

FairTax would repeal all federal personal income taxes, corporate income taxes, payroll taxes, self-employment taxes, capital gains taxes and gift and estate taxes, and replace them with a consumption tax on all retail sales of new goods and services. Included in the legislation is a “tax pre-bate” which allows every American to purchase goods and services tax-free in an amount up to the national poverty level.

“We have a long way to go to change the tax code,” Moran acknowledged on Friday.

He also discussed the role of appropriations subcommittees, which give Congress the ability to prioritize spending.

“We’re (appropriations) the closest thing you’ve got to being able to control the IRS,” he said. “Agencies run amok because we’ve not done what we’re supposed to do — control their money.”

Chairman of the agricultural appropriations subcommittee, Moran noted it has the opportunity to tell the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that no money can be spent to regulate lesser prairie chicken habitat in Kansas. In the same way, the Environmental Protection Agency should be told that no money can be spent to implement a Clean Water Act that would include farm ponds in the definition of navigable water.

In response to an observation by Extension Agent Barrett Smith about the growing disparity between classes, Moran said that he, a pretty conservative Republican, and a liberal Democrat have formed a caucus to find common ground on that issue.

Moran has made it a priority to stay in touch with Kansans and since his election to the Senate has held a town hall in every county to get instructions, hear complaints and explain what’s going on.