Latta: inflation, drugs, border concerns

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent editor

The economy and inflation are two of the biggest concerns heard by U.S. Congressman Bob Latta (R-5^th District) during his travels around his massive district. 

Latta visited Van Wert and Paulding counties on Friday and among other things, he met with constituents during courthouse conferences, or one-on-one meetings to discuss federal casework problems, including social security, Medicare and veterans issues. He also met with the VW independent and shared what he’s been hearing.

“People are saying they don’t have as much money in their pocket compared to two or three years ago,” Latta said of inflation. “People got increases in their salary (during and after COVID-19) but during the last couple of years they saw 9.1 percent inflation, and that all disappeared. Gasoline prices are $1 higher than when President Biden came into office and that hurts people.”

“Interest rates – if you want to buy a house or buy a car – rates are higher because federal government spending is out of control in the first few years of this administration,” he continued. “I didn’t vote for any of it but everybody pays the consequences.”

‘Next year, we’ll spend $1 trillion to pay interest on the national debt because of all the spending that’s happened early on in the Biden administration but here’s the thing – we don’t have $1 trillion, so we’re going to have to borrow that money to pay the interest, so that means we’re going to have to pay about 4.5 percent and that means borrowing costs for Americans are going to rise with it.”

“I always tell people – we don’t have a revenue issue, we have lots of tax money coming in – it’s the spending part of it we’re in trouble on,” he added.

Latta mentioned the border and drugs, specifically Fentanyl, as other concerns of district residents.

“We had 74,000 people die of Fentanyl poisoning last year and it’s all this stuff that comes from communist China and Mexico and flows into this country when you have an open border,” Latta said.

Switching gears, Latta also spoke about the government’s push for electric vehicles and sluggish sales due to a lack of interest by potential customers.

“The problem is the federal government should not try to dictate what the American people drive,” he said. “What they did was say ‘we’re put these mandates out there on combustible engines and we’re going to try to get ride of them (the cars) and everybody is going to be driving an electric car by 2035.’ There’s a couple of problems they didn’t think about – they didn’t think about the American consumer, we don’t have charging stations, and we don’t have the electric grid set up to do this.

Latta has served eight full two-year terms in Congress, and won a special election and a one-year term in 2007. He’s seeking re-election this year and is been opposed by Democrat Keith Mundy. Latta represents Ohio’s fifth district, which runs from the Indiana border to just west of Cleveland. It includes all or parts of 12 counties.