Senator Mike Crapo visits Idaho State University to talk economics
U.S Senator Mike Crapo was in Pocatello at Idaho State University on Monday. He spoke to students in the College of Business about the status of the nation’s economy and its effect on business.
Crapo said one of the biggest issues currently being debated in Congress is the national debt. He said strangely enough, some people in Congress don’t feel the national debt is a crisis for an economy our size, it simply comes with the territory. But Crapo disagrees. He feels it’s a big crisis and one of the most important and influential factors on our economy.
Crapo said with debt growing two-times faster than the economy, interest rates on the national debt continue to rise rapidly. He showed some estimates predicting that the cost of the national debt will be higher than both the nation’s defense and non-defense budgets by 2023.
He said potentially, Congress could look at having to cut costs for the defense budget in order to minimize the debt. But he doesn’t want to see that happen. He said finding solutions to the national debt is an on-going issue within Congress also.
Crapo said he was very impressed with the questions and responses he received from ISU students during his visit.
Some even asked him why the younger generation should vote in the election, and why they should get behind him as a senatorial candidate. He said he enjoyed his visit with ISU students.
“My confidence in the young people at the college of business at ISU is really high,” Crapo said. “They ask outstanding questions, they got it, and what I think they showed me more than anything else was that they are aware that this is something we need to be involved in, that they need to be engaged in and I think that’s something that I would like to see everyone imitate.” Crapo also gave a brief statement on his recent withdrawal of support for Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential election.
“This is something that I’m working through myself,” he said. “But I want to make it very clear because some people will wonder whether that means I will vote for Hillary and the answer to that is no. And I can tell you that one way or the other, we need to realize that our supreme court, the united states senate, and the presidency are all on the line in this ballot and I think all Americans need to remember that.”
