Romney Talks Trade Policy With Chambers of Commerce | News, sports, jobs

Kelci Hartley, Daily Herald

U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, was the guest speaker during a business breakfast hosted by the Spanish Fork and Payson/Santaquin Area Chambers of Commerce Wednesday morning.

According to a Romney aide, the event was held to discuss trade-related issues such as inflation, supply chains, wages and unemployment.

In Romney’s inaugural address, President Joe Biden talked about signing the inflation-reduction bill into law on Tuesday.

“Not a single Republican in the House or Senate voted for that bill,” Romney said. “Do you think the Democrats can do what they want without some help from the Republicans? Well, the answer is yes and no. Under Senate rules, if there’s a bill that’s only about spending and taxes, that can be done with a simple majority vote without requiring a supermajority. … Well, the Democrats can do this a little bit.” Law has now been used twice.

Romney discussed parts of the bill that Republicans disagreed with. According to CNN Politics, the bill would cost $750 billion. Romney said that Republicans do not agree with the amount of money and do not want to add fuel to “inflation”.

Kelci Hartley, Daily Herald

“Part of that is hiring 80,000 new IRS agents. They go for more than double the IRS amount. Another issue is to determine the price of medicine. You may think that pharmaceuticals are too expensive and I agree, but there are better ways to deal with the prices of pharmaceutical companies than having the government set prices. “The challenge of that is if you’re a pharmaceutical company developing a new drug, you don’t know what the value of the product you’ve created is. So are you willing to spend billions of dollars to produce the drug if you don’t know what you can sell it for?

Romney also called the deflationary bill a misnomer, asking how he would fight inflation.

Not only that, they are going to subsidize the purchase of electric cars. I think electric cars are great. With gas prices the way they are, I wish I had one, but go out and try to buy one. You can’t. They are out of the market. A lot of people are trying to buy them, but the government is going to pay you to buy one,” Romney said.

During a question-and-answer session at the event, Jan Walker, candidate for Utah’s 4th Congressional District, told Romney she was concerned about the national debt and asked if he would work to find technology solutions to track spending.

Romney agreed that the ability to track spending should be a high priority, but he wasn’t convinced that technology was the answer.

“I don’t know that there’s anything so simple in technology that allows us to do that,” he said. “The Social Security system works very well. We don’t have a lot of Social Security fraud — we have a few, but not a lot. Other agencies aren’t very good at it. I’d be happy to see technology that verifies our ability to see where our money is going.”

After questioning Walker, he spoke to the audience about how the nation has piled up its debt.

“Two-thirds is automatic. It happens every year whether we choose it or not. One-third is the military, one-third is the Justice Department and one-third is education. The problem is the two-thirds we don’t know about. It’s Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security,” Romney said. Advanced and grows faster than the economy. We cannot spend more than we spend.

Romney introduced the Trust Act in April, designed to create congressional rescue committees for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and federal highway programs. According to the bill, committee members would be responsible for “recommendations and legislation to improve the established program, including increasing the positive balance period of the federal trust fund established for the program and providing solutions to the program.” A federal trust fund was established for the program over a 75-year period.

Thor Mongi, a chiropractor with Balanced Health of Payson, asked Romney what he planned to do about the nation’s health care “crisis.”

“I have a health care plan that I really want to be adopted by the country.” Romney replied. “My view is that we would be much better off if we gave individuals more control over their health care choices as opposed to the government. I’d say take the money we spend on Obamacare and put it back into the states and make their own systems for what they think is best for their people.”

In the year He said the health care plan Romney put in place as governor of Massachusetts in 2015 was a precursor to the Affordable Care Act. “Without Romneycare, I don’t think we would have Obamacare. So, without Tom, a lot of people wouldn’t have health insurance.”

Jamon Andelin, who represents Compass Insurance Advisors, wanted to know how much Romney cares about what voters want versus what he believes is right, and how he reconciles those differences.

“It really depends on the nature of the topic,” Romney said. “In most cases, the fact that we are a representative democracy, people elect their representatives and expect them to do what they believe is right, and that’s what I do. I do what I believe is right. And then there are some things that I pick up on because those are the things that our bodies want.

He went on to say that he tries to implement the best decision for each decision and “If people say, ‘I don’t like his judgment on this,’ you vote for me.”

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