D.C. is no Indy

Congressman Jim Banks said his first four months in Washington, D.C., have shown him that serving as an elected representative in the nation’s capital is a far cry from his time as state senator in Indianapolis.

“There are no similarities between Washington, D.C., and Indianapolis,” Banks said Friday evening at the Jay County Republican Party spring barbecue.

“Indianapolis, it’s a treasure. Our state legislature works.”

Banks said he hopes to instill that functionality in a notoriously dysfunctional federal government.

“When I ran for Congress, I wanted to take a little more of Indiana to D.C., I didn’t know I’d be bringing Mike Pence with me,” Banks said, to a rippling chuckle from the 150 Republicans gathered at Jay County Lions Civic Center. He praised Republicans’ most recent legislative success, the passage of the American Health Care Act.

“Republicans took seriously the commitment that we made (to repeal the Affordable Care Act),” he said. “We are ready to move forward.”

He expects the bill to change significantly in the Senate, and said that despite his support for it, he doesn’t believe it’s current form is perfect.

“I would have liked to see more of the regulations taken away that were implemented by Obamacare,” he said.

Banks also added that he thinks the plan’s substantial cuts to Medicaid funding will help reign in the nation’s budget deficit.

But Banks also said he wants to beef up military spending. He said the U.S. Navy is the smallest it has been since before the U.S. entered World War I, and said the Air Force is short 1,055 pilots. As the most recently deployed member of Congress, Banks said significant budgetary increases need to be made to reverse sequestration policies from the Obama administration.

“It’s startling to me as we listen to testimony (to the House Armed Services Committee) and learn more about the readiness crisis we face today,” Banks said, emphasizing the threats posed by North Korea, Iran, Russia and ISIS.

He also looks forward to tackling tax reform, the next priority on the Republican legislative agenda.

“I don’t believe we can do anything in this Congress that would have a larger, longer term impact than passing tax reform,” Banks said, citing a corporation tax rate that he feels is too high and the existence of a federal inheritance tax he said is “the worst tax of all taxes.”

Also on Banks’ priority list: repealing the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, a series of financial regulations put in place after the recession and near economic collapse in 2008. He said the protections put too much restriction and regulation on the financial industry.

Ultimately, Banks stuck to his message of encouraging small government, promoting privatization and reducing all forms of regulation, while increasing federal focus on defense spending.