He was elected to serve the Ninth Congressional District when Nathan Deal stepped down to run for governor in 2010. Redistricting, however, will take Floyd County out of the district Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Marietta, now represents, and move it into Graves’ district.
The legislator traveled to Rome on Friday to meet local Republican leaders, taking the time to get to know some of his potential future constituents.
“I’m very pleased with the counties that have been added to me,” Graves said. “They’re just wonderful counties and communities of interest. It’s North Georgia at its best.”
Graves is a new-wave fiscal conservative, strongly supported by the Tea Party movement. It’s a brand of conservatism some political observers call extreme, but it’s a movement Graves says is going to be around for a while.
“The Tea Party has provided an element of accountability on all levels of elected officials, whether it’s local or national, that I haven’t seen in years and that is desperately, desperately needed,” Graves said.
The freshman congressman is unapologetic when it comes to his strongly held beliefs that spending in Washington has to be trimmed.
“The federal government is currently spending 150 percent of what it takes in every month. Our debt and deficit are way out of control, and many would say beyond the tipping point,” Graves said.
So, how would Graves cut spending?
The first questions he asks are: Is the government program duplicative? Is it something that is truly a federal role or something that can be returned to state authority? And finally” Is it something that be accomplished more efficiently?
“Unfortunately the government has grown so rapidly, and so many various interests and groups are dependent on these programs that it just takes time to begin removing them in their totality,” Graves said. “We’ve got to start that now. We really don’t have a choice.”
Graves says he is less than impressed by President Barack Obama’s American Jobs Act program designed to get the economy and jobs back on track.
“It’s a sequel to a bad movie. We’ve seen this before. It’s more stimulus, more bailout, more buyout,” Graves said.
His suggestion is getting government out of the way and allowing the private sector become the creator of jobs and not the government.
The congressman has been conducting regular town hall type meetings across his Ninth District and said business owners say they are ready to expand and add jobs, but are not willing to risk any major capital investment in the absence of certainty about what’s going to happen next in Washington.
“They’re having to make business decisions today based on uncertainty in the future, and the only way they can do that is to wait until changes occur or they see positive movement in a different direction,” Graves said.
What specifically would Graves do to get the economy moving?
His first priority would be to put a moratorium on rules and regulations coming out of agencies in Washington.
No. 2 would entail dramatic changes to the tax code.
“We need to broaden the base and lower the rates and eliminate subsidies and all of the corporate welfare,” Graves said.
He was a co-sponsor of the Fair Tax plan, a single-rate sales tax proposal and was one of the architects of the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act of 2011.
Graves said taxes are in place to fund the essentials of government, “and in my opinion it has gone way outside the bounds of what the federal government was created to do.
We need to start bringing that back in.”
When Graves voted against the legislation to raise the debt limit at the end of July, he issued a statement saying, “This debate is far from over, and I’ll continue to work toward solving our debt crisis — even if it means going against the grain every time.”
Graves indicated that he would not be surprised if he draws opposition in the Republican primary next spring. “We’ve had a lot of opponents over the years,” Graves said. “I believe iron sharpens iron. It’s always good to have a contest of ideas.”
