Senator Blunt says this week’s main focus in Washington is spending, which it should be, but also says the U.S. House and Senate need to pay attention to unrest in the Middle East. Blunt says as the trouble in Libya and the Middle East continues and prices at the pump continue to go up, the U.S. needs to keep talking about energy.
“As the trouble in the Middle East continues and gas pump prices go up, we’re also in that discussion we should be in consistently, ‘What are we doing to have more American energy?’ Our state is in the middle of that more-American-energy debate from the Danforth Science Center to the University of Missouri to the biomass projects being discussed throughout the state. “One thing we’ve known for half a centrury is we use more energy than we produce.”
Blunt says the disruption in Libya is bigger than industry or energy, it’s about freedom. He says we should be doing everything we can to promote a social structure that supports freedom.
“We should be doing everyting we can with our influence in the region and everything we can with other countries that have influence in the region,” he says. We should be promoting “more democracy, not Iranian-style religious-driven systems that don’t allow participation for most of the society and particularly women and others in that country, so it’s a critical time.”
Blunt says industry, spending and job creation should all be part of the same formula during the financial discussions that are ongoing in Washington.
