Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) on Monday called for bipartisanship to address challenges facing Americans over the course of the new year.
In an opinion piece published by The Hill, Hagerty outlined issues, like historic inflation or the border crisis, and urged Democrats to work with Republicans to find solutions.
Congressional Democrats largely ignored staggering issues throughout the majority of 2021, Hagerty said.
“America has real problems—most of them self-inflicted in 2021 by Democrats. Take the runaway inflation we’ve seen unfold. It’s time to stop pretending like inflation doesn’t exist or will magically resolve itself. Americans’ real wages fell like a rock in 2021. The Senate Banking Committee—of which I’m a member and which has jurisdiction over monetary matters—should be laser-focused on addressing this pernicious, daily tax on Americans. Incredibly, despite the highest inflation in 40 years, the Banking Committee hasn’t held a single hearing on the topic. That must change in 2022,” the senator wrote.
On the crisis at the southern border, he wrote:
The all-time record for illegal border crossings was broken in FY2021. Is it too much to ask that a Senate committee hold a hearing on the border crisis, or that we develop bipartisan, commonsense legislation to increase border security? Or that we at least avoid making the problem far worse by granting mass amnesty, as Democrats’ Build Back Better legislation proposes? This national security fiasco should be a front and center legislation priority in 2022.
The junior senator from Tennessee also highlighted his previous bipartisan legislation. Hagerty joined Senators Rob Portman (R-OH) and Angus King (I-ME) to introduce a measure to improve the advancement of key technologies, like semiconductors.
Hagerty also defended President Joe Biden’s nominee to be the ambassador to Japan, former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel. Despite criticism from the far-left, the member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who previously served in the same position, called Emanuel a “qualified and capable nominee.” The duo pledged to work together to free Greg Kelley, who has been detained in Japan for allegedly falsifying securities reports.
“The American people deserve a government that acknowledges their concerns and works tirelessly to address them. The serious problems we face demand it. Our government—the U.S. Senate—must recognize it. The time has come for the United States Senate to do the job the American people require of us,” he concluded.
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Cooper Moran is a reporter for The Star News Network. Follow Cooper on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Bill Hagerty” by Senator Bill Hagerty. Background Photo “U.S. Capitol” by David Maiolo. CC BY-SA 3.0.
