Town halls best way to communicate

When I was fortunate enough to be elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004, I made a pledge to hold town hall meetings in all 64 parishes every Congress. And since then, I’ve done just that.

I believe the best way to communicate with fellow Louisianans is face to face, right in their communities. Getting an up close and personal view of what’s going on in each parish and hearing directly from the people who live there helps me do the job I was elected to do n represent you.

So far in the 112th Congress, which started at the beginning of 2011, I’ve been to more than 40 parishes. The past two weeks, I’ve hosted nine town hall meetings in parishes across the state, from Evangeline to Red River to Terrebonne to Richland parishes, and many in between. 

Over the past few weeks, we discussed many of the issues most important to Louisianans, including my efforts to bring Louisiana common sense to Washington, reform the culture of runaway federal spending and debt, and develop positive solutions to get our economy going again.

Louisianans are always impressively up to speed on current events, like the Keystone XL pipeline project permit that the president stubbornly denied this month. The Keystone XL project would create an estimated 20,000 new jobs, $7 billion in new investment and provide 700,000 new barrels of oil a day n oil the United States wouldn’t need to import from the Middle East.

During this most recent tour, Washington’s wasteful spending was also a hot topic at nearly every meeting. And while the president has talked tough about seriously tackling our ballooning debt, his actions have moved us in the opposite direction. I’m ready to work together on any good faith proposal to change that disastrous course.

At the town hall meetings, we often agree on the issues, but occasionally we don’t. Either way, it’s valuable for me to hear your views to never lose touch with what’s most pressing on the minds of Louisianans. If only more of my colleagues around the country would do the same thing more often, Washington might not be so out of touch. 

Please contact me on these or any other federal matters at any of my state offices or in my Washington office by mail at U.S. Sen. David Vitter, U.S. Senate, 516 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20510, or by phone at (202) 224-4623. You can also reach me on the Web at http://vitter.senate.gov.