Media

President Obama visited Macon, Missouri this week. Despite my hopes that President Obama would address the concerns of hard-working Missourians during his visit, I was disappointed that he failed to address the staggering jobs losses that were supposed to end with the $862 billion stimulus package passed more than a year ago.

It is important to remember that almost all of us are the children of immigrants. Our parents or grandparents or great- great-great grandparents came to America because it was and still is a land of opportunity. America as a nation is great because of immigration, not in spite of it.

Even today, America continues to welcome immigrants who come here legally. It is not legal immigration that upsets Americans, it is illegal immigration. Our country has become far too tolerant to those who have broken the law.

This week I co-authored a letter to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) that raised concerns about the FEMA flood map modernization process. FEMA is currently updating the nation's Flood Insurance Rate Maps but this process is creating many challenges for many communities, homeowners, small businesses and levee districts in Missouri. I have heard from constituents that there is a lack of coordination between FEMA and USACE in answering questions about flood mapping, flood insurance and flood control infrastructure repairs.

Harry Truman said it's amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. Once again, I have signed onto legislation authored by Heath Shuler, a North Carolina Democrat. I'm not interested in who gets credit for helping stop illegal immigration, I just want it stopped.

The filing deadline for federal taxes passed on Thursday. Every year it reminds me of the need for fundamental tax reform. We need a tax code that is simple, fair and promotes economic growth. While I am a co-sponsor of the Fair Tax, I would support any tax reform plan that meets those goals. We need to make April 15th, just another day.

Legislation:

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. It's a lesson that history teachers like to drill into their students. However, in Congress, bad ideas are rarely subjected to a historical review.

The old adage of putting the ‘cart before the horse' seems pretty relevant to the on-going debate about immigration reform in Congress. No plan for immigration reform will work until we control the border. The fact is though; we don't control our own borders.

Just this past week, the Department of Homeland Security announced that they would cut funding for a project along the southern border called the virtual fence. After spending over a billion dollars in taxpayer money, federal bureaucrats finally came to the conclusion that a virtual fence simply doesn't work.

Springtime is finally starting to arrive in Missouri. We are now about a week away from the opening of a new baseball season.

Baseball is the national pastime, a tradition handed down from one generation to the next. Nowadays you can catch just about any game on television. However, before national sports networks, a lot of folks simply followed their favorite team on the radio or through the box score in the paper. Sometimes the numbers tell you everything you need to know.