Rep. Brett Guthrie re-elected for District Two
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (WBKO) -Incumbent Brett Guthrie of Bowling Green has been projected the winner n the race for the second congressional district with 72% of the vote.
Guthrie was elected to public office in 1998 and represented the 32nd district in the Kentucky senate until being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2008.
13 News spoke with Rep. Guthrie about his goals for his upcoming term.
Q: What are your goals for the upcoming term if reelected on Election Day?
A: Well, I’ve had a great privilege to serve the people of the second district in Washington. These next two years are going to be vastly and extremely important. I’ve been running on what we call the three Rs. One is we need to restore the way of life we had before the Coronavirus. I’m on the Energy and Commerce Committee of the healthcare subcommittee Oversight Committee of that. So my responsibility has been oversight of the vaccine development, therapeutics development. We are within weeks of having a vaccine. Also, we are continuing to have therapeutics, if you remember, one in about three people who were on ventilators passed away in March. Now it’s two out of 100. It’s still too much, but we certainly have improved. So my job over the next few months specifically the Coronavirus vaccine is one, I believe were within weeks, if not days of having a vaccine approved by science by the FDA, in administering it and distributing it and having the oversight of that we expect to have 25 to 50 million doses by the end of the year, we have 350 million people plus 7 billion across the world as a global pandemic.
The second is to rebuild our economy. To restore and rebuild our economy. We have great GDP news, just this weekend. I believe that the economy is moving forward again. But there are people truly hurting by COVID, particularly in the hospitality industry, people in the restaurant industry, people will have small businesses because there’s not as much foot traffic are being affected. So winning target relief for that.
So I want to restore, rebuild and renew, and I think renew the American dream, I think we’ve seen this summer is specific communities particularly, but people really feel like they don’t have a step forward towards the American dream. I want everybody to know, and I want to work hard for everybody, regardless of the color of their skin, where they are, so that they have a path forward, and they can reach their potential and not just get a job but a career. Those are things I’m focused on through my education and Labor Committee, particularly on apprenticeships, trying to make college more affordable for particularly having people do apprenticeships, get skills to allow them to earn close to six-figure incomes, if they have the skills they need that people are looking for. We’re trying to match that and make sure everybody knows that it’s available to everybody and that we really reach out and bring everybody in.
Q: Will you be working on broadband internet for your district?
A: Yes, actually rural broadband and is extremely important. Now I have Warren County with Bowling Green, I have Green County, that’s a more rural county, and they both have needs. If you live, you know, outside of Bowling Green, even close to Bowling Green, you still struggle with broadband. So what I believe is we do have another cares bill or COVID relief bill, I think one of the things that we found out is that people can use telemedicine without having to go to the doctor and still get the medicines they need and the doctor’s care they need, but they have to have broadband access for that. I think we have really learned as we went online with schools now my hope is to get according to science and safety kids stay in school with our vaccines that are coming. But if we have another pandemic or if we have to continue online learning that kids have to have access to that. So I believe if we’re going to do another big COVID relief bill, a big part of that should be access to real broadband.
Q: What is your opinion on having another $1200 stimulus check?
A: I think we need to be more targeted. If you remember, we spent nearly $3 trillion in the last CARES package and a lot of that was the 1200 dollars. People absolutely were hurting when we had the full, almost a full lockdown across the country. People are still hurting, but a lot of people have gone back to work as we’ve seen the growth in GDP. So remember, we’re borrowing this from our children, the 1200 dollars we spend today our kids are gonna have to pay back later and add to our national debt. So I would like to see the people that that have not been able to get their unemployment insurance even though they qualified for it or people who just can’t get back to work because of COVID. We need that targeted relief for that. What I would like to see which ties into the question you just had. We’re going to spend hundreds of billions of dollars and it’s going to be from our children and grandchildren to pay for it, let’s build infrastructure, let’s build broadband. So they can use it and their children will get to use it as well. So instead of having a one time small, check.
Q: Is there anything you can do at the Federal level to help unemployment in Kentucky?
A: Well, we still have people that I’ve talked to that qualify for unemployment that haven’t gotten their checks, and that’s since March and April. So it hasn’t been handled well at all. In Kentucky, of course, that’s administered by the executive branch in Frankfort. Congress authorized additional money for people to have full income. Some people actually had bigger incomes because we knew that they were going to be laid off and be really struggling. But if you can’t get Frankfort to process your claim, you can’t get your money. It puts people in a really really tough position. I don’t know if they got any better at figuring it out. You know Washington can’t come in and just solve it because Frankfort administers it, other than extend the authorizations and help people make sure they get their back pay. It’s been frustrating, our congressional office works directly with people calling our office trying to help them individually get signed on for unemployment. I understand when people are frustrated, I would be extremely frustrated as well. But that is something that’s Frankfort driven. Hopefully, the governor will get this under control and get it solved.
Q: What are your thoughts on Kentucky having early in-person voting for the 2020 Election?
A: Well, I think the options have been good given the COVID crisis. People want to vote by mail by absentee ballots or voting early. It’s just a necessity. We have to do it. I think there’s 50 over 50 precincts in Warren County on a typical Election Day. That means you have to have 50 crews working at all the different precincts and a lot of people working are retired and are older. These are the groups of people that the Coronavirus has the most effect on. So I think it was wise not to have everybody out meeting everybody at the different precincts. The way that they’ve organized it in the primary worked, but we’re gonna have a lot bigger turnout. So I think they have they’re having each counties making these decisions. The one thing with early voting that you have, I mean, we just got great GDP numbers. If people have voted early, they don’t get to calculate that into their decision. So there’s going to be information up to election day that people who vote early aren’t going to have that privilege to have. So they need to make sure they really are going to vote for that candidate, and they firmly made their decision, regardless before they go vote early. I had people in the primary that know I’m a Republican, but democrats that I knew came to me and asked me if they voted early, could they get their vote back after Representative Booker was kind of making a late minute surge in the last primary. I said, well, that’s the problem with early voting and millions voting if an underfunded, less-known candidate starts to make a move at the very end, you know, they have very limited people they can take their message to so it really disadvantages underfunded candidates. But in a presidential race or congressional race in a general election, most people know who they’re gonna vote for before they vote. So making it convenient for them to vote is fine to do I think it’s wise to do it given the COVID situation.
Q: Will you be taking the COVID-19 vaccination when it becomes available? What are your thoughts on that?
A: Hopefully it’ll be distributed according to you know, frontline workers, people with pre-existing conditions, and so forth first. I will take it as soon as I’m allowed to take it authorized to take it. If I have to take it early publicly so people will see me take it. I’ll recommend my family take it. There will be a vaccine available when the FDA Food and Drug Administration, an independent scientific board says it’s safe and effective. It won’t be before it’s safe and effective. I think we have four candidates that are on the verge. Is it going to be a flu shot effective that you got to get it every year? You’ve got to get a booster shots so is it going to be like that? I don’t think many people think it’s gonna be like the measles, you take it once and you take it for life. But I do think people start getting vaccinated by the end of the year, and I recommend they take it and I will take it as soon as it’s appropriate for me to do so.
You can watch the full interview down below.
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