Senator Ricketts visits central Nebraska

AURORA, Neb. (KSNB) - United States Senator Pete Ricketts visited central Nebraska on Monday.

Sen. Ricketts held his Meet with Pete Event, which made stops in Aurora and Holdrege. The event gave locals a chance to express their concerns to him directly. People had the chance to talk to Ricketts about anything on their minds, including policy issues. Senator Ricketts team was with him as well conducting constituent services as part of their office hours.

They were open to giving people advise on how to deal with troubles with the IRS, Veteran’s Affairs, social security or if you’re in need of a passport.

Ricketts talked on three main points: Government spending, electric vehicles and securing our boarder. He said the federal government spent approximately $1.9 trillion on the stimulus package, which he feels started inflation. Ricketts also didn’t hold back when discussing the problems in Washington.

“What we have to do is get back to a regular approbations process and Leader (Charles) Schumer has not allowed us to do that,” Sen. Ricketts said. “In fact, if you think about the 12 approbations bills that we use to fund government every year, we’ve only passed three of those and passed those after the end of our fiscal year.”

Ricketts said there needs to be a way senators can offer amendments to help control spending, adding all levels of government need to control spending. He said citizens can get involved by participating in local board meetings. Ricketts said you can also write a letter to him or your local state senator about your concerns.

It’s important to get involved and let people how you think. The Biden administration predicts by 2032 two-thirds of vehicles sold will be electric; Rickets said that just won’t work in Nebraska.

“Part of the problem for Nebraska is we don’t have those charging stations and frankly the Biden Administration has set aside money to get more charging stations,” said Ricketts. “But you can’t buy American, enough American parts to be able to do it and the parts come from China, and so do we really want our taxpayer dollars to fund Chinese companies?”

Ricketts has a strong feeling many Americans wouldn’t like the idea of putting money in the wallets of Chinese companies. He also said you can go from Broken Bow to Scottsbluff without seeing an electric vehicle charging station. Nebraska has 253 public charging stations, and 136 of them are in Lancaster, Douglas, and Sarpy County. Rickets has a solution that works for all.

“The way the Biden administration is approaching it is not practical. They’re not going to be able to get it done and we should look for other solutions like flex fuel vehicles to be able to do that. That’s a Nebraska based solution that will help reduce the impact on the environment but will also save consumers money at the pump and make us less energy dependent on foreign sources.”

Ricketts said he and Minnesota senator, Amy Klobuchar has introduced the Flex Fuel Fairness Act, which will give flex fuel vehicles the same incentives as electric vehicles. He’s also seeing people abuse the asylum system at the boarder.

“What I find when I go to the southern boarder is that people coming across the boarder just want a better job,” Sen. Ricketts said. “That’s not a reason for asylum; you have to be in fear of your life. And the parole process is what’s suppose to be for exceptions for people coming over here illegally and that’s why it’s suppose to be used very rarely and case by case basis.”

Ricketts said since President Biden has been in office, approximately 6 million illegal immigrants came into the county.

“President Trump brought those illegal crossings down to a four year low by enforcing the law; that’s what has to happen,” Sen. Ricketts said. “President Biden is not enforcing the law. If we quickly turn people around, enforce the law, only allow people to get asylum who qualify that’s how we stop this who problem we’ve got with this catastrophe at our southern boarder.”

Ricketts said because of boarder issues, there’s huge amounts of human, sex, and child trafficking.

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