Earlier this month, I wrapped up another 18 town hall meetings, including stops in Beckham, Custer, Canadian, Lincoln, Logan, Kingfisher, Garfield, Major, Alfalfa, Dewey, Woods, and Blaine counties, and am proud to report I am now more than half way through my annual 50 town hall tour of Oklahoma’s Third Congressional District.

While each town hall is never quite the same, the one thing that remained constant was the level of intensity of all the participants.  The specific topics ranged from health care to cap-and-trade to government spending to financial regulatory reform.  But at the heart of each of these discussions was the overwhelming concern with the direction this country is headed.  With large turnouts at each of my town halls, it was evident that people have become frustrated with their government.  And rightly so – our national debt has increased $7.67 billion per day since January 2010, and with every man, woman, and child currently owing approximately $41,484.  Those are astounding numbers to hear out loud and what’s even more astounding is that those numbers are expected to continue to increase.  In fact, if President Obama’s FY2011 budget is passed, our national debt will climb to over $14 trillion by October 2011 – roughly equal to the size of our country’s entire economy. 

One of the most impressive things to me was that these large turnouts are mainly made up of new faces; a new generation of activists who are exercising their constitutional right to stand up and be heard by their elected representatives.  I hold these town halls every year not only because it gives me an opportunity to hear your concerns, your ideas, your opinions, but also because it gives you an opportunity to express them to me.  I want to encourage all of you to continue to stand up and voice your opinions – keep up the fight.
I would also like to encourage you to continue to contact me with your opinions.  You can do this by visiting www.house.gov/lucas and selecting “Contact Frank.”  I still have 24 town hall meetings to go this year.  If you haven’t had the opportunity to attend one, I encourage you to join me at one of the upcoming meetings.  Their dates and locations will be available soon on my website at www.house.gov/lucas/townhalls.