Congressman Chuck Edwards (NC-11) made a visit to Cashiers last week to discuss some issues on the federal level with members of the Rotary Club of the Cashiers Valley at The Village Green.
Rep. Edwards, a Waynesville native and former North Carolina senator who was elected to his first term in Congress in 2023, is in the middle of a re-election campaign. He is facing opposition in the primary from Christian Reagan, a Hayesville veteran and small businessman who served in the U.S. Army National Guard. The two candidates recently had their one and only debate this election cycle in Brasstown last month.
The winner of the March 5 primary will face Democratic candidate and NC Rep. Caleb Rudow for the 11th Congressional District seat in November.
Early voting for the March primary is underway at five voting sites across Jackson County, including the Cashiers Recreation Center. The other four locations scattered across Jackson County are WCU, the Qualla Community Building, the Cullowhee Recreation Center, and the Jackson County Board of Elections. On Election Day, voters must visit their assigned precincts to cast their ballots. Edwards’ district includes most of Western North Carolina, including Macon and Jackson counties.
On Wednesday, Feb. 21, Edwards talked with the Rotary Club of the Cashiers Valley about current issues facing the federal government, such as the budget process, the ongoing conflicts at the Gaza strip and between Ukraine and Russia, and the Administrative Powers Act. He also fielded some questions from Rotarians, and those topics included handling immigrants coming across the U.S. border from Mexico, term limits, and how to cut back on spending without impacting essential programs such as Medicaid and Social Security.
Federal Budget Process
Edwards said the most significant issue that is a concern for people living in the mountains is the funding of the federal government. He said without that funding, people who rely on things such as Social Security checks coming in cannot pay their bills. “One of the things that I’ve learned from serving on the budget committee is the process in Washington, D.C., that we use to put together a budget is broken,” Edwards said. “It’s so incredibly broken. That’s why you see all the angst and our inability often to put together a budget. It’s broken from the standpoint that we have an appropriations committee which is responsible for deciding how to spend the money, your money, and on what, and we have the ways and means committee, which is responsible for how much taxes should be and that sort of thing. There’s no real connection between the two.” He said he is hoping to be able to change the budget process and be a conduit between the two committees.
To spend between $1.6 trillion, which is a budget the House of Representatives is working toward, and $1.9 trillion, which he said was President Joe Biden’s proposed budget for the current fiscal year, requires a lot of time and energy to reach out to the agencies and experts to get an agreement on how it should be appropriated.
“We go into session for a two-year term in January, the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30, and we typically have to wait on the president’s budget before we start our appropriations process, and that typically doesn’t come out until April or May,” Edwards said. “So, that process says in April or May, we get the president’s budget and then you begin all the conversations and collaborations to put together a $1.6 trillion budget and get the agreement that’s necessary to pass from the House to the Senate, to the president’s desk, and back around for a second or third iteration before Sept. 30. It just doesn’t work. That’s why it’s so broken, it’s why we’re so clunky. We don’t have a budget for this fiscal year that we’re in, and we’ve been operating on a continuing resolution, which is to say, ‘Okay, we’ve been fighting over this budget, but we don’t have an agreement, so let’s keep spending to the degree that we’ve been spending until we do get an agreement and then we set a date in the future and say we’ll get an agreement by March 1 for this part of the budget, and then March 8 for this part of the budget.’ Those deadlines approach, the media reports the sky is falling and the world is going to end, and we go through it all over again.”
He said some people would recommend shutting the government down, which he is against for multiple reasons. One of those reasons is the 185,000 residents who rely on Social Security checks in the 11th Congressional District would not receive them as scheduled, and he added military members still must work with pay. “You create a stress point for the other guys to have to come back and negotiate at a different level,” Edwards said. “I can tell you shutting the government down, from what I’ve learned in Washington, D.C., is a really, really bad idea for a lot of reasons. I continue to get pressure from the far right, and they say, well, if you can’t fund it, shut it down. There are some real consequences to shutting the government down.”
The Ukraine-Russia and Gaza Strip Conflicts
On the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, Edwards said he will be visiting Ukraine in a few weeks with seven other House members to assess the current situation there. “I can’t tell you everything I know, but I can tell you we are making a difference,” Edwards said. “Ukraine is making a difference toward disbanding the Soviet army and they most certainly could use our help. I can also say that army is being dismantled, and Putin has always been recognized by Americans up until this point as an enemy, but that army is being dismantled without shedding a single drop of American blood and at a cost of less than five percent of the Ukrainian military’s bloodshed.” As for the Israel-Hamas conflict, he talked about calls for a ceasefire and said Israel needs our help. “I think most people agree that Israel needs our help, and there is a group of folks out there that say innocent lives have been lost and so you should call for a ceasefire,” Edwards said. “I’ve been telling folks, and I mean this with all my heart, that this is one of the most moral dilemmas that I face in Washington, D.C., because Israel has about 9.4 million people and these terrorist groups have vowed to eradicate that population. But there are innocent people there who are losing their lives largely because the terrorists have embedded themselves in schools, hospitals, and neighborhoods around innocent people. My moral dilemma is how can you possibly call for a ceasefire in Israel to give those terrorist groups chances to drop back and reorganize? We know that they are not going to stop.”