Newly-elected congressman visits south end of huge 8th District, talks with constituents

8th District Congressman Rick Nolan, D-MN visited Hazelden in Center City Monday this week on his way to an Easter break event at his congressional field office in the Chisago County Government Center.

This field office is open Mondays and Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Rick Olseen, of Sunrise, is Nolan’s constituent services liaison at the office, located in the lower level near the sheriff’s department. Rep. Nolan also has an office in Duluth and one in the Brainerd lakes area. Congressman Nolan toured the Hazelden campus and then addressed an audience in the main atrium at Cork Center for about an hour. It was noted that he is only the second congressman to make a personal visit to Hazelden in 60 years.

He also spoke at the county board room with constituents for another hour. Topics on peoples’ minds were far-ranging-- they asked Nolan about everything from climate change to North Korea. Rep. Nolan approaches environmental concerns pragmatically, saying he spent years developing a family-run small business (sawmill) and understands how to prioritize costs versus benefits. When he was younger, he said, we were using waterways as dumping grounds and rivers turned brown and lakes died. Pollution regulations and standards in the last few decades have helped to clean up our waters. Now, we use the atmosphere as our sewer, he said. “We all need to do a better job raising the climate change issue.” Food supply is also affected by climate and Nolan said in order to leave the world a better place for future generations the government needs to require standards on mercury, sulphur emissions, etc.

As for social security, Nolan said the financial issues are actually simple to fix (eliminate the cap at which SS tax is assessed) and he said the time has come to address “loopholes” and special taxing exemptions that have created an unfair system. The government also has a role to play in improving the economy as far as the responsibility to “level the playing field.” When plants in other parts of the world take away U.S. jobs, because they have lower production costs the government can apply import duties and surcharges to make American-made products more competitive. On minimum wage, Nolan said the best way to stimulate demand for goods, which in turn boosts the economy, is to increase the minimum wage. Corporations and banks are sitting on cash because there’s no consumer demand. He told about 24 people gathered at the government center that when he was loading trucks for a parcel service delivery company as a young adult, he made the equivalent of probably $40 an hour in today’s economy.

“You put more money into the hands of the consumer (employee) that’s how you stimulate the economy.” Nolan also said Congress has fallen into an undesireable system of doing the nation’s business, relying on a “top-down” process of considering measures, and he and about 100 other U.S. representatives are pushing to restore “regular order” to the House. It has to do with how bills are introduced and how committees review measures. Letters are being sent to speaker John Boehner to re-open the process, and Nolan says he has hope the requests will be listened to. He said he sees a slight loosening of the gridlock that has plagued the federal government and he will keep working on a bipartisan level to push the “big and small” things that his constituents need.