U.S. Rep. Kevin Hern delivered some straight talk about the nation’s obstacles – fiscal and otherwise – during a Tulsa Regional Chamber event on Thursday. The event was presented by TTCU Federal Credit Union.
About 80 people attended the hour-long “Congressional Conversation,” during which Hern touched on a variety of topics, including border security, artificial intelligence, job participation and the country’s spiraling debt, which he said will reach $37 trillion by the end of 2024.
“We’re borrowing money to pay the interest on our debt,” the First District Congressman said. “Think about that. Where else could you do that in the world?
“We make this sound like the federal government is immune to economics. And it is not. We have got to come together and say what should the federal government be doing. It can’t be trying to be everything to everybody and end up being nothing to anyone, and that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”
Tim Lyons, president and CEO of TTCU Federal Credit Union, moderated a question and answer session with the Congressman. Mike Neal, president and CEO of the Tulsa Regional Chamber, also facilitated select questions from the audience.
Job participation is at a low in the United States, Hern said, with about five million more jobs than people looking for them.
“We have to have more people working, paying into the system,” he said. “If not, we’re going to have, on the current trajectory, about a 20% cut in Social Security over the next five years, and about a commensurate cut on Medicare just because there is not enough money into either one of those with the need that’s out there.”
Security at the country’s border with Mexico also is problematic, he said. Human trafficking is seeping into Oklahoma, as is the synthetic opioid drug fentanyl.
About 11,000 pounds of fentanyl have been seized at the Southern border in the past year, enough to kill – many times over – every single person in the United States, he said.
Asked about artificial intelligence, Hern encouraged the audience to experiment with platforms such as ChatGPT. But he added that federal regulations are needed to ensure AI cannot access a person’s private information.
“I don’t want to go on ChatGPT… and say `Where is Kevin Hern?,’” he said. “(And it says) `Well, he’s sitting in the Chamber meeting in downtown Tulsa’ because somebody has probably given my metadata out or my location data out on my phone. So, that information goes to utility companies. Things like that should be protected from getting into the system.”
Toward the end of the program, he again urged idle Americans to jump into the job pool.
“There are people that are getting money from the government that can work,” said Hern, a former highly successful McDonald’s franchisee. “They need to learn how to work again. They are generational in not working.
“…We are a very philanthropic, altruistic nation. We should help people get back on their feet and not stay in poverty. Our success with our social safety net programs should be how many people we get out of poverty and not how many people we have in poverty. That’s what the federal government can do, and we’re not going a good job of that right now.”