A longtime successful entrepreneur, U.S. Rep. Kevin realizes the importance of a solid bottom line.

Which is why the nation’s out-of-control spending gives him angst.

“I will dispel one myth,” Hern said. “There is a lot of conversation about China being our biggest debt holder. It’s the American people who are our biggest debt holders.”

The United States’ debt, which Hern said is approaching $37 trillion, exceeds the amount the country spends on national defense.

“We take in more money today than we’ve ever taken in, and we still are spending two trillion dollars more a year and growing,” the lawmaker said. “Republicans and Democrats, alike, are responsible for that, but we’re also responsible for getting it back under control. So, we have to work together to do that.”

Hern was a special guest Tuesday at the Tulsa Regional Chambers’ joint Board of Directors and Board of Advisors meeting, which was held virtually due to inclement weather.

Besides talking about getting the nation’s fiscal house in order, Hern touched on topics such as the tax code, President Trump’s second term and illegal immigration.

Some of the most important tax cuts in President Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) are set to expire at the end of the year. Hern said renewing the TCJA is paramount.

“Certainty is the most important thing you can get in business, -- and predictability,” Hern said. “With our tax code expiring and things changing every few years, it makes it very difficult to plan out capital expenditures, hire new people, buy businesses, things of that nature. We’re working feverishly to get that (renewal) done.”

Twenty-five minutes of Hern’s 40-minute allotment was spent taking questions. Asked to contrast Trump’s first and second terms – Hern has been a part of both –the congressman said the president today delegates less.

“What he’s doing now, this is a hands-on approach,” Hern said. “…He sees the same thing that everybody else sees, that we cannot continue going the route we’re going right now and survive economically against some of our greatest adversaries around the world. The world’s on fire…and he’s going to make sure he can do everything to put it back where it was.”

Hern said the new administration is committed to reducing the more than 100,000 annual deaths in the United States related to fentanyl, much of which is moved illegally through the country’s Southern Border.

“I’ve talked to people in Europe,” Hern said. “I’ve talked to people in South America. I’ve talked to people in Taiwan. There is no fentanyl problem anywhere else in the world except the United States of America…That has to stop, and it’s stopping now.”

More than 10 million people have entered the country illegally in the last four years, Hern said.

“I’ve been around immigrants since I was a little child because we would leave Arkansas a week before school was out and pick cherries in California in the ’70s,” he said. “Back then, the illegal immigrants were policed by the legal immigrants because they wanted to make sure wages stayed high.

“This is a big deal. I’ve been a part of many conversations about how we get labor for our agriculture, our construction, our hospitality, a place where I spent 35 years of my working career. I know it’s going to be very problematic. The president knows it’s problematic. But we have to get the border secure, so we know who’s here.”

Returning to President Trump’s fast-moving second term, Hern defended the president’s deportment, which some might label as unconventional.

“We will all agree; President Trump is very polarizing,” the lawmaker said. “There is no question about it. He is very bombastic. Call it a New Yorker attitude, whatever it is.

“But I can tell you having been with him multiple times…if you could just talk to him one-on-one, you would see his heart’s desire is to make sure America is sound and that we remain the number one economy in the world long after he’s gone. For some, that is hard to believe, but that is his pure motive.”