First Posted: 1/26/2015
LIMA — U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan said the growing contrast between the two major political parties will drive the 2016 presidential election.
Jordan said Democrats believe in big government — Washington government — and Republicans believe in empowering families, communities and entrepreneurs through self-control and not control by the government.
“We’re here for fairness and freedom and opportunity. And, for the guy getting your tax dollars … we understand that there are people who may need help, but they should have to work,” Jordan said, adding there should also be a required drug test for government entitlements “just like you do at your job,” identifying it as a “fairness issue.”
While Jordan said he believes middle-class voters feel as though the government has lent a deaf ear to their concerns, it is the Republican Party’s duty to put their voices on the president’s desk, the Republican from Urbana said during a visit to The Lima News on Monday morning.
Jordan said many middle-class families didn’t vote in the November election because of frustration with the government and feeling like they couldn’t make a difference.
“‘Democrats have completely forgotten me,’” Jordan said of those families’ beliefs. “‘They’re big government, big Washington, big taxes, special interest, they’ve completely forgotten the middle-class families, hard-working families.’”
Jordan says that many could have potentially turned to the Republican Party, “to give us one last chance. And if we blow it, then they’re going to say, ‘To heck with all of you guys.’”
“Give him a chance to sign things that make sense for middle class families. If he doesn’t sign them, then that, in fact, becomes contrast to help frame and shape the 2016 presidential election,” Jordan said.
Jordan said that’s what the middle class voters expect of the Republicans.
“That’s why they voted us in because they didn’t like where the Obama administration was taking this country,” he said.
With Republicans in the majority in the Senate and statehouse, Jordan said, “I think there’s a much better chance that they can pass things that make sense for families that I represent and principles I care about than when Harry Reid was running the Senate.”
