Columns

Since entering into force on July 1, 2020, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) has provided a powerful framework to fight for opportunity on behalf of American workers, producers, and industry, and has strengthened ties with our nation's top two trade partners. Spearheaded by the Trump administration as a much-needed modernization of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), USMCA won 474 "yea" votes across both chambers as it passed through Congress, the greatest level of bipartisan support for a trade agreement since 2001.

American families across the country are grappling with increasing costs and economic uncertainty. Last week, the Consumer Price Index confirmed costs of household items, energy, and services have risen by more than 8 percent, on average, over the last 12 months. Consumers are tightening their budgets, purchasing less, choosing generic groceries more, and often going without.

In the 49 years since the Roe v. Wade decision, the pro-life movement has displayed remarkable commitment and resolve. Decades of steady, grassroots efforts by pro-life advocates are yielding not just state-level legislation which recognizes the humanity of unborn children but a growing culture of life which seeks to compassionately connect with expectant mothers who lack support.

While traveling in the Third District in recent weeks, I have been encouraged by the expertise and creativity our communities possess and sobered by the challenges we face. We have much to be thankful for, but there is also no shortage to the adversity we must overcome.

For rural communities to survive and thrive, they need access to many of the same resources larger cities do—groceries, energy, broadband, and health care among them. To address the health care needs of rural seniors, Medicare has numerous special provisions, including a hospital category for Critical Access Hospitals (CAH)—facilities with 25 or fewer beds in communities distant from the next-closest hospital. This week I met with the Nebraska Hospital Association and the Critical Access Hospital Coalition to discuss how we can ensure Nebraskans have access to quality health care services.

As most Americans returned to normal, bureaucrats at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) refused to fully reopen the agency, despite heading into tax season with a backlog of more than 20 million tax returns. While this backlog has grown, calls to the IRS have also gone unanswered, leaving families and small businesses to navigate a complicated maze of red tape resulting from Democrats' massive stimulus package on their own. Americans deserve to have their tax filings processed in a timely manner. Instead, the IRS is mired in delays.

One of the most rewarding aspects of serving Nebraska's Third Congressional District is the opportunities I get to engage with young people interested in government service. This spring, I've welcomed students from Bayard, Oakland-Craig, Boone Central, Summerland, and Doniphan-Trumbull schools, as well as Peru State College, to our nation's capital. Fielding students' questions is always a pleasure, and I deeply appreciate their thoughtful feedback and ideas about the issues we are working on in the U.S. House of Representatives.

There is a crisis at our southern border, and President Biden is only making it worse. At the end of March, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced it was on track to surpass one million encounters with immigrants illegally crossing our borders over the last six months. CBP data show there were 164,973 migrant encounters at our southern border in February, up 7 percent from January and 63 percent from February of last year. These staggering numbers do not include the number of illegal migrants who eluded border agents.