(Photo by Kris Todd) During a town hall meeting held in Spencer, U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, pointed to a pie chart outlining 2007 sources of the United States' energy consumption and reported that a mere .74 of 1 percent was from "acceptable renewables" such as geothermal, wind and solar.

Daily Reporter Staff

As U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, concluded a seven-day swing of town hall meetings in Spencer and Storm Lake Friday, he was amazed that the gathering held in the Spencer Public Library didn't garner any questions about Iraq or Afghanistan. Instead, a large portion of the morning meeting centered around the current federal deficit and more fiscal responsibility.

"There hasn't been an appropriations bill yet to arrive on the president's desk. Our government will shut down at midnight Sept. 30 if we don't pass some appropriation bills," King warned. "...This is the 110th Congress, and this is the longest Congress has ever gone in history without passing an appropriations bill. That's an effort, I think, to kick the can down the road and spend the money that (House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi plans on spending after the election in such a way that the voters will not have an opportunity to react when they go to the poll. That's my concern."

"Another thing that is an incentive for them to bring something along is the ban on our continental shelf drilling expires at midnight on Sept. 30. I don't want to see that happen," Iowa's 5th District congressman continued. "... I have said consistently, persistently and relentlessly that I want access to all American energy -- and I want it now. ... That's my position, and it's there because we can't get to energy independence with a failed economy. We can't have a successful economy if we're going to be hop-stitched to the oil cartels and ship this wealth out of this country and pay a higher price for fuel when we do that."

In regard to the American economy, which King described was hit with a "double whammy" with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the bursting of the "dot-com bubble," the congressman said recent tax cuts kept the nation from entering "a real rock-bottom depression."

"On that day, Sept. 11, we were at war. And whenever we've been at war, we've asked the American people to tighten their belt. This time we didn't do that," King said. "There would have been more support for the effort globally if we would have said, 'We're going to sacrifice. Here are all those things we want to do to expand programs, but we're going to have to wait until the security of this nation is better assured.' If we would have done that, we could have a balanced budget today."

During his session in Spencer, area residents also touched on subjects such as Federal Aviation Administration user fees, publicly-funded elections, the 2008 Farm Bill, the environment and the life of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. King was able to tout his newly-introduced IDEA (Illegal Deduction Elimination Act) legislation -- which clarifies that wages and benefits paid to illegal immigrants are not deductible for federal income tax purposes -- during discussion surrounding the May raid of the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant in Postville.

"My position is this: I want all laws respected and enforced. And I think that the federal government was first to blame, because we went for more than 20 years with declining enforcement of immigration laws. That opened the door for unscrupulous employers who realized they could take advantage of the situation. And as they began accepting illegals that were here and putting them to work illegally, they also began the recruitment lines and actively went to foreign countries and brought people in to do that labor," King said. "I am for a tighter labor supply which will drive wages and benefits up and put people that are doing unskilled work in a condition where they can actually carry their own weight in this society and pay their own way."

Friday's conversation in Spencer also broached the topic of protecting health care workers who object to abortion from being forced to deliver services that violate their personal beliefs. To this, King said he'd like to see the "conscientious objector status" protected.

"That subject will be debated more between now and Nov. 4," he said. "...If the public can muster the legislative support to pass legislation like that, I'd have to say that I'm going to have to live with it. But, that's the way it needs to be done and is going to happen: It can't be the courts who legislate out of the judicial branch of government."

Following his town hall meeting in Spencer, King, who mentioned he'll be traveling to Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan this month, deemed the lack of talk about American military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan during the morning gathering "odd."

"That should tell us that casualties are so low there at this point that it's not on people's minds any longer," he said. "I can tell you that there were about three weeks since July that the accidental deaths in Iraq were higher and greater in number than the combat deaths in Iraq. That's not because we had unusual accidental deaths; it's because combat deaths have gotten so low. ... So, right now, the level of security in Iraq is high enough that it's 4.6 times safer to be a soldier in Iraq than it is in Afghanistan. That tells us where this is going."

Following his town hall meeting in Spencer, the Kiron Republican, who is running for a fourth term vs. Democrat Rob Hubler of Council Bluffs, was asked if he might debate his opponent locally before the November general election.

"I debate every day. ... So, it's not a matter of the debate," King replied. "It's about whether we have a credible candidate where there really needs to be an illumination of the issues or whether it's just simply going to be a confrontation where there are personal attacks that fall out from that. I think it has to be of the highest level of integrity. I haven't seen that. I haven't seen that there has been a serious policy approach. It's been personal.

"What we do have is I have been targeted by the hard-core left, including MoveOn.org and George Soros. I have made Michael Moore's Web page. I have made Rolling Stone's Web site. Also, I made 'the worst person in the world' under Keith Olbermann. ... Those people are all left-wing, hard-core activists. And they have said they're coming here and they're going to try to change the dynamic in this race. (Democratic campaign worker) Joe Trippi has been hired by the other side. He's the one who raised $40 million on a Web page for (2004 Democratic presidential candidate) Howard Dean. So you will see, I think, this turn into a very negative situation in this district. And on top of that, I know that push-poll calls have gone out and they've already attacked my family. That's not the way we do politics in western Iowa. It's been above-board, it's been clean. I have not run a negative campaign in my entire career. It's something that I think Iowans deserve to know, where we stand on the issues. If there's any wonder, I've been at this for six years. No one's thinks I'm an equivocator and the access to me, I think, has been acceptable. It's never enough because it's a big district. So, I don't know if it will get resolved with a debate, but let's ensure that there's a credible candidate out there that really has a disagreement on the issues. If we can have that kind of dialogue, I wouldn't rule it out."