Read the full story by Jared Barton on columbustelegram.com.
Every summer, U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer tours the state of Nebraska, visiting communities and seeing what’s changed since her previous visit.
It’s become a tradition and something people expect, she said during this year’s visit to Columbus on Tuesday.
Fischer stopped by the Columbus Community Hospital Fieldhouse and spoke with local political and business leaders about economic development at the Columbus Community Building, which had only just opened the last time she was in town.
“I spend every August traveling the state,” Fischer told the Telegram in an interview. “I always have, I always will. We just returned from 35 communities. We have over 90 stops. I just always love to be out traveling the state of Nebraska and to be here.”
Fischer said she had been invited for the ribbon cutting at the Columbus Community Building, but was unfortunately unable to make it. This time, she met with Mayor Jim Bulkley, who gave her a tour of the building, before moving on to the fieldhouse.
“We just had a fabulous tour there with our hospital administrators, the folks that run the Y (YMCA), the folks that run the (Field)house and even got to see the facility that’s there for pediatric therapy — Wiggles and Giggles — as well,” she said. “What an awesome, awesome facility for the people here in Columbus.”
Back in Washington, D.C. Fischer has been working with her colleagues on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the upcoming year, she said.
“That is the one big bill, we come together on it. It comes out of Armed Services Committee — where I’m second in seniority on that committee — to be able to take care of our men and women in the military and to provide them with the resources that they need so they can accomplish their missions,” Fischer said.
Fischer said that the NDAA is looking at a 4.5% salary increase for the volunteer force, as well as bringing a number of projects to Offutt Air Force Base and STRATCOM, with the intent to modernize the nation’s nuclear weapons and their platforms.
She was in Kimball on Aug. 16 to discuss this very thing with local officials.
“That directly impacts western Nebraska,” Fischer said. “The Kimball area is the first ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) field that the Air Force will be looking at modernizing into the Sentinel program — it’s (currently) … the Minuteman III, (which) will be retired — and new ICBMs, the Sentinel, will be deployed there. That’ll be the first field that they’re deployed in.”
Allocating funds, Fischer said, is of vital importance not just on that front, but in general, something else she has been working on lately.
“We need to fund government,” she said. “We need to make tough decisions and decide how and how much, what programs we’re going to be funding at the federal level. So that’s something we’ve been working on on the Appropriations Committee to get that done.”
Thirdly, Fischer and others are working on the farm bill, which started in 2018 and extends to Sept. 30 this year. They are currently working on a one-year extension on that as agriculture, Fischer said, is the economic engine of Nebraska and a lot of people across the state are concerned about it.
“That will give us time then to get our Democrat framework and the Republican framework together,” Fischer said. “What I’m focused on is to be able to make sure we have a strong crop insurance, to make sure we strengthen our safety nets for producers. We’re going to be really focused on continuing to have our voluntary conservation programs. We also want to focus on research. That’s important for not just ag producers, it’s important for our university as well.”
Fischer said that a key part of the farm bill is trade, something she is making a big push for, she said.
“No matter who’s in the White House, we need to make sure that we we get back to to a strong trade program for all our agricultural products,” she said. “That’s a major part of the the trade balance that we have as a country, but also for the state of Nebraska.”
Coming into what she calls the final stages of an election campaign, Fischer said she will continue visiting communities and talking to residents.
When asked about whether she would debate independent candidate Dan Osborn, her challenger for her Senate seat, Fischer said that while she has done debates in the past, Osborn is not yet on the ballot and has not announced who he is caucusing with.
Osborn submitted more than 12,000 signatures, with at least 2,000 signatures coming from each of Nebraska’s three congressional districts, to the Secretary of State’s Office on Tuesday, Aug. 20.
The Secretary of State’s Office still needs to verify he had enough signatures, which Osborn said he expects will happen because his signature count exceeds the margin of signatures typically thrown out because of errors.
As for what she will vote and advocate for in the Senate if she wins another term, Fischer said she has a 12-year voting record in the Senate and regularly speaks to media and sends out updates whenever she’s working on something new or if something changes.
Fischer said that right now her focus is on her annual trek across the state to engage Nebraskans directly.
“Nebraskans expect us to be out in their communities and talking,” she said. “That’s what I do and that’s what Nebraskans want to do. I have been interviewed. I stop at every newspaper and radio station in communities and I’m interviewed all the time. People can watch me give floor speeches. And so I believe Nebraskans want to know who he (Osborn) is. It’s up to him to be able to start talking about the issues. He hasn’t done that yet.”
