At the November 4 noon meeting of the Rotary Club of Lawrenceville, Congressman Rob Woodall brought the group up to date on what is happening in Washington. As Congressman for the 7th District of Georgia, he has been at the center of many of the financial battles in D. C. He serves on the House Budget Committee and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and is Chairman of the Republican Study Committee’s Budget and Spending Task Force. He began by describing the current Congress, pointing out that 40% of members have been there three years or less and that many come from broken communities. He asserted that laws have unintended consequences and focused on Obamacare as one example. Focusing on the debt situation, he pointed out that total federal spending has decreased over the past couple of years; he thinks we are going in the right direction. With his “Spending is the problem” chart he sought to impress on the group what will happen in the future if we do nothing about the national debt. He maintained that the problem was not that taxes are too low but that spending is the problem. Using another chart, he contrasted the House Republican plan with the Senate Democratic plan for the Fiscal Year 2014 Budget. One reform he emphasized involved the Earned Income Tax Credit system, which he asserted was rife with fraudulent claims. He then opened up the floor to questions. Some of the issues discussed included the “kicking the can down the road” past record of Congress, the unsustainable looming expense of Medicare and Social Security, the history of government shutdowns, the lost ability of the Congressional Oversight Committee to function, and projections for the next election cycle. He ended by saying a cultural change needs to take place where Congressional leaders and members put the welfare of the country over the welfare of the parties.