Current Kansas House member Tim Huelskamp (R, Fowler), who is one of six Republicans running for the GOP nomination to replace Jerry Moran as Kansas’ First District Congressman in next August’s primary, happened by The Signal office last Friday and agreed to sit down for a quick interview before moving on.
   Elected to the Legislature in 1996, Huelskamp’s opponents for the GOP slot are Tracy Mann and Monty Shadwick, both of Salina; Sue Boldra of Hays; Rob Wassinger of Cottonwood Falls; and Kansas State Senator Jim Barnett of Emporia.  After earning a doctorate in political science at American University in Washington, Huelskamp returned to Meade County to take up an agrarian lifestyle of raising corn and wheat and feeding cattle.
Signal:  What distinguishes you from your GOP opponents?
Huelskamp: Four of my opponents have no record on issues we deal with at the state level, and Senator Barnett is pretty liberal or at least moderate compared with me.  My roots here are deep in rural Kansas and I have a proven conservative record on matters like abortion, being very pro-life.
Signal: What in terms of issues separates you from the pack, so to speak?
Huelskamp: Kansans have heard a lot of rhetoric but they appreciate someone they think has taken the tough votes like I have.  They’re looking I think for someone like me that values free enterprise and limited government.
Signal: You describe yourself as being “very pro-life.”  It must have been distressing for someone like you to serve with a governor like Sebelius, who had demonstrable ties to the abortion industry in Kansas, Dr. George Tiller and his clinic in particular.
Huelskamp: Absolutely.  It was very troubling and I was very critical of that connection and tried to work with the state’s Board of Healing Arts to shut down Tiller’s clinic.   Senator Barnett supported Sebelius as Obama’s Health and Human Services Secretary; the other four candidates said nothing.  I opposed it loudly and consistently.  I didn’t think someone with her record should be overseeing the nation’s healthcare system.
Signal:  Todd Tiahrt (who’s running against Moran for Senator Brownback’s U.S. Senate seat) was one of 32 House members signing a letter to Obama last spring asking he remove Sebelius from consideration as HHS Secretary because of her ties to the abortion industry in the state.  Moran didn’t sign the letter, and later told The Signal he refrained from doing so out of deference to Senator Roberts and Brownback’s support of Sebelius for the post.  Would you have signed that letter if you’d had the chance—if you’d been in Moran’s seat at the time?
Huelskamp:  Absolutely.  Her deep financial connection with the abortion industry was very troubling and then she went on to mislead the Senate Committee (in Washington for her confirmation as HHS Secretary) about how much campaign money she’d taken from the abortion industry for her reelection.
Signal: Do you believe Republicans in Washington have been vocal enough and emphatic enough in opposing the basic tenets of Obamacare?
Huelskamp: Not really, and it started with them spending too much when they were still in power in Congress before ’06.  ACORN was funded while they were in power.  Planned Parenthood was funded while they were in power.  What they’re not emphasizing loudly enough is the importance of the healthcare consumer—that’s you and me as patients—being able to have the say over how they participate in the healthcare system.  More needs to be said about the individual taking charge of this most personal area of life.  The Medicare cuts Obamacare is going to necessitate—currently estimated at $400 billion—will be devastating to our rural hospitals.  I know Jerry and Todd talk about that but I don’t hear much out of the rest in Washington.  Obamacare will kill the Medicare Advantage program.
Signal:  What about the likelihood of Cap and Trade, or Cap and Tax as some call it, passing anytime soon?
Huelskamp: The problem with all these programs this administration is trying to push is that they pick winners and losers.  As for Cap and Trade, it’s estimated Kansas will get 78 percent of the carbon credits it will need, while California will get over 120 percent.  Medicaid cuts will hit the state budgets a lot less in blue (democratic states that Obama carried in ’08 election) states.  If Obamacare passes they’ll need more tax revenue and that’s where Cap and Trade comes in.  It’s designed more to create more revenue for the U.S. Treasury than to save the planet.
Signal:  On the matter of Afghanistan; it seems to be taking Obama forever to decide whether to send the 40,000 troops General McChrystal has requested—the general he hand picked to run operations over there.  What’s your view of the matter?
Huelskamp: If you’re going to pick someone to run a war for you, then why not listen to them?  If you’re going in, then go in to win.  Otherwise, why hang around?