In The News

On Monday, Congressman Huizenga held his annual "Breakfast with Bill" legislative year in review at Evergreen Commons in Holland. The event was extremely well attended with approximately 500 people participating in the breakfast update. Congressman Huizenga discussed his legislative efforts on behalf of West Michigan to strengthen the Great Lakes Economy and support hardworking manufacturers across the Second District. Additionally, Rep. Huizenga touched on national issues facing our nation such as terrorism and national security. Below is an excerpt from the Holland Sentinel on the event.  The entire Holland Sentinel story is available here.

Rep. Bill Huizenga talks refugees, finance at annual Chamber breakfast

Huizenga briefly touched on a bill he worked on with Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., that will allow federal motor pools to use remanufactured parts for repairs, saying, “It’s literally going to save millions of dollars a year.”

His Fed Oversight Reform and Modernization Act has passed the House but awaits action in the Senate. The bill would require the Federal Reserve to develop its own monetary policy and to disclose it to Congress and the public. The bill also calls for a “true audit” of the Fed and closes loopholes that allowed for the bank bailouts of 2008, said Huizenga, a member of the Financial Services Committee and chairman of the Monetary Policy and Trade Subcommittee. “Who wants to bail out big banks in New York again? Nobody?” Huizenga asked the audience. “Let the record reflect, neither do I.”

Huizenga was one of the 93 co-sponsors of Rep. Candice Miller’s Terrorist Travel Prevention Act, which passed the House earlier this month. The bill would require recent travelers to Syria and Iraq and those with dual citizenship to those countries to obtain a visa even if they come from a country usually allowed visa waivers, such as Canada. The topic of the U.S. accepting refugees “gets very emotional,” Huizenga said. “(Islamic State fighters) are religiously motivated in a way we haven’t seen before,” he said. However, he added: “I’m very bothered by a lot of the rhetoric on both sides.” Attacks shouldn’t make America turn its back on the Constitution, he said.