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Congressman Jim Baird visits constituents at Legislative Update
"Washington is like local government on steroids," 4th District Congressman Jim Baird (R-Greencastle) said Saturday morning while making an impromptu visit to the monthly Legislative Update program.
Making his first comments locally about 30 days since being sworn in as a U.S. congressman, Baird called his indoctrination into Washington politics "kind of a whirlwind."
"At least I have an understanding of where you folks are coming from," he told about 30 attendees at the Farm Bureau Insurance office in Greencastle.
Baird said his brief experience on Capitol Hill has been enough to make him appreciate and embrace, more than ever, "the common sense and practicality we have here in Indiana and the Midwest."
One of his frustrations, he said, has been the political posturing that takes over the process.
"I'd like to see more cooperation to get things going," Baird said. "Good job, bad, job or no job, you and I as taxpayers are paying for it."
Baird, who has been selected to serve on both the House Agriculture and the Science, Space & Technology committees in the 116th Congress, is "real happy to have ended up on the Agriculture Committee," although the latest farm bill was passed last session and won't come up again for five years, he said.
Meanwhile, as an Ag Committee member he's already been exposed to segments of agriculture perhaps a bit foreign to central Indiana farmers.
"I've already been visited," Baird shared, "by representatives of the Cotton Growers and Wheat Growers associations, so I'm getting an education in that area."
He also told the audience about originally being disappointed in the results of the lottery system that's used to pair congressmen with available offices around Capitol Hill.
"We were down to 85 offices," the freshman congressman said, "and guess which number I was? I was number 84. I was disappointed all day."
But in the end, Baird said he has a fine office with a view of the Capitol Building from his balcony.
So, all's well that ends well?
"For those of you who voted for me," Baird concluded as he rose to depart the Legislative Update session for another occasion within his 16-county district, "I'll let you know if that's a good thing or not."