BLOOMINGTON, Ill. (WMBD) — With the Iran war going into its third month, U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood said he still urges a quick end to the war.
This is despite voting against the War Powers Resolution that would have removed armed forces from Iran. The Dunlap Republican said he voted no because there are no boots on the ground.
“This is not a traditional conflict,” he said. “We did use air power, but, you know, we pretty much decimated their hypersonic missiles, their ballistic missiles, their navy, their nuclear, and took that out as a threat as it was to our allies in the Middle East, to American troops throughout the Middle East.
“It was the right call. But this is not a full-blown war. This is not like Afghanistan or Iraq, where we lost 7,000 troops. Completely different,” he continued.
While there is a ceasefire between Iran and the U.S., a peace deal between the two was denied by Trump, who called the most recent deal “unacceptable.”
The major sticking point has been whether Iran can keep its enriched uranium, which Trump alleges could be used to make a nuclear bomb.
LaHood said Iran can’t be trusted to keep an agreement, and a part of their peace agreement should include ways to ensure Iran keeps good on their deal.
“I think the president wants assurances that, in fact, they will not rebuild their nuclear [facilities], that will call for inspectors, that will be able to have enforcement mechanisms if they don’t abide by that,” he said.
While LaHood has urged for a swift end to the conflict, he said the best way to do that is through negotiations. Those negotiations could go in America’s favor, he said, as Trump goes to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“China gets 60% of its energy through the Straits of Hormuz. So, I remain somewhat optimistic that there could be a breakthrough this week,” he said.
DEBT AND SOCIAL SECURITY
The war has brought up conversations on the 2027 fiscal year budget, which the federal government is set to begin discussions on. Trump has proposed to increase the War Department’s coffers to $1.5 trillion, up from $1 trillion in the current budget.
This proposed increase could cause some programs to be cut, or the nation’s debt to increase.
With the U.S. already $39 trillion in debt, LaHood said they need to look at all federal spending to “streamline the budget.”
“Roughly 74% of our federal budget is in three programs. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. It continues to rise. I think it might be a combination of things. I think we’ve got to get those programs under control from some respect in a bipartisan way,” he said.
When asked what putting those programs “under control” looks like, he said they need to find bipartisan solutions to Social Security, especially before 2032, when the program is predicted to have not enough money for its recipients.
“One thing that’s been recommended that I’m somewhat supportive of is a federal debt commission that would be bipartisan, small group of Senate and House members that would meet for one year and come up with significant proposals that we would vote up or down on after a year,” he said.
“Something like that, I think, is one of the solutions. But not doing anything and letting it continue to go into deficit spending is difficult. Remember, we set retirement ages at Social Security at 61 or 65 or 67 when people only lived to be 70 years old. People now live well into their eighties and nineties. Government hasn’t appropriately adjusted,” he continued.
DATA CENTERS AND WIND TURBINES
In this conversation with reporters, LaHood answered questions on data centers and wind turbines, as their proposed construction in some parts of his district has received backlash.
A data center was proposed to be built in Pekin, which caught significant backlash from residents. In McLean County, a Facebook group with over 1,000 followers was created to stop any data center development in their area.
LaHood said federal regulation for these buildings that power AI would be unnecessary.
“I think these decisions need to be made at the local level,” he said. “And that means we need these companies and entities to have full transparency when it comes to water use, when it comes to energy use, when it comes to the noise that will be put off by these data centers, what’s going to be stored in the data centers. That needs to be done,” he said.
He also said local governments should decide what happens with new wind turbine development. In Peoria County, he said, there is a proposal that could build new wind turbines in the area.
However, that could be blocked by President Trump who has paid energy companies to not build offshore wind turbines.
When told by a reporter that the federal government has been blocking wind turbine development, LaHood said, “I’m not familiar with exactly what you’re talking about… My understanding is the projects that are in my district are moving forward.”
WMBD TV first reported on this story. You can find the original story online at CIProud.com.
