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Democrats in Davis County gather to support candidates
Posted: 10.07.2012 at 8:08 PM
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Congressman Dave Loebsack talks to supporters in Davis County.  / KTVO's Greg Deffenbaugh
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BLOOMFIELD, IOWA -- With the general election just a month away, candidates from the local, state and national level are coming together to make sure that they are getting our the vote.

In Bloomfield Sunday, Democrats gathered to re-introduce their candidates to the community.

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For Congressman Dave Loebsack, he is balancing a fine line, campaigning for office, but also continuing to represent the people of Iowa's Second Congressional District.

"People who know me and have known me for the last six years know exactly how hard I work across the aisle," said Loebsack.

And proof of that came this week as Congressman Loebsack and a Republican Congressman from Pennsylvania, Representative Glenn Thompson, introduced the Recovering Service Members Disability Benefits Act. According to Loebsack's office, the legislation expedites access for Wounded Warrior Disability Benefits and reduces the financial strain on recovering service members.

"He (Rep. Thompson) said hey, I would like for you to be on this with me Dave. It's a great bill. I know that you have a concern about veterans. And I said (Rep. Loebsack) you know what I am, I am all for it. And so, we just introduced it. But nothing is going to happen before the election unfortunately. But as soon as the election is over and I go back, I am going to be pushing as hard as I can for this bill," Loebsack said.

As for the Farm Bill, Loebsack, and most of the Iowa Delegation is disappointed with the House leadership not bringing the bill to a vote.

"The failed to do that in early August. I led a bipartisan charge of the folks here in Iowa. We had unanimous support across the aisle to get a disaster relief bill in addition to a full Farm Bill to the floor at the beginning of August and John Boehner and the leadership refused to allow that to happen," Loebsack said.

Local issues were also discussed Sunday.

For State Representative Curt Hanson, education issues are always on his mind; especially when rural school districts are spending so much money transporting students to and from school.

"That's money that we can't spend on technology and smaller class sizes, so we are at a disadvantage in rural areas unless we somehow separate the transportation budget from the budget of educating children," said Hanson.

And when it comes to the gas tax being proposed to help rebuild Iowa's infrastructure, Hanson says that he would want to hear what his constituents feel about that, being that so many are hurting right now.

"I know that we do have a budget surplus of over $1.3 billion in our balanced budget, so maybe these are funds that we could be utilizing to help support some of the infrastructure needs that rural counties have, and urban counties as well. That would be a way of using our huge surpluses and rainy day funds to help local people and local counties," Hanson said.

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