Congressman Darin LaHood recapped his first year in office on WLDS this morning.
LaHood, who was sworn in as Illinois’ 18th District representative on September 17th, started his interview on “AM-Conversation” with the 9-11 tragedy that stunned the world 15 years ago.
“After 9-11 the country really came together and we were unified, Republicans, Democrats and Independents. We were bonded by our country and that same cohesiveness has eroded since then,” says LaHood. :
LaHood says the government shouldn’t need a tragedy to come together. He hopes a compromise can be reached on many of the important state and national topics.
LaHood says the West Central Illinois economy has yet to recover.
“One percent or half a percent growth is not a recovery. People have a lot of anxiety and there haven’t been a lot of good jobs created. I know the unemployment rate has gone down, but we haven’t been creating those head of the household jobs that we need.”
As for the past year, LaHood feels it’s a strange time to be in politics.
“We had the Pope come to D.C., and that is the first time in our nation’s history that the Pope addressed the joint session of Congress. We had the resignation of Jon Bainer, Speaker of the House. That surprised everybody and then we had to elect a new speaker. We had President Obama’s last State of the Union address in January and I was present for that. We’ve had a crazy presidential race going on. I headed up Marco Rubio’s campaign in Illinois. That was great to be apart of,” says LaHood. :