Main Street Idaho Podcast Episode 6: Congressman Mike Simpson
““If you reduce the pay of wildfire fighters back to $15 an hour, would you do that job for 15 bucks?” ”
Navigating Congress, Budgets, and Idaho's Future with Congressman Mike Simpson
There’s only one way to say it — this week’s Main Street Idaho podcast is a must-listen. It was an honor to have Congressman Mike Simpson as a guest, and hear the inner workings of Congress, the intricacies of budgeting, and the critical issues facing Idaho. His unique journey from being a dentist to serving in Congress has equipped him with a perspective that blends real-world experience with a deep commitment to public service.
In this episode, we discuss:
1. Community Project Financing:
The importance of directing federal funds to specific projects in Idaho through what is now called "community project financing." This process allows members of Congress to address the unique needs of their districts, dispelling the misconception that it leads to wasteful spending.
2. Balancing the Budget:
Simpson highlighted the challenge of balancing the budget while ensuring essential programs including defense, veterans affairs, and Homeland Security receive adequate funding. He emphasized the need for fiscal responsibility and reducing spending where possible.
"We're not going to reduce spending on defense. That would mean our military people don't get a pay increase."
3. Wildfire Fighter Pay:
Rep. Simpson’s concern about the impending cut to wildfire fighter pay, stressing the importance of adequately compensating these brave individuals who risk their lives to protect communities from wildfires.
4. Ag Immigration Reform:
Congressman Simpson remains committed to passing agricultural immigration reform to address the labor needs of the agriculture industry. He views this as a top priority for both Idaho and the nation.
Follow Along With The Transcript
Brennan Summers (00:00):
Welcome to Main Street Podcast, an opportunity to talk to Idaho's elected leaders about the issues that matter to you. Welcome to Idaho Main Street, Congressman Simpson. I appreciate being here.
Congressman Mike Simpson (00:15):
Good to be here.
Brennan Summers (00:16):
Brennan. Look, so it's recess for Congress. So you're in Idaho.
Congressman Mike Simpson (00:19):
It's district work, period.
Brennan Summers (00:21):
Yeah, that's a better way to put it. Recess makes you think playgrounds and swing sets. That's right. But you're not exactly on a beach in Mexico, are you? No,
Congressman Mike Simpson (00:28):
It's actually, it is the district work period. You spend a lot of time with your constituents, talking to them about what's going on and also telling them what you're doing in Congress and how Congress is working or not working and that kind of stuff. So it's good to get out and tell people what's going on. This has been going on, the August recesses it's called, has been going on since the beginning of Congress when they moved to Washington DC because it was such a swamp there, and it's so hot and humid in August that they just said, let's go home. We can't do anything in August. And that's just a tradition that's continued ever since then. We got a lot of work to do. Some people talked about canceling, not entirely, but about half of the August recess, but people have made plans and they've got commitments and that kind of stuff, so we didn't do it.
Brennan Summers (01:19):
Sure. So in theory, you're supposed to get back, meet with your constituents, see the projects that you've been working on, and new projects you probably need to bring to DC in actuality. How's that worked? What kind of things have you seen while you've been here in Idaho the last few
Congressman Mike Simpson (01:30):
Weeks? Well, it's been interesting to talk to constituents about Congress because right now it's kind of a mess of what's going on and we're not sure what's going to happen when we get back. So I've been explaining to them what's happening in Congress, and we've also gone around and looked at the projects that we've got in our appropriation bills that affect Idaho that we've been able to put in there. They used to be called earmarks. Now they're called community project financing. For some reason, earmarks got a bad name and stuff, and people sometimes think that earmarks are a bad thing. I think it's members of Congress knowing what's going on in their districts and saying, no, we're going to put some of this funding for this project or that project. And we do that throughout Idaho First's Fire station burned down, and they've been operating out of a potato cellar, a fire department operating out of a potato cellar.
(02:22):
So we've got some money in this appropriation bill to help them rebuild their fire station and expand it. And that's a good thing. We've also worked with the Fort Hall reservation on a road project that they need. That's a highly traveled road that needs to be redone. And we've worked with the city of Rexburg on their wastewater treatment facility and Island Park that has some real water problems. I tell people all the time, if you think that this is wasteful spending, and remember, it's not additional spending, it comes out of the appropriation that's made. So it's not additional spending, it's just us directing how some of the money is going to be spent. And I think it's vitally important, and I tell people, if you think we've done any wasteful spending, look at our homepage and look at the projects that we've done. If you think that's wasteful, let me know.
Brennan Summers (03:14):
Right. Not a lot of pork barrel funding. No, there's not. So these mayors that you've been out meeting with, you're in hotel, you expert, you've been traveling around, what have they been telling you about these projects? Well,
Congressman Mike Simpson (03:25):
How vitally important it is to their communities and stuff. And when you look at this, should we just appropriate money to a fund and then have to go ask the administration to fund these projects that are important in Idaho, or can members of Congress direct some of that funding to projects in their state? Because I know the second district of Idaho better than anybody in Washington DC does. So I shouldn't have to go beg them to do a project, especially in administration that is of the opposite party. I don't want them to be able to say at some point in time, well, we'd like to do that project, but we sure need your vote on this or that bill. And believe me, that would happen because when we didn't do finance, it didn't do community project financing. That did happen. So I think it's important, and it's important for us to know exactly what we're getting money for and how that's going to affect communities and stuff. But the mayors think is very important.
Brennan Summers (04:22):
It sounds like it's actually pretty conservative principle when you look at it. You're removing a lot of bureaucracy from the process and you're letting the government closest to the people actually determine where this fund
Congressman Mike Simpson (04:32):
Goes. Well, there was a conservative member of Congress was actually a presidential candidate for the libertarian party. Ron Paul Rand, Paul's father, and he still does a lot of stuff in Texas. He's a great guy. He told me one time, we ought to earmark every single dollar the federal government spends. We ought to tell them where they can spend it and where they can't spend it. And when you look at the constitution, there's some merit to what he says, but I am just opposed to giving all this money to the federal bureaucracy and then hoping they spend it in the right way. And if they don't next year punishing them and that kind of stuff, I want to do it effectively and make sure that we're not wasting money. There have been earmarked projects in the past that you just shake your head at and we have put in some rules and stuff that I think address that.
(05:29):
It used to be that, or let me put it this way, the rules we put in, you cannot earmark more than 1% of the total spending just 1% is all, and we're much below the 1%, and it has to be to a other, another governmental entity or a nonprofit or something like that, a college or university, something like that. It can't be for a business or something. And in the past it could be. So we've a lot of what, and we don't earmark every account, just some accounts are susceptible to having earmarks. It's like the way the, what are called the stag grants State and Tribal assistance grants for wastewater and water projects and stuff that's in the interior bill that I chair. And there's an awful lot of members that want to earmark projects in their district for that. So that's okay. And we go through 'em and we vet 'em very good to make sure that they're legitimate and everything else. But some people continue to say, it's just wasteful spending. It's not
Brennan Summers (06:34):
Right. And the idea of removing politics out of this, I mean, when you talk about the opposing party saying, well, we're not going to fund that. We're not going to fund that. We've seen even in Idaho, there are maybe some prisons that are debilitated that absolutely need an update, and in all account they would be funded. But you have these defund, the police members of Congress, the squad who will say, well, we're not voting for any money that goes to any prisons. And it's absurd, but it's politics.
Congressman Mike Simpson (07:00):
Some of that's last year when the Democrats were in control, we were trying to help chalice that has a courthouse in a prison that is, or jail that is really, really bad and they can't seem to pass a bond to do that. And I understand that people don't want to increase their property taxes for a jail, but last year the Democrats said, we're not going to put any money for earmarks into jails and that kind of stuff because of the squad and stuff. It's crazy. So yeah, it's crazy.
Brennan Summers (07:32):
So I think, oh, the average Idahoan might look at Congress and they think that all 400 plus if you get in a room and then you just kind of vote on everything. But that's not really how it works. No. A lot of your legislative accomplishments and these projects we're talking about now they come through your work on the appropriations committee. So coming up, this appropriations committee is going to be really important when we talk about funding some of these projects, things like there's a windmill project in the works Lava Ridge that there's talk about that you're trying to stop. Maybe talk us through some of the projects you've got upcoming and then the challenge that comes with, we're going to see a government shutdown over this. What happens?
Congressman Mike Simpson (08:06):
It's hard to say what's going to happen. There's talk of a government shutdown. Some of our Republican friends and members believe that a government shutdown is a legitimate policy. I don't believe it is. I've been through, I don't know, four or five of these over the years. Sometimes from just a couple days to I think up to the longest one was up to three weeks and stuff. But I've never seen it be good policy or good politics. And no matter what happens, regardless of whose fault it is, republicans are going to be blamed for it. We always do, and that's going to be a challenge coming up. But we've got to get these appropriation bills done when we were in October, November after the election when we had our conference meeting and stuff and then voted on Kevin McCarthy to become speaker. Part of the deal was is we would go back to 2022 level spending.
(09:01):
You look at that and you go, okay, we can do that. That's not huge cuts, but we can make these cuts and it'll head the government budget in the right direction. We need to reduce spending. The problem with that is there are 12 appropriation bills. We're not going to reduce spending on defense. That would mean our military people don't get a pay increase. 40% of the military's budget is for personnel. So we're not going to reduce spending on defense. We're not going to reduce spending on veterans affairs. We have an obligation to our veterans that we need to take care of. We're not going to reduce spending on Homeland Security because I don't want the administration to come in and say, well, we would've secured the border but the Republicans took the money and wouldn't fund it and that kind of stuff. And we're going to put some language in there that will hopefully make them do their job at the southern border.
(09:53):
But that's 70% of the discretionary budget. That means the rest of the budgets, the other nine are going to take all the hits and reduce spending substantially in the interior budget. It's reduced like 38%, which is pretty dramatic. And you oversee that budget. Yeah, and now we've used some rescissions by pulling money back that they had appropriated before for the Green New Deal and that kind of stuff. We've pulled that money back into our budget, so the cuts aren't nearly as bad as they would, but it's still a reduction in spending substantially. And that's what we need to do is head in that direction. But there are members of our conference that believe you can't use the rescissions and stuff that you just have to reduce spending. I don't know if any of them would vote for an interior budget that reduces spending by 38% because in my budget, in the interior budget, I've got Indian Health Services.
(10:47):
Well, we're not going to reduce spending for Medicare or Medicaid or Veterans Affairs. I'm not going to balance this budget on the back of Indians, and that's a large part of our budget is Indian Health Services. The other one is wildfires. And I'm not going to reduce the funding for wildfires, particularly during wildfire season here in the west. So that's a huge part of our budget. That means the rest of that budget is going to see dramatic cuts. I think the E P A is reduced in the bill that I wrote close to 50%. And some members say, well cut at all. We don't need. Well, we do need an E P A. I am sometimes upset with the decisions they make. We've got to get 'em back on track doing their job and do it within the boundaries of what I think the law allows and stuff.
(11:36):
And that's what we're trying to do with the E P A. But if you are a business out there and you need a water quality permit or you need an air permit or something like that to operate, it would be nice when you call the E P A if somebody was there to answer the phone. So we are making changes not fast enough for some people, but I've always said, it doesn't matter where you stand, what matters is which direction you're headed and we're headed in the right direction. We're going to reduce spending. Even though in the Senate with their markups, they've increased spending. Republicans and Democrats in the Senate have got together on the appropriations committee and increased spending, which is just bizarre to me. So we're going to have negotiations with them. Ultimately, the bills will be somewhere between the house and the Senate marks and it will reduce overall spending and head us in the right direction. Next year we'll do the same thing. So Lucia goes, I'm
Brennan Summers (12:30):
Hardened to hear the optimism. It sounds like it's a balancing act between cutting the fat that Democrats in years past had kind of been putting into some of these bills, but not cutting an artery. Right. The bleed out. I'm glad you brought up within the interior bill wildfire. So there's been a challenge recently and you're kind of turned into the wildfire expert when it comes to Congress. I've been there when other members of Congress come to you and say, well, how are we going to handle this? And there's been a lot of different ways, whether it's forest service budgets, whether it's a wildfire fix and how we fund this thing. Right now, it seems the challenge of the day is actually paying our wildfire fighters. Yeah,
Congressman Mike Simpson (13:06):
It is. Well, first of all, we changed the way we treat wildfires in the budget. It used to be that we treated them differently than we did every other natural disaster, whether it was a hurricane or tornadoes or whatever, wildfires were treated differently. And so when the budget came out, the Department of Interior would tell all of their agencies, I mean everybody under saved 10% out because we're going to have to borrow it to fight wildfires. And we in the appropriations committee, our obligation is to fund them at a certain level, the level we did last year and stuff and increase it periodically.
(13:46):
That works well so that they don't have to do fire, they don't have to borrow because if they go above that limit, then it comes out of supplemental and that's the way it should be. It's the same way we treat hurricanes and everything else. So we've done that. The problem right now is last year in the infrastructure bill, they put a provision in there to increase wildfire fighters pay. Everybody agreed we needed to increase it. They get paid much less than what they should for the dangerous job that they do. And so nobody had a problem with that, but it wasn't authorized as the problem. And so when we did our budget this year, the administration requested funding to continue this pay increase. Our resources committee had a problem with that because they hadn't authorized it and they wanted to take it up. So we don't try not to do anything in our bills that is authorizing and goes over the authorizing committee's head.
(14:49):
So now we don't have the increase in wildfire fighting pay in our budget. I suspect it will be in a final budget, but on September 30th, the wildfire fighter pay is going to be cut probably in some cases up to 50%. We've got 20,000 wildfire fighters out there whose pay is going to be cut on October 1st by 50%. How many of 'em are going to stay on the job? How many are going to walk off? I know if I was one of 'em, I'd walk off. So that's going to be a challenge. But the supplemental that the administration requested had a lot of Ukraine funding and some other things and all of that I haven't scrubbed yet, but the appropriations committee will. But it had 60 million in it to continue the wildfire fighting pay for the next three months, October through December, which needs to be done. I've talked to our resources committee, they're going to look at it and stuff, but it's a challenge that we need to do. You can't have wildfire fighters walking off the job in the middle of fire season. Absolutely
Brennan Summers (15:51):
Not. No. And we've seen some of the issues that come when we don't have the proper resources and these fires blow up. And particularly with the inflation we're seeing with the choices of this administration, the pay increase is probably really a necessity. It is for all of us to survive in this day
Congressman Mike Simpson (16:06):
And age. But I am telling you, I mean, if you reduce the pay of wildfire fighters back to $15 an hour, would you do that job for 15 bucks?
Brennan Summers (16:15):
No. Especially when you can flip burgers at Walmart for 25 an hour. Yeah,
Congressman Mike Simpson (16:19):
It is just crazy. And we have a lot of these wildfire fighters. We have some that are wildfire fighters, and we have others that are firefighters in communities like Los Angeles or other places, and they get a two or three week vacation, they take their two or three week vacation and come up and fight wildfires for us, and they make some pretty good money with the pay as it is now cut the payback. Will they come up and do that? I doubt it. Right.
Brennan Summers (16:50):
Well, and if you're not talking about it, it's tough to think that there are a lot of other members of Congress that this is in the front of their mind. So
Congressman Mike Simpson (16:56):
As I said on our conference call the other day when I was explaining this to people, those of us in the west, this is a big deal. It might not be a big deal if you're from Georgia or where they don't really have wildfires the way we do. So it'll be a challenge to get that funded as we go back and try to decide how we're going to end this year's appropriation process. We'll have to do a continuing resolution to get us through for at least a month and hopefully the House and Senate can work the differences out in our bills and bring them to the floor. And to be real honest, it will take Republican and Democrat support to get some of these done. That's the way it always is. That's the way our forefathers intended it to do, is that you'd work together and come to a compromise and get things done. But we have some members that it's their way or the highway. And when we have a four vote majority, you can only lose four votes. And there's about two or three dozen of these people who would just soon shut the government down than doing what the hard work that's necessary to get our approach done.
Brennan Summers (18:02):
And I mean, it seems like since the first day in Congress, you've been tackling these type of issues. I know you went out and actually went and was on a wildfire, right? In your three days. And the Forest Service people, they were shocked because you didn't bring cameras with you. They thought it was the first time they've had a politician that didn't come and use it as like a press stunt.
Congressman Mike Simpson (18:20):
And that's what they usually do. I understand that. But I guess it was my second year here, the fire up in Salmon, clear Creek Fire, I think it was called. But it was a huge fire. And I called my chief of staff that was coming back from the site and I said, Hey, let's go fight a wildfire. And he said, you're crazy. So what we did is we called the four superintendent and said, Hey, we want to come up, treat us as if we were a wildfire fighter, and we want to see what it takes to fight one of these fires. Why does it take 5,000 people? I mean, it's a community that they set up. And so we went up and we were there and we'd be at the meetings the night before when they would be doing the logistics, making sure the wildfire fighters were in the right place the next morning when it blew up that they had food and water and et cetera. And it was an enlightening experience to me how complicated it is, the logistics of what of these large wildfire fighters. It used to be if you read the book, the Big Burn, it used to be that they'd go to the bars and grab everybody and say, come on boys, we're going to go fight a wildfire and grab your shovels. And it's not that way anymore.
Brennan Summers (19:36):
Right. Well, while we're going back in time, let's go back a little bit further. I think there's a lot of people that might wonder how a dentist born in Burleigh, living in Blackfoot somehow ends up in Congress and it went through the Blackfoot City Council, right? Yeah. So help us understand why you could have played more golf and all your other hobbies going on. What made you think, I'm going to jump on the Blackfoot City Council?
Congressman Mike Simpson (19:59):
Well, I've always been interested in politics. I was a political science major in college for a while
Brennan Summers (20:03):
At Utah State. At Utah
Congressman Mike Simpson (20:04):
State Go Aggies.
Brennan Summers (20:05):
But
Congressman Mike Simpson (20:06):
I was sitting there going, what do you do with the political science degree? I didn't want to go work for the government as a bureaucrat. I don't mean that in a negative term, but I didn't. I liked the policy aspect of it that I'm doing now, but I would never run for public office because that meant you had to get up and give speeches and you had to go to debates and all that kind of stuff one day. So I went into dentistry with my father and my uncle, and we practiced in Blackfoot. And one day I was reading the Blackfoot Morning News and it was a Thursday and there were two seats open on the Blackfoot City Council, and only one person had filed, and the filing deadline was the next day. So I said, Hey, this is how I get on the city council.
(20:47):
So I filed for the city council, and in the meantime six other people did too. So then I had to go to all these debates and stuff, the League of Women Voters Debate, and I can remember getting dressed. I mean, public speaking is the scariest thing for majority of people in this country. And I said to my wife, do you think they'd notice if I just didn't show up? You're the one who filed for this seat. Get your rear end down there and stuff. So we went down to the debate and I won by six votes. It was the two top vote getters. And we knew the one, the guy who had filed earlier would be the top. He was a popular old guy that everybody loved. So we were all running for the second seat, and I won by six votes. And so I was serving on the city council, and about the third year on the city council seat opened in the state legislature and they came and asked me to run for that.
(21:37):
So I did won that seat. And then I was in the legislature for 14 years, and the last six years I was speaker of the house and I was either going to retire or I was going to run for governor. And Dirk Kempthorne came back and decided to run for Governor Mike Rao moved over to the Senate and it opened up second cd. So I said to my wife one day when I came home, I said, all of that time that you spent putting me through dental school and all the work you did, and we've been in practice for a number of years and we've got a practice that gives us good living, and if we wanted to go on a vacation next week, we could do it and stuff. And I said, how'd you like to give all that up for a job that pays about half of what we make now?
(22:21):
And you have to go out and give all these speeches and you have to have to every two years ask people to rehire you. And she said to me, I've watched you the three months that you're in Boise, when you come home and work on weekends, and then you're back in Boise during the week, you're busier than heck those three months. And then I've lost you just the nine months that you're just practicing dentistry. She said, you're happier those three months. And I said, well, let's do it then. So we ran for Congress and won, and I've been there ever since.
Brennan Summers (22:50):
Wow. And you're in the middle right now of asking people to rehire you, your constituents. Why running it? Why not retire Mike and go on those vacations and play golf every weekend and run around with the dog? Why stay?
Congressman Mike Simpson (23:04):
Because I love this job and I love the institution that was created by our forefathers. I'm worried about it and where it's headed and I have things I want to do. I still, the ag immigration reform bill is still one of my top priorities that we've got to get done. I'm working on trying to save Idaho water and salmon and those types of things. You don't do those things in a year. It takes some time. We've been working on the ag immigration reform bill, which seems like it ought to go through. We've passed it in the house twice, almost got it through the Senate last time. But it's something that needs to, it's the number one issue for agriculture across the country, but particularly in Idaho. So I'm going to continue to work on that and other issues that come along. And I like being chairman of the interior committee.
(23:49):
I was either chairman or ranking member of the Energy and Water Committee for nine and a half years, which they wouldn't give me another waiver this year. So I took interior again, which I've been chairman of interior in the past. But the energy and water bill is obviously very important to the I N L and their budget and what they can do out here. This lab is the work they do out there. Anybody that thinks that we're not moving into the future, these guys do incredible work out there and it's something that we need to make sure we continue to do. So those are the kinds of things that I'll be working on while I'm in Congress and then all the other things that happen to come up during the meantime.
Brennan Summers (24:26):
Well, it's interesting you talk about the ag immigration, that's not something you just thought up one day. And a lot of these ideas, they come from your constituents, the ag producers, our farmers treasures, they come to you and say, this is our problem. When it comes to the wildfire issues, people don't want to see their favorite hunting spot or their favorite dirt biking place burned to the ground. So you like the job, you think you're good at the job and you want to keep doing the job.
Congressman Mike Simpson (24:48):
Exactly.
Brennan Summers (24:49):
Now, we have a lot of legislators, current ones come on the podcast and talk about the work they're doing, the challenges in Boise, as somebody who's spent 14 years in the Capitol over in Boise and speaker for about half of that, what advice would you have of what makes a good legislator? How can they be more effective? What should they be focusing on?
Congressman Mike Simpson (25:08):
Everybody is elected with a philosophy. Either they're conservative, they're liberal. In Idaho, they're pretty conservative. Even Democrats are fairly conservative in Idaho. But it's listening to people is the main thing that they can do and talk to other people because other people have different opinions. Sometimes you wake up in the morning and you talk to somebody. I hadn't thought about that. And that's what makes a good legislator, is being able to work across the aisle and with people within your own conference who might have a different opinion and listening to your constituents. It's surprising how little contact you get if you don't reach out to your constituents. If you get 50 letters on an issue, that's pretty, that's quite a bit. But that's 50 letters out of how many people that you represent. So you have to make decisions, then you have to stand by those decisions.
(26:03):
But there are too many people elected, both in Washington and probably in Idaho too, that believe that everything they vote on is a matter of principle. It's not only about 10% of the votes that you make are matters of principle. If you're voting on an abortion issue, that's a matter of principle. You're either pro-life or if you're deciding what the speed limit's going to be and you want to go 90 and I want to go 70, and we go, Hey, let's compromise at 80. That's not a matter of principle. That's just a matter of trying to make things work. So you got to decide what are matters of principle and which are just matters of making the system and the society work
Brennan Summers (26:45):
When anybody that knows you knows you wouldn't choose 70 over 90. We know you have a lead foot mic. Well,
Congressman Mike Simpson (26:50):
Yeah. You get out on some of these highways in Idaho and you're going, why are we going this? When I drove through Oregon the last time when their speed limit was like 65, it's kind of like, I could walk this fast, but they've increased their speed limit.
Brennan Summers (27:03):
You talk about wanting to listen to your constituents wanting more access to them. I think it's important for the average Idahoan to see the man behind the office in Idaho. Our elected leaders don't have to be these distant figures. We can have some access. So what are some ways that people listening right now, if they've got an idea or they've got an opinion on something, how can they better share it with you?
Congressman Mike Simpson (27:25):
We get a lot of that from constituents. We get phone calls all the time. We have interns that take the phone calls all the time, because I'm not always in the office. I'm sometimes in hearings, other things and stuff, but their input is vitally important. They also have our district offices here around the state in I, Idaho Falls and Twin Falls in Boise. They come in and talk to our employees in the district offices, which is vitally important because then they communicate that to me about what they're hearing on this or that subject. And I get a lot of emails and so forth in our office, and there's a multitude of ways for them to connect with us. If they're in Washington, call ahead when they come, if they want to have a meeting or something like that. And we'll usually set it up. One of the frustrating things is someone will be back in Washington, say in October, and they'll want a meeting to come in and they'll call our scheduler.
(28:26):
And my schedule in October is fine. Yeah, okay, we'll meet you come in at 11 o'clock on October 12th, and then on October 12th, I look at my schedule and I've got a hearing. I've got votes on the floor. I've got all this other stuff. So sometimes they have to meet with staff. And that is frustrating as heck to me because these people have traveled 2,400 miles to talk to their legislator. And sometimes that's difficult to do because I'm going to, one year I'm going to put down what my schedule was and then what we actually did turned into, because it gets jam packed at some points in time and things that I have to do. So, and
Brennan Summers (29:08):
The question always falls when I call in an intern answers or I send a letter in. I think a lot of people think, well, Congressman Simpson will never see this, but that's not actually the case, is
Congressman Mike Simpson (29:16):
It? No, I see those things. They come
Brennan Summers (29:18):
In and you review.
Congressman Mike Simpson (29:19):
Yeah, they tell me what my constituents are saying, what the phone calls are saying, if they're upset about some vote or they'd want me to vote a certain way on something. We hear that
Brennan Summers (29:29):
Well, an attempt to kind of humanize the man behind the office. We're going to throw some hard hitting questions at you ready for it. Okay. Yep. So the goal here is things people might not know about Mike Simpson. Avid painter. Right? Really good with
Congressman Mike Simpson (29:42):
Watercolors. I used to do a lot of watercolor, so I don't do 'em a lot anymore. Don't have time because when you do painting, you need a place you can leave as a mess. My wife doesn't like messes in my house, and otherwise I would have to leave messes in my place in dc. So it's more difficult. I haven't done it lately, but I love to paint.
Brennan Summers (30:01):
What are a couple books that you think everybody every American should read in their lifetime?
Congressman Mike Simpson (30:06):
Oh, that's a tough question. One of the latest ones that I've just read is called Fever in the Heartland. You read it also. It's a fascinating book about history that I didn't really know about, and that had to do with the K K K. In Indiana, we always think of the K K K as being in the south and stuff, but it was in Indiana and they controlled essentially the Indiana government at the state and local level. And it's just a fascinating book. It's a book written by Tim Egan who wrote The Big Burn that we talked about earlier. He's from Portland, great author, and he wrote The Immortal Irishman. That's a great book also. So that's one that I would recommend. I've been reading a lot of books about Eisenhower because I was on the Eisenhower Commission that did his memorial in Washington DC and took us, I don't know, 10 or 15 years to get that done.
(31:05):
So every book on Eisenhower that came out, they would send me a copy of it. So I've been reading a lot of books on Eisenhower, another one that was given to me by Dirk Kemler, a political book that's very interesting called The Accidental President. And it's about Harry Truman when he took over after Roosevelt died and how, I don't know the right word, unprepared he was, because Roosevelt didn't really keep him in the loop about what was going on in the war. And his first 40 days were amazing, and he did a great job in retrospect. So those are a couple books that I would encourage people to pick
Brennan Summers (31:45):
Up. The many suggestions you would have. We need to do a Simpson book list. Yeah,
Congressman Mike Simpson (31:49):
Pick I I'm on Good reads. Okay. Yeah, so we try to put all that stuff on good reads.
Brennan Summers (31:53):
That's a good plug. You've mentioned two presidents now. If you had to pick who you think your favorite president is, who might it be? I
Congressman Mike Simpson (32:01):
Think Lincoln was the ideal president in the most difficult times this nation has ever faced. And he kept the nation together. Other presidents, we might have a southern United States and a northern United States, but Lincoln's goal was to keep the union together and he did in, as I said, we killed 700,000 Americans during that battle, during that civil war. Can you imagine being president during that time? And he was criticized by both the north and the South, and they were tired of the Civil War and they it in. But he did a great job.
Brennan Summers (32:42):
Now you have on your bookshelf, speaking of your library, a number of awards that you've been given over the years. You go and you get invited to speak at an event and they give you an award. My Hope day is we're going to give you something to thank you for coming on, and it's going to be an award that you've never received before. Are you excited?
Congressman Mike Simpson (32:57):
I'm excited. All
Brennan Summers (32:58):
Right. It is my understanding that Congressman Simpson has never in his lifetime tried Nutella, Nutella. So we're going to gift him a jar of Nutella. You
Congressman Mike Simpson (33:09):
Heard me the other night.
Brennan Summers (33:10):
So you're gifted that with a charge to try it and okay, we have no corporate sponsors here, so if you hate it or love it, it doesn't matter. But now you get a chance to try it. Alright, I'll try it. Congress, we really appreciate coming on. Any last words you'd like to say to those who are listening that really maybe they're new to the state or just figuring out this congressman or they're new to the political scene. What would you like to say to the constituents out there?
Congressman Mike Simpson (33:30):
I would like to say to them that it is important that they vote and it is important that they vote in primaries. We only have about a 30% turnout in primaries in Idaho, which is amazing. It needs to be up around 60 or 70% as it used to be before we close the Republican primary. I think that was a mistake, but take the time to evaluate the candidates, listen to 'em what they have to say and stuff, and then go vote.
Brennan Summers (34:02):
That's fantastic. Appreciate you being on as these issues we've talked about, kind of evolve more. We'll hopefully have you back. You bet. Thanks so much. Anytime, man. Appreciate it. Thanks for
Congressman Mike Simpson (34:10):
Having you.
