By: Ed Schafer
As submitted to WZFG News
July 9, 2018
The stakes for North Dakota in the midterm elections this fall could not be greater. If Republicans lose the Senate in November, North Dakota’s booming energy economy will vanish before our eyes.
The Democrats’ radical regulatory agenda would threaten North Dakota’s economy, which has thrived since President Trump took office and unleashed the domestic energy sector like never before.
A vote to reelect Heidi Heitkamp this year is a vote for Chuck Schumer for Senate Majority Leader and his anti-growth agenda.
President Trump has kept his promises to North Dakotans since he turned establishment Washington on its head in the 2016 election. The President’s historic tax cuts, deregulatory policies, and business friendly agenda have enabled our state to enjoy record job and economic growth at an unprecedented rate. We can’t let Senator Heidi Heitkamp and Senator Chuck Schumer revoke our tax cuts, impose new regulations, and reverse our economic progress.
The gains North Dakota has made since President Trump took office cannot be overstated. North Dakota’s oil industry is thriving thanks to the President’s leadership. As of March, North Dakota had 14,457 producing gas and oil wells, the highest number in the state’s history.
North Dakotans are also experiencing one of the best job markets in the state’s history thanks to President Trump’s policies. North Dakota’s unemployment rate has fallen to 2.6 percent, and a January report by ZipRecruiter revealed that Fargo currently has the best job market of any city in America.
It’s no wonder that a number of companies doing business across North Dakota gave their local employees bonuses, pay raises and hourly wage increases. These include Wal-Mart, AT&T, Wells Fargo, McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Fargo’s very own Gate City Bank.
Senator Heitkamp would like us to believe that she supports President Trump, who beat Hillary Clinton in North Dakota by 36 percent in the 2016 election. Her record tells another story.
Heitkamp has repeatedly voted to obstruct President Trump’s policy agenda. This includes her support for a Bureau of Land Management regulation that restricts methane gas, her support for the Paris Climate Accord that President Trump withdrew from, and, of course, her famous opposition to President Trump’s historic tax cuts that have created a booming economy for our state.
More ominously, Senator Heitkamp and the rest of the Senate Democrats have worked consistently and inexplicably to obstruct President Trump’s agenda at every turn and will continue to do so.
Heitkamp likes to pretend that she is different from her Democratic colleagues in the D.C. swamp, but her actions speak louder than her words. She has voted with Minority Leader Schumer and the Democratic leadership more than 73 percent of the time in this Congress.
Ultimately, North Dakotans have to decide this fall what kind of Senator they want representing them. Is it someone like Heidi Heitkamp who favors carbon taxes, international climate accords, and politically-motivated regulations? If so, then the results for North Dakota will be devastating, leading to fewer jobs and less prosperity.
The alternative for North Dakota is a Senator who will genuinely stand with President Trump, as he has before. Congressman Kevin Cramer, the GOP nominee for Senate, will keep North Dakota’s economic momentum going through his support for the Trump agenda.
Thanks to President Trump’s policies, North Dakota’s economy is booming and North Dakotans are thriving. If we want to keep North Dakota great, we need to elect people like Congressman Kevin Cramer who will support President Trump’s agenda.
Unlike Heitkamp and Schumer, President Trump knows economic growth comes only when the potential of a state like North Dakota is unleashed -- not strangled under regulatory red tape from Washington.
It’s time we send Heidi Heitkamp home for good, and secure the gains we’ve made under President Trump. The stakes for North Dakota could not be higher.