Transcript: Billy Long And Two Reporters At MSSU, Joplin, MO, September 1, 2010

Billy Long at MSSU, September 1, 2010 (Blake James photo)

Billy Long and two unidentified reporters, MSSU campus, Joplin, MO,September 1, 2010, transcript of audio.

Reporter 1 (R1): I was kinda curious, first of all, why come to, uh, Joplin and speak to, to uh, a group of college kids?

Billy Long (BL): Well, I’d like to get the youth involved, I ws very disturbed on the day of the election when I worked the polls and very few people under fifty years old and this isn’t my first time to speak to students here in Joplin. I was here before the primary and so

R1: How do you…

BL: glad to be back and we were in Joplin all day, we were in Joplin all day last Friday. So, there’s a lot of concern in the Joplin area when you have a representative who’s gonna to be out of the Springfield area that they not, you know, remember the folks in the western end and I worked very hard last year and I think this is something that helped me because I think we had pretty good vote totals down here.

R1: How do you think you identify with the, uh, young kids these days?

BL: Oh, I think I’ve always been a kid at heart. I’ve got two daughters, 21 and 24, so, uh, I, uh, you know, think that I can identify with them pretty well. I kinda know, you know, what they’re going through and what my daughters have gone through, so…

R1: Now the last presidential election the young vote was very important, uh, how much more important do you think it is today?

BL: I think it’s gonna be very important. I think that, uh, the thing that we need to realized is that we need to turn out the vote because there is a lot of things in people’s mindset, a lot of state rep races have been settled, a lot of courthouse races have been settled, and there’s not a Proposition C in November, so you know, we’re just trying to let people know that this race is not over, my race is not over, Roy Blunt’s race is not over, we’re gonna run like we’re ten points down.

R1: Are you impressed with, uh, maybe how these young people might be informed these days?

BL: Oh, sure, yeah, I, uh, this was a large crowd here today, probably twice as big as the one I spoke to last time I was hear so it’s good to see them engaged. We want to keep them engaged and something I was real impressed with in the primary: the volunteers we had, we had a lot of high school kids come in, but they’re younger than of course, than the college kids. And, uh, when we had them come in and they’d start their first day or two, they were a little nervous. They’d, you know, wouldn’t want to make the calls, then the third day, they were ‘rockin and rollin’ and they couldn’t wait to get on those phones and they got engaged in the process and that’s great to see.

R1: What do you think, maybe, is the top issue they do discuss with you?

BL: The what?

R1: What topic, what’s the main one?

BL: Well, I think the debt is the main thing people are concerned about, you know, they hear their parents talking about, used to be we said, you know, we’re spending our grandchildren’s future and then they said we’re spending our children’s future and now, I mean the reality of life is we’re spending our future. Uh, we need to get things turned around in a hurry. We need to repeal and replace Obamacare. That’s number one. People are not workin’ in this country and they say why can’t we get jobs. How’s a small business person, or even a mid-sized or large business gonna hire people when they don’t know what it’s gonna cost them to provide healthcare? Also taxes are unsettled in this country. You don’t know what the tax structure’s gonna be, you don’t know if they’re gonna continue the Bush tax cuts or do away with them. The death tax, at the end of the year, people still gonna have to borrow a million dollars when dad dies to save the family farm? So, uh, we’ve got a lot of issues that need to be dealt with by people that don’t care about re-election. And I’m one of those guys. I’m 55 years old, I don’t have a long political future. I’m gonna go up there to do the right thing for the right reasons.

Reporter 2 (R2): Kinda on that, Billy, uh, Social Security, uh, would you be interested in raising the retirement age? Uh

BL: Is that it? Is that all you had for me?

R1: Yes, I’m just

BL: OK,

R1: He’s

BL: OK, you bet.

R1: He still needs some

BL: OK, OK, thanks.

R1: Thank you, sir.

BL: Yup.

R2: Do you have anything on Social Security?

BL: Thank you.