Vaccine mandates, supply chain disruptions and unemployment benefits were some of the main talking points for US Senator Roger Marshall during a town hall appearance in Emporia Saturday morning.
During his time in town, Marshall addressed the federal vaccination mandate issued earlier this year by President Joe Biden. The federal mandate, announced in early September, calls for full vaccinations for federal workers, contractors, businesses with at least 100 employees and healthcare facilities receiving federal funds.
In the case of healthcare facilities, a failure to comply to the mandate could result in a loss of funding.
Marshall has been a known proponent of vaccinations and even went as far as to call on the Biden administration to make vaccine booster doses available to senior residents as soon as possible back in August. That being said, Marshall feels the mandate is a “slippery slope.”
On the topic of supply chain disruptions, which have been highly publicized in recent months, Marshall believes the issue stems from a combination of labor shortages and an overdependence on foreign countries.
When it comes to continued unemployment benefits, Marshall feels they are doing more harm than good at this time as he believes it is incentivizing Americans to stay home rather than go back to work. He says he does not believe we should just “shut off the faucet,” however, he says we need to be more “judicial” when it comes to providing unemployment assistance.
Marshall says there also needs to be more focus placed on providing Americans with resources and assistance aimed at getting them back to work.
Towards the end of his time Saturday, Marshall made a point that he believes the US would be in a much different position at this time if a Republican, namely Donald Trump, were still President.
