Rep. Sean Duffy shares views and plans to grow economy, decrease debt, and health care

"The economy is -- we're crushing it. People are going back to work. There are help wanted signs everywhere, wages are rising and if you look just three-four years ago, that was not the case," republican Rep. Sean Duffy told NewsChannel 7.

The congressman and candidate for Wisconsin's seventh congressional district, who sits on the House Financial Services and Joint Economic committees is excited about the direction the economy is heading. It is what his campaign ads have been all about, but he said he is aware of the other side of economics, spending.

"In regard to the debt, I'm gravely concerned," he said.

That concern comes when talking about things the government guarantees payment for, like Medicare and Social Security. The U.S. Department of the Treasury released its annual numbers for the 2018 fiscal year, showing the government spend $779 billion more than was budgeted for a few things this year contributed to that.

"We spent more on military spending to keep us safe, but also because we have so much debt and interest rates are rising, the cost to service the debt have increased dramatically as well," Duffy explained.

Since more people are working, more people are paying the government, but tax rates also fell for corporations. Duffy said in the next two to four years, he expects companies to pay that back in investments and by bringing growth into America rather than outsourcing in other countries.

"If we maintain growth at 2.5-3.5 percent in the long run, if we can just cap our spending -- you don't even have to cut, if we can just stop the growth of the budget as the economy grows, that's how you make up the difference," he said.

Especially given a stronger economy, he said he is trying to work provisions into bills to reduce unnecessary spending. He gave the example of the Farm Bill that has a provision he is fighting for that would require single, able-bodied individuals, not in retirement to be either working, going to school, or volunteering in order to get food stamps.

"People who can go to work have to because this economy is so great," he said, but added he is getting push-back from democrats on this particular provision.

In general, Duffy is for small government intervention into the economy and believes the same for health care. He said he believes a free market system, with regulations handled by the state rather than the federal government is better than what he calls a one-size fists all model paid for by the government.

"In Wisconsin, we had a system... we were able to get those with preexisting conditions into a higher-risk pool, they paid a little bit more, totally affordable, and they were absolutely able to get health insurance," he said, "but also if I take them out of the healthy people's pool, I'm able to keep their rates lower, but also guarantee those with a preexisting condition insurance."