By Fallan Patterson
Staff Writer

Daniel Webster may be a newcomer to Congress but he has nearly three decades of experience in the state Senate and plans to use it to serve his new constituents, including those in Osceola County.

Webster’s district winds down the middle of the state and include parts of Lake, Marion and Orange counties and a sliver of Osceola, mainly Celebration. However, Webster’s priorities include all Floridians and the nation in his quest to get the economy rolling and eliminate overspending; put people back to work and and keep relationships working among political parties.

“We have to turn off the spigot of spending,” Webster, R-Winter Park, said “The process of borrowing and spending money we don’t have is broken.”

Last month, the national treasury showed the nation’s debt at more than $14 trillion and Webster said the debt builds up by $250 billion a year in interest owed.

“It hurts our national security to keep spending like that,” Webster said. “It’s that kind of borrowing that is going to bankrupt our country.”

Webster is proposing rolling back spending to 2008 levels and institute a step process to budget properly or else future generations would inherit a “foreclosed country.”

Part of the problem is the high unemployment rate across the state, Webster said.

Florida’s unemployment rate for January was 12 percent and most of the counties in Webster’s district fair slightly higher, with Lake at 12.4 percent, Marion at 14.2 and Osceola at 12.8 percent. Orange County is just under the state’s average with 11.6 percent unemployment.

Webster has begun a walking tour throughout his district, meeting with business people to discuss ways to produce more jobs. He said many business owners want government to step back and stop proposing policies that would affect their businesses and their hiring policies.

“In the end, I think government needs to get out of the way,” Webster, the owner of an air conditioning business, said. “If every small business in the country would add a job, it would cut the unemployment in half and lower the budget deficit.”

In the wake of the Arizona shootings last month, many politicians of the various parties have formed a more united front, such as sitting together for President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address Jan. 25, and Webster is no exception.

He watched the address with Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Shultz, D-Weston, to discuss issues and while they may not have agreed on all topics, Webster said the experience was important.

“I think you’re going to see there can be civility. There’s going to be cooperation,” he said. “I’m going to be a proponent of that.