Congressman John Shimkus was the keynote speaker at the Marion County Republican Party's Lincoln Day Dinner. He talk centered on the debate over health insurance.

Congressman John Shimkus told the Marion County Lincoln Day Dinner Friday night President Obama's health care plan amounts to Socialism that will start the decline of the country.  However, Shimkus told the crowd there is new hope of stopping the proposal following the January election of Republican Scott Brown of Massachusetts that breaks up the Democrat's filibuster proof majority in the Senate.

"I just wish we could start over.  We are not doing this to say don't do anything.  But we are saying let's get a clean sheet of paper and list where we agree and lets fix those.  Then we can go again and list another series," Shimkus said in an interview with WJBDradio.com after the dinner.   

Shimkus says Congress also needs to deal with the huge national debt that has tripled in the past few years, rising to a level that draws questions to the soundness of the government.  "We have to address entitlement programs,  which means addressing social security, means testing,  extending the retirement age, getting a better return on the money that you have available, addressing medicare and medicaid, Shimkus said.  "This health care bill takes 500-billion dollars out of medicare.  Now Medicare is already going broke, how do you sustain that?"

Shimkus says they have a message to send to President Obama that the elections are not over...they have just begun.  He reports it will be the believers and the Republicans who are energized who will work from now until November to reclaim the country. 

State Senator John O. Jones told the crowd that Bill Brady would be the Republican candidate for governor.   Jones says after all the county's provided their results, Brady had a 247 vote lead over Kirk Dillard.