Widening I-24, cutting federal spending top priorities for Sen. Marsha Blackburn in visit to Montgomery County

CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – Sen. Marsha Blackburn was in Montgomery County on Friday as part of her yearly visit to each of Tennessee’s 95 counties. She met with city and county officials at the County Courthouse to talk about several issues, including work on widening Interstate 24.

The senator spoke with Clarksville Now about the interstate widening as well as her efforts to curb federal spending.

I-24 and federal spending

“Montgomery County is growing at such a rapid pace,” Blackburn told Clarksville Now. “We’re hard at work on I-24 and the widening and expansion of I-24. We need to widen it all the way from here (Clarksville) to Nashville.”

The senator explained that a major reason she believes the road needs to be widened is to accommodate the traffic coming in and out of Fort Campbell.

“We have a major military post here. It is a post that is a growing post. It is not one that is shrinking in size, and when you talk about moving military equipment, deployments, things of that nature, it requires more than a two-lane interstate. That is something we need to be very thoughtful of as Fort Cambell continues to grow.”

When it comes to cutting federal spending, Blackburn commented on her efforts as part of the Senate Finance Committee.

“I’ve got three separate bills. One would be a 1% across the board cut, a lot of people call that the penny plan, it’s saving a penny out of a dollar. The second one is a 2% across the board cut, two pennies out of a dollar, and the third is the 5% across the board cut. The reason to do this is because spending has to be cut into the baseline, and you want to take that baseline number and make a recission in that,” Blackburn said.

“That’s the way to begin to reduce that federal spending, by actually cutting into those baseline numbers and, very incrementally and very gradually, rightsizing the federal government so that they are using the taxpayer dollar wisely.”

Blackburn was sworn into the Senate in January 2019 as the first woman to represent the Volunteer State in the U.S. Senate. She serves on the Deputy Whip Team and is a member of the Finance Committee, the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, the Veterans Affairs Committee and the Judiciary Committee.