6th District Republican Congressional candidate Brian Tharp said in an interview with the Sheridan Express Saturday that he felt a calling to challenge incumbent Republican Sam Graves in the August 5th Primary election. Tharp said that his faith was central to his campaign; he walked in the Duck Days Parade and played Christian music. He said that in order to reverse what he said was the overly corporatized Congress, people had to do something no matter how big the odds. “Faith means a lot to me,” said Tharp. “It’s a big part of our company as well.” One of his favorite songs is the song by Matthew West entitled, “Do something!” He plays it at parades that he goes to. He said he welcomed the other two candidates and said that he felt his job as a candidate was to work with different people, educate people, and get them to vote.
“I’ve knocked on thousands of doors this campaign all over the district, and people want some kind of hope that someone will represent them in Washington,” said Tharp. He is one of three Republicans challenging Graves. “About 99% of the people I’ve talked to have wished me well and hope that will happen.” He said that Graves was too out of touch with the district. “When the Energizer plant in Maryville closed, that cost us hundreds of jobs,” said Tharp. He said that he would have actively sought to work with Energizer to try and keep the plant open. “And then people move away,” he said.
Tharp said that he was a champion of the small business over the big corporations. “93% of the jobs in Rural America are created by small businesses,” he said. “But if our representative is controlled by the big corporations, it’s not going to happen.” Tharp has owned a trailer manufacturing business for the last 10 years that he started from scratch. “But I have never been able to access our representative,” he said. “I’m concerned that things will not get better until we have someone who is more accessible to the people. We lose families every time these places close shop.”
As a specific example, Tharp said that Graves supported a research bill to give tax breaks to large corporations to do research over the next 10 years. “Most would have done the research anyway,” he said. “That is simply putting profits above children. We’ve bailed out Wall Street, banks, and GM in the name of ‘creating jobs,’ but that hasn’t happened.”
The end result, said Tharp, is a massive national debt that he says is spinning out of control. “People need to feel that their interests are being represented in Congress over corporate and special interests,” said Tharp. “People don’t feel like they are being represented anymore.”
Tharp said that he was against any kind of amnesty for illegal immigrants. “It’s like a sign that I saw during a trip to Yellowstone – Don’t feed the bears.” He said that as long as the Obama administration was sending the message that it was OK to come to the US in that manner, it would simply draw more and more people into this country. “Our country can’t support them,” said Tharp.
Brian's parents own a multigenerational farm in Hunnewell, Mo, where his mother and stepfather live; that town is located in Shelby County. Brian and his wife, Shannon, also own a farm in Atchison County, where they live. Brian said that he wanted small family farms to get more support in any farm bill. He said that the passage of the 2014 Farm Bill was "long overdue' and that he hoped that it would support all farmers equally, not just crop farmers or livestock farmers.
On education policy, Tharp said that he was against Common Core and that he wanted to return schools to local control. “We have to do everything we can to support our schools,” he said. “A lot of states depend on federal funding, but the federal government should not be telling states how to handle education.”
Tharp said that he was pro-life with the exception of emergencies or situations when the woman’s life needed to be saved. He said that the way to reduce the number of abortions was to educate young people about God, Christian values, abstinence, and using protection. “I see a lot of room for improvement in those areas,” he said. On the 2nd Amendment, he said that as a concealed carry permit holder, he strongly supported the right to bear arms and opposed any kind of gun control.
Tharp lives near Rock Port and Fairfax. He is married to Shannon; they have been married for 16 years. They have two children; Gretchen (13) and Fischer (12). His wife is an occupational therapist and he owns a trailer business. He spent two years at Missouri Western, graduated from Central Missouri State University, and got his Master’s at Washington University in St. Louis. He completed doctoral studies in Public Policy at Jackson State University.
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