On Friday, April 6, I had the lucky chance to spend lunch chatting with Margaret Cummisky of the United States Senate Appropriations Committee. This was in fact my first time meeting and chatting one-on-one with a government representative of any kind, and at first I didn't know what to say! Luckily, most folks in politics seem have great personal skills, and Margaret was no exception.
She filled the initial silence by relating her group's recent travels around Taiwan. She and other members of the Senate had just spent about 10 days visiting different cities across the island, where they talked with local businesspeople, politicians, and community representatives. In one regard, the trip was meant to continue fostering good relations between Taiwan and the United States. In another, it was a chance for Margaret to observe and evaluate the real-world results of policies she had helped write in Washington D.C.
This sparked my interest, and we began to chat about what this entailed. Margaret explained that in response to Bush's War on Terror, many new policies were implemented in the mid-2000's, including mandatory X-rays of many imports entering the USA, especially screening for radioactive elements. On their trip across Taiwan, the Senate representatives had visited facilities where such X-rays are performed, and interviewed the personnel in charge. She explained to me that while no weapons of mass destruction had been found passing through, the scanning devices had detected and stopped the flow lots of less dangerous smuggled goods.
From there, we chatted about the life of an appropriations specialist. I learned that Margaret got to leave the country on about 4 or 5 international trips per year, and spent the rest of the time doing policy work in D.C. She would have liked to get out and travel more. Finally, we enjoyed simply chatting about everyday life, and I learned that her oldest son is bound for college in 2013, and her Japanese mother was part of her initial link to Asia. All in all, it was an excellent, productive, and enlightening conversation, and I'm very thankful to have had the opportunity to attend.
