As long as flu viruses are spreading, it is not too late to get a vaccine to protect yourself and your loved ones. Flu season typically peaks between December and February but significant activity can occur as late as May.

For millions of people every season, the flu can mean a fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, muscle aches, fatigue, and miserable days spent in bed. However, you may not realize that each flu season, flu also causes hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations, and thousands or sometimes tens of thousands of deaths.

But there is a vaccine that can prevent flu. While how well the vaccine works can vary, the benefits from vaccination are well documented. Studies show that flu vaccination can reduce flu illnesses, doctors’ visits, missed work and school due to flu, as well as prevent flu-related hospitalizations.

This is why CDC recommends an annual flu vaccine for everyone six months and older. Some people are at high risk for serious flu-related complications, like pneumonia, that can lead to hospitalization and even death. This includes young children, pregnant women, people 65 and older and people with certain medical conditions, like asthma, diabetes or heart disease. For those at high risk for complications, getting the flu vaccine is especially important. It is also important to get the vaccine if you care for anyone at high risk, including babies younger than six months because they are too young to get the vaccine.

You can get a flu vaccine in a variety of places, including at your doctor’s office, pharmacies, and at the Berrien County Health Department. Most health insurance plans cover the cost of recommended vaccines. For more information about influenza or the flu vaccine, talk to your doctor or call the Berrien County Health Department at 269-926-8121 or visit www.bchdmi.org.

Ensuring Financial Stability

 Over the past several years, much work has been done in Lansing to put state government on sound financial footing. At the state level we have made great progress on paying down debts and ensuring that we will be able to provide services to citizens while meeting our long term debt obligations. We have been able to accomplish this through conservative budgeting and prudent financial planning. Recently, my colleagues and I in the House introduced a 13 bill package to help eliminate unsustainable long-term debt that has many local governments on the brink of bankruptcy. Out-of-control costs brought on by promises made by politicians decades ago are draining county, city, village, and township treasuries, taking away funding for critical public safety services such as police, fire, and emergency medical care.

If these liabilities are allowed to continue unaddressed, communities will fall deeper and deeper into debt, threatening vital public services that families deserve. One of the largest liabilities facing local government is a category know as other post-employment benefits (OPEB). As of 2014, OPEB liabilities across the state were roughly $11 billion. These legacy costs continue to increase rapidly because of older retirement plan design, an increase in life expectancy, and runaway medical care inflation.

This legislation attempts to help local governments manage their liabilities and only affects local governments with retiree health costs that are less than 80 percent funded. This is a serious problem that will not go away on its own. Without legislative action, many of these local governments could go into bankruptcy like we saw in Detroit. If local governments go into bankruptcy, all Michigan taxpayers will see higher costs to cover these failures, no matter where the municipality is located. We must keep our communities up and running, and these bills will help protect taxpayers and our local governments.

If I can ever be of any assistance, please do not hesitate to contact my office toll-free at (800) 577- 6212 or email me at AricNesbitt@house.mi.gov.

Investing in Your Future

EDWARD JONES

Time for a year-end investment review

 With the holiday season upon us, you may well be busier than usual. However, by spending a few minutes reviewing your investment scenario of this past year, you can see where you have been, where you might be going, and what you need to do to keep moving forward toward your long-term financial goals.

So, as you look back at 2016, pay close attention to these elements of your investment picture:

Performance – Reviewing your investment performance over time is important in helping you determine if you are on track to achieve your financial goals. So, in evaluating how your investments did in 2016, ask yourself some key questions: How did your investments do relative to their performance in past years? If there was a big difference, what might have accounted for it? Were your returns relevant to your long-term goals? In other words, if you have already established a return rate you will need to reach your goals – and you should indeed set such a rate – were your actual returns “on track” to help you make progress toward your objectives? And, just as importantly, were your return expectations realistic, based on your investment mix and the market environment?

Investment mix – If you are a diligent investor following a well-designed strategy, you probably started out in 2016 with an investment mix that reflects your risk tolerance, time horizon, and short- and long-term goals. But over time, your investment mix can change, even without your having done so on purpose. If you owned a certain percentage of an asset, such as growth stocks, and those stocks appreciated in price substantially, they could take up a larger percentage of your portfolio than you had intended, thereby exposing you to a higher risk level than that with which you are comfortable. So now that the year is coming to a close, examine your investment mix to see if it needs “rebalancing.”

Contribution levels – Are you taking full advantage of your 401(k) or other employer-sponsored retirement plan? Specifically, if you got a raise this past year, did you boost your contributions to your plan? The more you invest now, and throughout your working life, the less likely it will be that you have to play “catch up” in the years immediately preceding your retirement.

Mistakes – We all make mistakes in every walk of life – including the way we invest. In looking back over 2016, can you spot some investment mistakes you might have made? Did you temporarily “bail out” on investing immediately after the “Brexit” vote, only to find, a few weeks later, that the markets had soared to record highs? Did you act on impulse and buy a so-called “hot” stock that turned out to be inappropriate for your needs and risk level? While mistakes like these might be costly in the short term, they can ultimately prove invaluable – if you learn from them.

We are just about ready to turn the page on the 2016 calendar. So, as you review your investment decisions for the past year, try to determine what worked, what did not – and what you can do to improve your results in 2017.

This article was written by Edward Jones for use by your local Edward Jones Financial Advisor.

Urging nuclear fuel recycling

 Nuclear energy safely and reliably provides much of our nation’s power. However, storage for spent fuel remains a problem due to the federal government’s failure to live up to its responsibility to open a permanent repository for nuclear waste.

New technology exists that could greatly reduce the amount of waste needed to be stored. Congress needs to either open a permanent storage site or use the money they collected from ratepayers to build it to help support nuclear fuel recycling.

I sponsored Senate Resolution 164, urging Congress to support the establishment of facilities in the United States for the reprocessing and recycling of spent nuclear fuel rods.

A high-temperature method of recycling spent nuclear waste into fuel has been developed that would ensure almost inexhaustible supplies of low-cost uranium resources for the generation of electricity.

The federal Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 called for the U.S. Department of Energy to begin collecting spent nuclear waste and develop a long-term plan for storage of the material. In 2002, Congress approved Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the site of a safe nuclear waste repository, but the project was stopped in 2010 despite the Nuclear Waste Fund receiving more than $30 billion in revenue from American customers.

Michigan customers have paid more than $810 million for the construction of a permanent storage site, yet we continue to store waste at local plants.

Reprocessing and recycling processes can reduce the amount of nuclear waste and the time it must be isolated by almost 1,000 times. Congress should allow this technology to help reduce our waste storage needs and make our communities safer.

As always, I look forward to hearing your comments and feedback on the important issues facing Michigan. You can contact me at 517-373-6960.

House passes bill to give our troops the largest pay raise in six year

 Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2017 by a bipartisan vote of 375-34.

The NDAA is the primary way Congress meets its most important constitutional obligation to “provide for the common defense.” It advances the vital funding and authorities America’s military requires to protect our nation and the brave men and women serving in our armed forces around the globe.

Supporting our national defense, our active duty military personnel, and their families is of the utmost importance. Right here in Southwest Michigan we not only have active military installations and soldiers who require the resources and equipment authorized, but also many families who depend on this legislation to provide consistency in their daily lives. This bipartisan legislation enhances our military readiness and includes the largest pay raise for our troops in six years, while also alleviating any bonus recoupment activities for our National Guard members who volunteered to serve during a time of need.

Also of great importance, we maintain the status quo on prohibiting the closure and transfer of detainees from Guantanamo Bay to the United States and we elevate U.S. Cyber Command to a unified Combatant Command level to protect our country against emerging cyber threats.

I was proud to support this bipartisan legislation and look forward to its swift passage in the Senate.

To learn more about this and other important legislative issues, please visit my website: upton.house.gov.