Coming to Troy feels like “coming home” to freshman lawmaker Martha Roby.

Roby, who represents the 2nd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, was in Troy Wednesday to tour the CGI facility; visit with economic development leaders; and visit with supporters at Pike County Republican Women’s Association meeting.

“Over the course of the past two years, I’ve had an opportunity to really develop some genuine relationships with the Pike County Republican Women,” Roby said. “And, so being able to be here with them is particularly special. There are a lot of people from the area that worked very hard on our campaign and I’m very grateful for that. It’s an honor to be able to come back as their representative to give an update about how things are. This is just a wonderful place with lots of really great conservative people that are working hard to make our state and country a better place.”

After eating lunch provided by the women’s group, and after greeting several of her constituents, Roby spoke to the crowd about the local economy and potential growth for the state by focusing on the goings-on from the past week.

“Last week we took up HR-1, which is the continuing (budget) resolution, and we spent the entire week in an open process,” Roby said. “There were over 500 amendments filed to the continuing resolution, 90 hours of scheduled debate and we took our final vote on HR-1 at 4:30 a.m. Saturday.”

Roby said she and her colleagues worked hard to make the tough decisions to cut the federal programs that they believed should no longer be funded.

“We’re broke,” Roby said. “We have got to cut. It’s not about cutting just for the sake of cutting. Cutting spending equals job creation. The government doesn’t create jobs, the private sector creates jobs and by reducing our deficit, by scaling back Washington’s addiction to spending, we are setting a tone for job creation in this country.”

Roby said while work remains, the $100 billion she and her colleagues were able to cut is definitely a start.

“This $100 billion that we cut out of the continuing resolution is only a beginning,” Roby said. “It’s 1/15 of the entire deficit, but it is important that we move forward in cutting out wasteful spending so that we can create jobs and get our country back on track.”

Roby said she was ready and willing to tackle the difficult decisions that she was sent to Washington to make.

“I was sent to make tough decisions and I’m prepared to do that based on the conservative values that Pike County Republicans and I share,” Roby said. “We have got to get this country back on track.”

Among the cuts was funding to Planned Parenthood. “Your federal tax dollars should not, under any circumstances, go toward funding abortion,” Roby said.

Roby said several measures aimed to cut EPA funding, because of the “backdoor” policies the organization was trying to implement without congressional approval.