My first vote as a Congressman was to repeal the president’s massive health care law in full, and I still believe the law must be repealed.
However, we can still expand access to health care without the president’s law. Structural changes can be made to encourage preventive health care and also to separate health insurance from employment
status, both of which will lower prices and will create stability for families. We can reform lawsuit
abuse, which was a special pursuit of mine as a state legislator in Illinois. (The fear of lawsuits causes doctors to order all kinds of extra, preventive tests which may or may not be necessary for a patient, thus driving up costs for everyone.)
We can especially encourage price disclosure. Can you think of any other sector where a customer can
walk in and buy a ‘product’ without ever knowing its cost? Patients (and even doctors!) may decide
together on a test or prescription, but may never know the cost to the insurer or if there was a cheaper
version available. Making prices publicly available will put patients back in control and make health care more affordable for all.
Consistently, two of every three new jobs is created by a small business. With that in mind, I have met with more than 100 small business owners and job creators in the 14th district since last year.
During each storefront visit and factory tour, I ask what it would take for that employer to create just one more job. There are nearly 30 million small businesses in the U.S., and 23 million people who are
under-employed. If every small business could create just one job, we would have overemployment!
What I hear over and over and over is that small business owners want some certainty from their
government. They want lower taxes, and government regulations are frustrating their ability to grow
and hire. Taxes have now topped poor sales as the single most important concern of small business
owners.
I’ve supported more than 30 jobs bills in the House. Some of them have even been passed by the Senate and signed by the President. All of them would free up employers in the private sector who would like to hire, but are hesitating.
I do think it’s possible. For the last ten years, as tax rates have not changed, Washington has increased spending by nearly 40 percent. The past three years have marked the weakest economic recovery our nation has seen since the Great Depression. This isn’t the right time to raise taxes on anyone.
However, nothing- not even defense or entitlements- is off the table when it comes to cuts. It took years to reach this point, and it will take years to balance our budget again.
Veterans and seniors within 10 years of retirement should, in my opinion, receive the benefits they
have been counting on. However, for those younger than 55, entitlements will look different. There is
waste to be found in every agency- and as one frugal governor put it, “You’d be amazed at how much
government you’ll never miss.”
Washington would like to treat the economy as a cash tree- a new tax for every program, chopping off
as much as it wants, whenever it wants. What Washington doesn’t understand is that the best way to
allow the tree to grow more jobs and tax revenue organically is to simply leave it alone.
I am extremely troubled by the bloodshed of innocent people and the ongoing atrocities being committed by the regime of Bashar al-Assad. At the same time, I am also concerned about embroiling the United States in yet another armed sectarian conflict overseas with no clear goals or outcome.
The situation in Syria continues to develop, and I am generally supportive of the NATO mission there and believe the Arab League and Turkey must be partners in dealing with the Syrian leadership.
Having served in the Illinois House and Senate for years- and never in the majority- I’m well acquainted with the importance of coming to consensus with people you don’t agree with. In Springfield, if I ever wanted to get an initiative passed, I had to ask a friend on the other side of the aisle to carry it. There was no other option!
I have always believed that leaders have to treat each other with civility. We won’t always agree, and that’s okay. In fact, it’s healthy. Democracy is messy, but it’s not a fight, and it’s not a performance. It takes a lot of time and commitment to sit down and come to consensus with someone who may agree with you on very little. It’s not glamorous. But it’s so important to take the time to listen to them and find that common ground. That’s the only way we’re going to reach actual change.
As with Medicare, I will not accept any cuts to current beneficiaries or those near retirement. Our
government has made a promise to assist seniors in retirement and I will not permit this promise to be
broken or undermined. For those under age 55, there will likely have to be some improvements in order for the program to remain solvent.
Illegal immigration is an affront to both our existing laws and institutions, as well as to the legal immigrants who made the commitment to abide by our processes and respect our rules.
Our porous border has also contributed to the high rates of violence in Mexico spilling over into the United States, the rampant growth of the drug trade and criminal enterprise, and ongoing human rights violations committed by human traffickers. Clearly, securing the border has to be our first priority.
Then, I think we have to examine our visa system. Why limit visas for people seeking to tour and study in the U.S.? Why make it so difficult for agricultural workers to enter and exit the country in order to work jobs Americans are not taking anyway?
I believe that if we encourage employers to hire legal workers and provide legal avenues for people to
emigrate and bring their families to America, we will see a drop in illegal immigration. (Current wait
times are several years for one immigrant and many more in order to bring a family member with them.)
Without a doubt, it’s affordability of basic costs- especially healthcare. This issue comes up again and again as I’m talking to both residents of the 14th district and small business owners. A recent
NFIB survey of small business owners actually listed healthcare costs as their #1 concern (poor sales was #26). At town halls, I’m hearing that losing or being unable to obtain health insurance is one
of Kane County residents’ greatest fears. My goal for the 14th district is that everyone have a great job which provides great insurance, but of course there are also other steps we can take to help make healthcare more affordable.
Here are some important indicators for members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, including the U.S.:
• We spend more per person on health care than any other developed nation.
• Our life expectancy is lower than all other OECD Nations except for Estonia, the Czech Republic, Mexico, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Turkey.
• Only Mexico, Turkey and Chile exceed our infant mortality rate.
• The U.S. ranked 11th out of 11 nations (i.e. the poorest showing), on unmet need due to cost.
Rosy claims about the U.S. health care system are usually based on anecdotes about wealthy foreigners coming here for treatment. We do high tech medicine very well, but very expensively. Sadly, if you are not wealthy or well-insured, things aren’t so bright.
1) The first step that should be taken is for the House to get serious about implementing the Affordable Care Act rather than continuing an apparently endless string of show votes to repeal.
2) Reintroduce a public insurance option. Such an option would provide even greater flexibility for consumers, and would, by most reasonable estimates, result in a further savings.
3) Add a prescription drug benefit to traditional Medicare and allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices, as is already the case with Medicaid and the VA. These changes would result in reductions in both out-of-pocket and Medicare care costs.
The unemployment rate would be substantially lower had not so many state and local government layoffs occurred, in part due to the effects of the economic downturn and in part because of reduced federal revenues. Small businesses need easier access to capital, tax advantages for those companies that offshore jobs must be eliminated, and international trade agreements must include human rights and wage protections for workers in other parties to the agreements, thereby reducing the financial incentives for offshoring. Efforts to erode collective bargaining rights at home must cease, and the elimination of wage inequality based on gender is long overdue. The Administration’s Jobs Bill addresses many of these issues, as does the Senate’s Rebuild America Act, but progress has been stalled by Republican members of both Houses.
America’s infrastructure is crumbling, with roads, bridges, public water systems and schools in urgent need of repair or upgrade. There is work that needs to be done, and there are workers who need jobs. Those concerned about burdening our children with debt would do well to read the American Society of Civil Engineers’ infrastructure report, which shows that the estimated cost of the needed work is mounting rapidly, rising by $500 billion between 2004 and 2009 alone. We need action on the Administration’s Jobs Bill and the Senate’s Rebuild America Act.
Of course it is possible to stop deficit spending and start paying down the debt without raising taxes. The necessary follow-up questions are whether doing so would be good for the country, and whether we would recognize the nation that emerges from such an exercise. The reasonable approach to debt and deficit control is a combination of budget cuts and increased revenues.
If we leave defense spending, Social Security and Medicare for current or soon-to-become beneficiaries out of the equation, the depth of federal budget cuts necessary to achieve the stated goal would shift much cost to state and local governments for many remaining programs; programs such as, for example, transportation, K-12 education, water treatment, and various health care services, which account for about one-third of federal non-defense discretionary spending. Examples of non-defense discretionary programs that would have to be cut include functions as the National Institutes for Health, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, national parks, food safety, border protection, Medicaid, SNAP (formerly known as food stamps), assistance for disabled veterans, and a range of programs that are targeted to low-income people. This is an unacceptable future scenario. Of course, if we are willing to pay substantially more in state and local taxes to make up the difference, perhaps it would work.
Kofi Annan’s proposal for a settlement to be negotiated by a group consisting of the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, Iran, Turkey, and representatives of the Arab League appeared to offer a chance for bringing to an end the conflict and stabilizing the situation, but that plan has all but collapsed. Egypt has proposed a new plan that seems to offer some promise, including the departure of Assad and not least the fact that it is a plan to be negotiated by regional players – Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Syria. Given national and sectarian tensions in the region, this plan may come apart as well, but it is attractive because of the fact that it places the responsibility for stabilizing the region with the leading regional actors. Any solution that lacks the support of these Middle Eastern states is unlikely to take hold or, should it gain any initial ground, to last. If the solution is perceived as being imposed from outside the region it will likely be doomed from the start.
Unilateral action by the U.S. would only serve to deepen resentment in the region and is out of the question, particularly given the Nation’s experiences over the past decade in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Congress’ dismal approval ratings are well-deserved. The problems facing the Nation are serious, and addressing them requires equally serious people committed to meaningful discussion and debate. Sadly, the House of Representatives is dysfunctional, deadlocked by a group of members who appear to be far more interested in proving that government is inept than in working to enable it to better serve the people, even going so far as to vote against proposals that originated with their own party. Such conservative thinkers as Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute and David Brooks, to name two, place the blame for gridlock in the House squarely with the Republican majority. Obstructionism is not governing, but one can hardly expect those who hold government in disdain to be good at practicing the art. Democracy lies in striking a balance between opposing interests, and in its unwillingness to even try to do so, this House has been an abject failure.
I am committed to engaging in serious dialogue and debate with those with whom I may disagree. However, I expect that there will be those in the next House membership, as among the current membership, who will continue to speak in vague terms of un-American activities and attitudes, who will voice a fundamental distrust of science, and who will continue to mouth the outworn nonsense that “government is the problem,” no matter what the issue. With these I recognize that I may have difficulty. Should they wish to engage in serious discussion, however, they will find in me a willing partner.
It is important to recognize that Social Security is solvent through 2033, according to the Trust Fund’s most recent report, and will continue to be able to cover 75% of benefits after that. While that seems to leave us 20 years to solve any fiscal issues the Program may have, it is a fact that the sooner we act, the less dramatic any corrections will need to be and the more gradually they can be phased in. The size of the long-term problem is comparable to the amount of revenue that would be lost to the government were the Bush tax cuts on top earners – those making over $200,000 per year for a single earner – made permanent. The point of the comparison is simply to illustrate that arguing that the Social Security shortfall constitutes a crisis while the tax cuts are affordable is inconsistent.
I support raising or eliminating the payroll cap. Raising it to the 90% level would reduce the projected shortfall by about 35%. Eliminating the cap would eliminate the shortfall and, according to the Social Security Administration, would keep the program solvent for another 75 years. I am opposed to privatization. I am opposed to raising the retirement age, generally defended as being justified by life expectancy increases, but which would amount to a penalty on lower income workers among whom such life expectancy increases are far less significant, and who are likely to be more dependent on Social Security in retirement.
The Nation does need immigration reform. Specifically, the immigration system should be updated and modernized through such undertakings as smart border technology; employment verification; the guarantee of worker protections so as to curtail the incentive for some employers to engage in a race to the bottom that disadvantages American workers and threatens the well being of immigrant workers; and an updating of immigration policies and visa processes, particularly where they threaten the cohesiveness of families.
We should engage in a serious effort to register undocumented aliens and to either enter them into paths to permanent residency or citizenship processes, where appropriate, or to deport them when called for. Our foreign policy must include provisions for dealing with other nations whose internal conditions effectively encourage their citizens to flee to the U.S.
Beyond jobs and the deficit/debt, I hear most often about the failure of Congress to act in a manner consistent with the seriousness of the Nation’s problems, an issue I addressed in response to Question 5. Part of this failure lies in the unwillingness of members of Congress to take every opportunity to counter the intentional dissemination of falsehoods that affect how people perceive the issues facing the nation. People have told me that their primary concern is FEMA “internment camps” apparently intended to house those who oppose the Administration’s policies in one area or another. Others fear the President’s plan to disarm them, sometimes as part of a larger plan to turn the United States government over to the United Nations. I have heard outrage concerning the “fact” that 100 million Americans are now on welfare. We hear that voter fraud is a major problem in the country, all evidence to the contrary, and see new laws to address the “problem” that will lead not to a more accurate measure of the popular will, but instead to the exclusion from the democratic process many who have a fundamental right to vote. There has always been and there always will be some segment of the population that is receptive to such myths, but I do believe that the problem is becoming more serious. It is the responsibility of our elected representatives to correct those falsehoods in discussions of public policy, and too many are failing to do this. I pledge that I will seek the truth, speak the truth and, when I have gotten it wrong, I will explain to the people of the 14th District where and how I got things wrong.
