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samboct -> Do you like your Congressman? (11/22/2011 1:57:52 PM)
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I went to a town hall meeting last night, and found myself in pretty good agreement with my congressman, Jim Himes. The meeting was an hour and a half- he talked for about the first 15 minutes and then went to a Q + A. I liked a lot of his prescriptions for ails this country and I like that he's a straight shooter- if something's a problem, he says so. He doesn't BS either, if he knows something, he's done research on it, and what he doesn't know- he admits to.
Here are some of the high points-
Supercommittee failure- bad- but it's another sign that the partisanship is wrecking Congress. He preferred the Bowles-Simpson approach which unfortunately, Obama didn't get behind. He still doesn't know why- although he speculated some.
Solutions- the gerrymandering that's taken place needs to be undone and there are moves afoot to do so. His comment is that he comes from a swing district, and that people in safe seats wind up worrying about primary challenges from extremist fringes like the Tea Party- so that they move away from the center. People from swing districts move towards the center and are much more willing to work together across party lines.
He's furious about the Supreme Court decision that allowed corporations and unions effectively unlimited donations. His suggestion- constitutional amendment or a different Supreme Court which will have to undo the decision. In the meantime- require transparency- if corporations are giving money- has to show up to whom on their annual reports as well as on the politicians side.
About the stimulus- his comment was that roughly half was in tax breaks. Another big chunk went to salaries of teachers, police, fire fighters etc. Thus, the effect hasn't been that visible to the voter- a big chunk was just to keep the status quo instead of groundbreaking new projects. He was pushing for stimulus money for infrastructure- including a cross harbor bridge that would bypass Manhattan and get trucks off I-95 in CT. The problem was that the money went to shovel ready projects.
In terms of the demand for tax cuts- his response is that it smacks of what happened in 1937- and that the best way to deal with the deficit is to make intelligent cuts, but also spend where the economy is likely to grow. However, one area where tax cuts make sense is corporate tax rates, which are very high relative to other countries, but nobody pays them, there's a cost of $1T over taxes that aren't collected due to tax dodges and loopholes. But it also encourages lots of foreign investment by US firms rather than domestic. Need to revamp this tax code. Makes much more sense than anything Cain is talking about.
Look at the big ticket items- Medicare and the military. Both have stupid spending- Medicare doesn't pay for family members leave to care for an ailing parent, and puts people in a nursing home for 90 days- expensive and lousy. The military has 5,000 nuclear warheads- even Kissinger has said that we could drop to 1,000 with no ill effects. I would point out that we have 14 nuclear powered aircraft carriers, and our Navy could whip the rest of the world put together- withoutQ breaking a sweat. It's a little extreme. But long term deficit reduction is going to have to deal with both of these areas, even though they're popular.
Also-we need to get out of Afghanistan- it's just a quagmire. Whenever we leave, things are going to go to hell- and it's their problem- but Al Q Towelheads are in Pakistan, not Afghanistan. Need to do something different.
I threw out a comment that if we're going to restore mfg in the US- we have got to deal with intellectual piracy, especially from China- and that the Commerce Dept. had fallen down on the job. I got a lot of encouragement from both him and the audience on this one. He responded that a lot of CT mfg just want the Chinese currency to float, and they think they can compete.
Overall, this guy thinks, and isn't afraid to share some controversial thoughts. He was very careful to avoid anything that smacked of partisanship, and pointed that Americans have a lot of reasons to be unhappy. No rah, rah here- nothing like I'm proud to be an American- just a thoughtful discussion of issues. If we had more folks like him in Congress, I think we'd be in better shape.
So...how many of you have talked to your Congressman? Do you like him/her? Good points/bad points?
Sam
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