Congressman Peter DeFazio and opponent Art Robinson sparred on a number of themes as they answered questions Monday night at a forum at the First Congregational Church in Corvallis.
The Corvallis Gazette Times sponsored the forum, which included Defazio, the Democratic incumbent for Fourth Congressional District; Robinson, a research scientist and Defazio’s Republican challenger; and Mike Beilstein, a Pacific Green Party candidate and a chemist. The Fourth District includes Sweet Home and southwestern Oregon.
DeFazion, who has held his office since 1986, described himself as willing to take on the president or his own party. In the 1990s, he was one of only four Congressmen, two Democrats and two Republicans, to vote against deregulation of derivatives, which he says are behind today’s economic woes.
“My opponent believes Wall Street will regulate themselves,” he said. “Well, they regulated themselves.”
DeFazio voted against the Wall Street bailout, he said. He opposed the president’s stimulus plans, not because he opposes jobs but because he wants effective investment.
Robinson voiced concerns about Congress’s spending habits and regulation of enterprise.
“I’m alarmed, like tens of millions of Americans are alarmed today,” he said. “That’s the issue in this election, whether we return to the free market or take the other path. In our economy here, we have public lands, but the public lands have been turned into government lands.”
During DeFazio’s tenure, those lands have been locked up and logging is a fraction of what it was at the beginning of that time.
“We had great locally controlled schools in the 1950s,” Robinson said, adding that those prepared him for Cal Tech, and Cal Tech prepared him for a career in science. Those schools are no longer locally controlled. Their test scores are lagging.
They’re the government-controlled result of growing big government.
The economy is hampered by regulation everywhere, he said. Industry must go abroad to find a better environment for their work.
“We need to get government off our backs and out of our lives.”
As a member of the Green Party, environmental stewardship and nonviolence are among Beilstein’s priorities, he said. Most important to him is nonviolence.
Beilstein sees the failure of the Republican and Democratic parties to address the nation’s permanent state of war, he said.
The United States exports more weapons than any other country. It spends more than any other nation on defense. It has troops in 170 countries. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost $1 trillion in direct federal spending and will cost the economy $3 trillion.
“There’s no credible evidence the people of Afghanistan were hiding or in control of Al Qaeda,” he said. The United States attacked one of the poorest nations in the world, making smaller rubble of a nation that already had been reduced to rubble.
“War is a racket,” Beilstein said. “You take resources out of the country to conduct war, and it enriches the few.”
The reason he is running for Congress, the most important thing that needs doing is to get the United States out of the wars, he said. There are other rackets that need shut down, like banking, he said, but the war racket is the most important.
Without ending war, it will not be able to address other issues, like global climate change, Beiltstein said.
DeFazio and Robinson also agreed that it was time to leave Afghanistan and Iraq.
Bicycles/alternate transportation
A question about providing bicycle infrastructure initiated a running debate between Robinson and DeFazio.
“I do think we need to have bicycle lanes along the street,” Robinson said. It’s an important safety feature. “Build a road, you build a place for a bicycle.”
Beilstein said that society cannot continue to exist with its car culture as oil runs out. Rather, he said it needs to make investments in local transit, a rail system that works and everyday solutions that work.
“Art Robinson wants to put bike lanes on the road, but he doesn’t want to build the roads,” DeFazio said. Throughout the night, DeFazio stressed the importance of investing in the nation’s infrastructure, with transportation alternatives built into every proposal.
This is one of the few nations that doesn’t borrow money to build its transportation, DeFazio said.
“It’s going to cost something,” he said. I want to make the investments without borrowing money, like so many other things we’ve done.”
The federal government can do it by using its transportation trust fund and taxing oil speculators who drove up prices a couple of years ago to $4 per gallon of gasoline.
Speculation is a zero-sum situation, Robinson said. It has no net profit to tax.
College loans
Beilstein and DeFazio said they support new legislation providing direct federal loans to students for college.
“I would say there’s been too much profit by banks in the business of student loans,” Beilstein said.
“Let’s stop subsidizing banks,” DeFazio said, advocating giving better terms to students and making a little money for the treasury.
However, DeFazio said, Robinson is committed to abolishing public education, not just K-12 but all the way through to the university level. He told Robinson that he couldn’t deny what he’s said previously in a video.
“It’s wrong,” DeFazio said. “I’m a strong supporter of public education, and that’s an important issue in this race.”
Robinson said DeFazio has a credibility problem if he believes what he just said. With that, he said that any institution anywhere should be allowed to loan money.
“This bill markedly increases the government’s role and suppresses the private institutions,” Robinson said. It will work as well as any other big-government program that DeFazio has supported.
DeFazio pressed the point later in the program: “Be honest and tell people you want to abolish public schools. Be honest and see how many votes you get.”
Social Security
Tens of millions of people depend on Social Security, DeFazio said. By making the rich start paying a Social Security tax, the program would be able to meet its obligations. He opposes attempts to begin using private accounts since there would be no way to pay for those who paid in and are already dependent on Social Security.
He criticized Robinson for wanting to cut those people off by going to private investment accounts.
“Everyone who’s paid in needs to get his buying power back,” Robinson said, adding that what he actually has said is they need to get their money back, and they need to receive a big boost to pay them back for what they lost in buying power as Congress spent every cent and invested Social Security funds in treasury bonds.
Beilstein said he thinks treasury bonds were a worthwhile, safe investment.
Bush’s tax cuts
Robinson said he would vote to extend President Bush’s tax cuts and a lot more.
DeFazio favors letting those cuts laps for those making more than $250,000.
Beilstein said he was certainly in favor of rescinding those tax cuts.
There is strong evidence that by cutting taxes, revenues go up, Robinson said, noting that Presidents Kennedy and Reagan cut taxes, revenues rose.
Taxes diminish economic activity, and spending those revenues don’t make up for the lost economic activity, Robinson said. “I think tax cuts are needed to get our economy started again.”
The loss of tax revenue means services must be cut, Beilstein said. That means tuition rises and only the wealthy can attend the universities and that health care will only be available to those who can afford it.
DeFazio said that n the 1950s, under President Eisenhower’s administration, “that time Robinson loves to refer back to,” the top marginal tax rate was 92 percent. “It shouldn’t ever go that high again.”
Then the richest 1 percent controlled 7 percent of wealth, DeFazio said. Now the top 1 percent controls 35 percent of the wealth.
Robinson also doesn’t say how he is going to cut spending, DeFazio said. “If we had total anarchy and no government, we’d still have a deficit today €“ one more trillion dollars in the hole if we follow your plan.”
That 92-percent tax rate was set during the Truman Administration to pay off World War II debts, Robinson said. When adjusted for inflation, it applied only to income more than $3 million “in the days the government was interested in paying its debts.”
Free trade
The North American Free Trade Agreement is like any agreement politicians vote for, Robinson said. “It’s not really free trade.”
While DeFazio opposed the agreement, there is an issue of free trade at home, Robinson said. He referred to the health care bill, saying “This bill says a doctor can’t have free trade with his patient.”
Further, Americans pay tariffs and taxes on everything, driving up costs and discouraging business, he said. “The real problem is free trade in the United States.”
DeFazio and his colleagues have suppress it, he said. “A doctor is going to be told who he can treat and when he can treat.”
NAFTA has been destructive to the United States, Beilstein said. It’s been a disaster for Mexico, which had to alter its constitution and eliminate its farms.
DeFazio said there are a number of interests behind these free trade policies, which created the World Trade Organization and most favored trade status to China, DeFazio said. He has been told it will mean cheap goods.
“I ask how are people going to be able to afford those things if they don’t have jobs,” DeFazio said. The United States needs an industrial policy to compete. Other countries have them. Other countries subsidize their industries. Airbus is subsidized by four different governments.
As for China, with lax environmental and labor policies, “no we’re not going to pay those who enslave these people,” DeFazio said.
Buying American and
infrastructure repairs
Buy American provisions have been passed, but they’ve had loopholes that allowed a California bridge project to order its steel from China, DeFazio said. The steel had bad welds, and it ended up costing jobs and money.
Buy American policies would put millions back to work in this country as the country invests in repairing its infrastructure, including thousands of bridges that need repairs, he said. He stressed the importance of spending money on infrastructure.
“People say, ‘You should keep your money,'” DeFazio said. “And then they fall down, like it did in Minnesota.”
The investment would go to private sector jobs through contracts, he said. “Although there are rules you have to pay people a decent wage.”
Since DeFazio has been in office, Robinson said, the national debt has gone from $2 trillion to $13 trillion.
Talking about this kind of spending means talking about finances, Robinson said. The federal budget is $4.2 trillion this year, and the federal government only anticipates revenues of $2 trillion counting $1 trillion in Social Security.
“They’re burying us in debt,” Robinson said. “It needs to be fixed. You can’t fix it by re-electing the people who created the problem.”
Illegal immigration and the Dream Act
Seal the borders, Robinson said. If an immigrant is found, send him home.
“We have to do that,” Robinson said. “If we don’t, we’ll just get tens of millions more.”
Beilstein said he supported the Dream Act, which allows students, even here illegally, who finish high school to remain. It mainly allows them to continue into college.
The last time immigration reform was passed, before he took office, it left a loophole, DeFazio said. With an amnesty component, the nation was told it wouldn’t happen again and employers using illegal immigrants would be sanctioned, but they were never sanctioned.
Hormel bused in Mexicans and busted its unions, DeFazio said. Republicans don’t want to talk about the employer sanctions, but hiring illegal immigrants is against the law, and the employers should pay a stiff fine.
He doesn’t support deporting all of the illegal immigrants already in the United States, he said, noting how disruptive it would be to have police officers knocking on doors everywhere looking for illegal immigrants.
He also supports the Dream Act and believes it should be part of any immigration reform, he said.
Logging
DeFazio said he didn’t think the Clinton Forest Plan protected the little old growth forest that remains or jobs, but he has a plan that would double the harvest with the objective of fire-proofing forests and making them healthy.
He said he has met with environmental groups and loggers and found common ground for the plan, with guidance from scientists from Oregon State University and the University of Washington.
His plan would allow the harvest of merchantable-sized timber, he said. Undersized timber would be turned to biomass.
During DeFazio’s time in office, Robinson reiterated, harvest has been reduced by 93 percent.
Talking to loggers, not a single one plans to vote for DeFazio “because they know what he did,” Robinson said. “He has been instrumental in killing our lumber industry.
“These are public lands, and we should use them.”
Balancing the federal budget
“The budget needs to be balanced primarily by stopping profligate government spending,” Robinson said. The Constitution provides for the common defense and few simple things, but politicians have been doing anything they can to buy votes.
DeFazio’s been in office for 24 years, and he wants more, Robinson said. “We have to get rid of these big spenders in Washington, and we can’t get rid of them by sending them back to Washington.”
Like Robinson, Beilstein said, he opposes profligate government spending, but their definitions probably differ.
Cutting spending for military purposes would eliminate half of the budget, he said. Not deploying troops to Afghanistan and Iraq would save $300 billion per year.
He also would increase taxes on the rich, people who have benefited from their country and who need to give something back, he said.
DeFazio said that even if the Department of Defense were completely eliminated, the budget would be nowhere near balanced.
Congress must cut wisely and tax fairly, he said. Even eliminating the federal government doesn’t get it there.
“I heard a lot of hysteria when Bill Clinton raised taxes €“ and I voted for that,” DeFazio said. Revenues increased and jobs boomed. The budget was balanced, then in came George Bush with trickle-down tax cuts that cost $5 trillion. He even expanded the size of government.
“We cannot go on borrowing forever,” DeFazio said.
Closing statements
People band together to help meet their needs, Beilstein said. They form governments to provide for the common good. They also allow people to build wealth, looking out for the individual good.
“But we’re failing to meet the common good,” he said. That needs to be changed, and the extremely rich need to pay the costs.
The Democrats and Republicans continue their wars as a means of funneling money to the few, he said. “No one in Washington is going to go against those corporations.”
DeFazio said he’s willing to take on everybody. He said he has taken on George Bush, Wall Street and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi when it came to the Wall Street bailout.
He voted to re-regulate Wall Street, DeFazio said. He doesn’t believe in trickle-down economics, he said.
“They (the wealthiest) need to pay their fair share. (Robinson) thinks their taxes should be cut.”
But Robinson will balance the budget magically, DeFazio said.
The United States cannot continue the free trade, laissez-faire policies Robinson supports, DeFazio said. It needs to bring jobs home and provide health care. It needs to make the rich pay the same as everyone else to fund Social Security.
Robinson concluded by stating that the “socialist” policies DeFazio supports are not consistent with the Constitution.
He said socialist nations are moving away from that system of goernment, and the time has come for DeFazio to retire to the home he purchased in New Zealand where he can watch his home nation spread “freedom, liberty and free enterprise that a prosperous America can provide to all mankind.”