Know Your Candidates Part I: Duane DeKrey
Over the next few days I'm going to be posting interviews I've done with three candidates for the Republican nomination to run for the U.S. Congress. Today is Hose candidate Duane DeKrey. Tomorrow is his opponent Matthew Mechtel and Thursday I'm hoping to have an interview up (I'm still hammering out the details) with Senate challenger Dwight Groteberg, who is running unopposed.
After I post all three interviews I'll put up a post about my reactions to each candidate and my preference for the nomination to run against Earl Pomeroy.
Here is the audio of my interview with him. Below you will find a full transcript. R: Rob Port
D: Duane DeKerey
R: All right this is Rob Port with sayanythingblog.com and I am here with State Representative Duane DeKerey, who is going to be running for the Republican nomination for the House of Representatives to run against Earl Pomeroy at the conference here at the first part of April. How are you today, Mr. DeKerey?
D: Just fine. Good to hear from you.
R: Great, well I’ll go ahead and just jump right into the interview here, I know you’re busy. What made you decide to run for the House?
D: Well what really made me decide to run was I had so many people and several legislators within the party that contacted me and asked me to run. I hadn’t given it a lot of thought up until that point but when I discovered the kind of support I had within the party apparatus and amongst my colleagues, they convinced me that I would be a good candidate so I finally decided to take the plunge and gave them the go-ahead and said I’d seek the nomination at the convention.
R: Great, great. What is your involvement in the past? What is your political resume I guess?
D: Well I guess my political resume would be that in the 1989 election I took on Gene Hilton and defeated a longtime incumbent Democratic senator to get into the North Dakota Senate. I was challenged at that Republican Convention and there were three of us and I came out of the convention with the endorsement and was not challenged in the primary, then was able to go on and defeat Hilton that fall. Then of course the legislature reapportions every ten years and I was one of the floor Republicans that got reapportioned out. If you’ll remember the Democrats controlled the North Dakota Senate at that time and they certainly weren’t happy with me beating Hilton and so they flexed their muscle to see to it I was one of those that got reapportioned out during that cycle. Then I came back in 93 and ran for the House seat that I hold presently and I was, I think it’s three or four sessions now I’ve been chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and we used to run every two years and we finally, the people of North Dakota gave us four year terms and I’m just finishing up my second four-year term I believe.
R: Great, great. Now running for, coming from the State Legislature to the Federal Legislature, into the Federal House of Representatives, what problems that face North Dakota today do you think you can address from the Federal House of Representatives?
D: Well I think that North Dakota is pretty indicative of just about all the rural states in the nation and particularly the Midwest. We’ve had declining populations although all the states for the most part seem to have leveled off now and are actually starting to grow again and we have pretty much an agriculturally based economy. Both Governor Schaeffer and Governor Hoeven have done a really good job of leading the charge to diversify our economy here in North Dakota and I think that we have seen that rural development works and I think I can take that firsthand knowledge to Washington DC in the writing of the next Farm Bill and see that rural development is an important part of the next Farm Bill and of course being an active farmer/rancher since 1978 I’m in the trenches. I know what works and what doesn’t work and I can take that to Washington and hopefully we can hammer out a new Farm Bill that will be advantageous to the North Dakota producers and the Midwest as well.
R: Great. I guess my next question is obviously we already have Earl Pomeroy in office, has been elected more than once by the people of North Dakota. Why do you think Earl Pomeroy should be voted out of office?
D: Well, the fact of the matter is that we don’t have a seat at the table. As I’ve mentioned already I served as a minority in the North Dakota Senate and it’s just the way the legislative process works is that the majority party is the one that does the legislating and unfortunately with Congressman Pomeroy, he does not have a seat at the table with the majority party. Now there’s polls out there now that show that the Republican-held Congress is certainly at a low ebb right now but there isn’t anybody taking the lead to predicting that the Republicans are going to lose either the House or the Senate so if we return Pomeroy we will be returning another legislator who does not have a seat at the table. I mean all he can do is fight from the edges and try to take North Dakota’s message but when the party leadership and the committee chairman sit down and finalize their plan, Earl Pomeroy will not be there.
R: Sure. Now I think that answer kind of plays into my next question which was a lot of people often say that North Dakota shouldn’t change its congressional representation too often because every time we make a change and we send a new face to Congress that person becomes junior in the ranks of Congress and North Dakota’s standing in Washington then is diminished. What do you say to the people who say that?
D: Well if our congressman was in the majority party I would agree with them but what good does seniority do us if it’s in the minority party? I mean he may have some sway within his own party but when I say again, when the people, the leadership and the committee chair sit down and put bills together he is not going to be there and it doesn’t matter how much seniority he has, he still does not have a seat at the table.
R: Great. Many conservative Republicans in the country and I think many just Americans in general, have been upset or at least concerned about the amount of spending taking place in Washington, a lot of which has come under Republican leadership. What is your philosophy on government spending? Are you in favor of slowing it down and if so, how would you go about doing that?
D: Well I think that we definitely need to slow it down. I mean we are putting a debt nationally that we are going to pass on to our children and grandchildren that is just unconscionable and I think we need a seat at that table in the Republican Caucus to take that message to Washington because it’s not only the Democrats who have been traditionally the spenders, it seems to be that now the Republicans need to hear that message. I think their system on the way they govern and the way they do appropriations needs to be changed. It’s way too easy to just slip useless things into the budget and get them passed so you that can run back home and say look how much money I’m bringing home for your state. I mean a perfect example of that is we have a $250 million bridge that goes nowhere in Alaska now. Those are the types of things that need to be cut. I think we can actually increase spending in areas of national defense, farm programs and things that are very important to the healthy, stable economy of this country but we need to do away with the frivolous spending and I believe there is an awful lot of people not in just North Dakota but in the whole country that believe that also.
R: Great. Now when you say that you’re going to cut spending, if the budget, I guess I’ll just go on to the next question here, I think you answered that one pretty well. What do you think North Dakotans are looking for in a Representative?
D: Oh I think they want honesty and integrity and I think they want representation. I think that they know that their congressman has a seat at the table and they can make a difference for North Dakota. I think that they want someone that has a past of leadership. I’ve shown leadership in the military, I’ve shown leadership in my community, I’ve certainly shown leadership in the North Dakota Legislature and I think that they want to see that leadership taken to Washington and to benefit them that when the priorities are set that they have a seat at the table to help set those priorities and see to it that their interests are not just taken care of but interests that are just frivolous and unconscionable don’t happen.
R: Sure. Now, but before you get a chance at running against Earl Pomeroy you need to get the Republican nomination and you have some competition in Matt Mechtel and Ian Carvo. What advantages do you feel you hold over those men? Why should state Republicans choose you instead of them?
D: Well I think that can be summed up in the word experience. I have run a campaign, I’ve beat an incumbent, I know how a campaign has to have money, I know how hard it is to campaign and what you have to do day to day to run a campaign and I mean those are the types of things that, those are the types of experiences that will help a candidate, whoever takes on Earl Pomeroy, hit the ground running. I mean those are all very important things that are in a campaign and if you’ve never done them before and you’ve got to learn them in your first campaign, that makes it pretty tough. I mean we all know that whoever the nominee is, they’re going to be starting way behind the 8-ball in dollars. Pomeroy’s last report I saw has already got over $700,000 in the bank to run this campaign so whoever comes out of the convention in Minot has got a monumental task of raising money and I think that my experience in raising money and knowing how to run a campaign definitely sets me apart from the rest of the candidates.
R: That makes a lot of sense. If you do get the nomination and you end up running against Earl Pomeroy, what do you think the most important issues that are going to come out during the campaign, what do you think those issues will be?
D: Well we certainly, you know immigration right now is an extremely hot topic. I noticed that they expect the United States Senate to pass some kind of a guest worker program which President Bush supports and then in the House version it actually makes it a felony to be here illegally. I haven’t seen the details of either program but just off the top of my head I don’t think we have any shortage of space in our prisons and I’m not so sure the way to deal with immigration is to start making them felons and locking them up, that just sounds to me like we’re going to be adding more expense to an already, budget that’s in trouble. I can tell you from experience right here in my own county with all the irrigated potatoes and everything that we raise, that the Mexicans that are coming here legally and working for our potato farmers are a very intricate part of their operations and I would hate to see us pass anything that would harm their operations. I think immigration definitely is going to be a hot topic. The war in Iraq, that’s going to be a continual topic and we’re going to hear all kinds of different opinions on how that war should be handled. I think that’s another issue that sets me apart from my fellow Republicans is that I’ve got 28 years of experience in the military in one way or another. I’ve commanded a company, I’ve commanded a platoon, I was an infantry officer, I have all those leadership experiences and I have the knowledge of how the military works and when it comes to national security and the Defense Department budgets and those types of things I think I have a definite leg up with my military experience. Other issues, of course the Farm Bill is coming up. That’s extremely important to North Dakota. Nationwide we have 67 million people that are involved in agribusiness and only about 2 million of those are actually farmers and ranchers on the ground and so we need to take a long term look at the Farm Program, write a long term Farm Bill that not only keeps farmers and ranchers healthy but also looks to the future and positions the United States agriculture in the global market which we are in now. Those are just three quick issues that I believe will be big in the campaign.
R: Sure. Switching gears a little bit, what is your stance on tax reform? Do we need it in the country and if so, what would be your approach to reforming taxes?
D: Well definitely you know taxation is a very important part of government. It needs to be fair. I mean the system we have, it needs to be fair and those people, that everybody pays their fair share. I think the present system we have now definitely could be improved on. I know there’s a quirk in the different types of property that you own that we’ve got many farmers and ranchers now who are in their late fifties, early sixties that would like to retire but the way our tax code is set up, for them to get out of farming they just about have to give it all to the government. If there would be a way in the tax code that we could switch like property for other property they could take their lifelong investment they have in their farm and ranch and put that money otherwhere without penalty that would actually help the rest of the economy and help the rest of the nation and it also would help transfer the farm ground out here that is largely owned by people that are facing retirement to get it into the younger generation and spur some more people from the younger generation to get involved in farming and ranching.
R: Sure and something of the same ticket, you know taxes are something we all deal with. Social Security is something that we all have to deal with, too. It’s been a hot topic in the last couple of years. What is your stance on Social Security? Do we need reform and if so, what would you see done?
D: Well we definitely need reform. When President Bush came and talked to us in Fargo last time about his vision for Social Security reform I was quite interested to find out that when he was stating in what year Social Security was either going to have to cut benefits or raise taxes to maintain the level of benefits that we’re at, happens to be the year in which I should draw and so I am very acutely interested in Social Security reform. Unfortunately our nation is not a nation of savers and many people, when they get to retirement age, unfortunately they’re looking at Social Security as their only form of retirement and that’s a pretty meager form of retirement and so we need to improve that so that if the nation is going to have Social Security as its primary retirement it’s going to have to amount to something so that people can actually live decently and not in poverty and I’m certainly not in favor of raising the taxes that people pay for Social Security benefits. If you’re self-employed right now you’re already looking at an over 15% burden on your earnings and then you add that, the minimum tax bracket is 15%. We’re already looking at over 30% of our disposable income going to Washington and so we need to take a look at that. I know that privatization of accounts for the most part hasn’t seemed to be very popular with the people and I think the main reason it isn’t real popular with Congress is they’re so busy dipping into the Social Security trust fund to pay for all the other bills for things they shouldn’t be spending that they see that as a loss of revenue to them and that’s just wrong. I mean Social Security should be a dedicated fund that’s set aside and used only for Social Security and to insure a proper retirement for our elderly citizens.
R: Do you support privatization of the Social Security fund?
D: I do in a limited form. Right now as a federal employee you can take a portion of the money you pay into that retirement system and you can prioritize that yourself. I’ve been a longtime National Guard member and my paycheck is actually considered as a federal paycheck and in the National Guard I can take a small percentage of my earning out of my own pocket, it’s not matched by the federal government or anything, it’s my money and I can stick it into a private account. Now the accounts are regulated, you just can’t go out and pick anything you want, I mean you can’t go out and buy a bunch of rare coins or something and say that’s what you’re spending that money on. I mean they have varying accounts with different mixes of stocks and bonds, mutual funds and that type of thing and you pick which level of risk you are willing to accept and then you invest in one of those accounts that is held by the government but nevertheless it’s your money and it can’t be touched then by the federal government. That type of a privatization I would be in support of.
R: Okay, okay. Next question, recently certain members of Congress, and we’ve been hearing a lot about this in the media, have come under fire for apparently shady dealings with lobbyists. Do you feel lobbying reform is needed and if so, what sort of reform?
D: Well there’s always room for improvement but I think the thing to bear in mind here, to remember is that they were caught. It would be different if it was going on and they were just getting away with it and everybody knew it was going on but we have to remember these people were caught and they’re actually serving time now and so although there’s always going to be people that are trying to beat the system and line their own pockets, I think when it comes to lobbying, it is pretty fairly well regulated. Like I said there always is room for improvement but I mean when all three of our delegations gave money back, that should tell you about how confident they are that all that money is clean and so I think we need to definitely take a look at it but we can’t throw the baby out with the bath. I mean the average citizen cannot go down to Washington DC and lobby Congress. I mean it needs to be a member of a group, a farm group, a business group or whatever and they need to pool their assets so that they have an effect on Congress, that’s just the way the system works and so lobbying is necessary because it gets the message of the people to Congress but it definitely needs to be safeguarded and there’s always room for improvement so I definitely wouldn’t be opposed to looking at lobbying and seeing if we do need reform but I think that a lot of the media have overblown the problem. Like I said, the people that have done it have been caught so obviously there are some checks and balances there and they are working for the most part.
R: Great, just two more questions here. First one, entitlement spending goes up every single year in this country either automatically or at the discretion of Congress. Programs like Medicare and Medicaid are taking up more and more of our budget every year. Anytime there’s a move to even reduce the rate of growth and not even cut actual spending but just reduce the rate at which the spending is growing, it’s met with some pretty fierce opposition. What is your view on entitlement spending?
D: Well I think that entitlement spending really needs to be looked at because we cannot continue to be just be on this spiral of up. I mean there are many other priorities in this country and we just can’t become a nation of welfare. I mean we have got to spend our dollars wisely so that we keep our economy robust. I mean I think there’s a real fear out there that if we continue to just let the entitlement programs explode that eventually it’s going to harm our economy and our country and we have to look no further than Europe. Look at the mess France has got right now. Look at the mess that Great Britain is in. I mean those are countries that tended to be more socialistic than democratic and tried to provide cradle to grave to their citizens and they actually have a mess now because they’ve let it get so out of hand and so we need to get that under control. I mean they’re rioting in the streets now in France over some of these issues and we certainly don’t want that kind of a situation in this country.
R: Absolutely, absolutely. Last question, and this one is about health care, which is sort of on the same line as the last question. It’s a very important issue facing America. Every citizen needs health care at some point in their life. The president has suggested, and the problem with health care is that it costs so much money that paying for it either through insurance or however it’s set up is becoming a problem. The president has suggested we solve the problem by using things like Health Savings Account to move the individual back in charge of managing and paying for their own health care rather than government or insurance companies. I guess the way I like to put it is making the individual responsible for their own health choices rather than the collective. What is your view on the situation?
D: Well I agree with the president. We have seen that situation here in North Dakota. We have a private businessman in North Dakota, Hedahl, and they have come to the legislature the last two sessions and shown us how they have dramatically, dramatically reduced the health costs for their company and how did they do it? They put their employees in charge of it. The employees decide what their deductibles are going to be, what constitutes a valid doctor’s visit and they put all those things together and the employees themselves can see the benefit of it where it saves them money in health care costs and then those are dollars that their employer has available to actually put in their pocket in higher wages because it’s not all spent on the medical. I think that we’ve got to wean ourselves on these plans, that you just pay your monthly fee and then you go to the doctor and do whatever you want and then the legislature in some instances has mandated coverages that these companies have to provide for and that takes away consumer choice and what we’ve gotten ourselves into is a situation where the spending on health care is just absolutely unchecked because the people that use it have no incentive whatsoever to shop around and try to save some dollars.
R: Great, absolutely. Well that’s all I have for you. Thanks for taking the time to speak with me and answer these questions. Is there anything else you’d like to add before we close out?
D: No, I’m real happy that you called. A good friend of mine, --- said that you’d be calling and that you were good people so I was more than happy to visit with you and we’ll see what happens at the convention.
R: Great, great, thank you. I hope to see you there.
D: Look forward to reading your site and make sure you grab me at the convention and introduce yourself and look forward to seeing you.
R: I sure will. Thank you.
D: You bet.
After I post all three interviews I'll put up a post about my reactions to each candidate and my preference for the nomination to run against Earl Pomeroy.
Here is the audio of my interview with him. Below you will find a full transcript. R: Rob Port
D: Duane DeKerey
R: All right this is Rob Port with sayanythingblog.com and I am here with State Representative Duane DeKerey, who is going to be running for the Republican nomination for the House of Representatives to run against Earl Pomeroy at the conference here at the first part of April. How are you today, Mr. DeKerey?
D: Just fine. Good to hear from you.
R: Great, well I’ll go ahead and just jump right into the interview here, I know you’re busy. What made you decide to run for the House?
D: Well what really made me decide to run was I had so many people and several legislators within the party that contacted me and asked me to run. I hadn’t given it a lot of thought up until that point but when I discovered the kind of support I had within the party apparatus and amongst my colleagues, they convinced me that I would be a good candidate so I finally decided to take the plunge and gave them the go-ahead and said I’d seek the nomination at the convention.
R: Great, great. What is your involvement in the past? What is your political resume I guess?
D: Well I guess my political resume would be that in the 1989 election I took on Gene Hilton and defeated a longtime incumbent Democratic senator to get into the North Dakota Senate. I was challenged at that Republican Convention and there were three of us and I came out of the convention with the endorsement and was not challenged in the primary, then was able to go on and defeat Hilton that fall. Then of course the legislature reapportions every ten years and I was one of the floor Republicans that got reapportioned out. If you’ll remember the Democrats controlled the North Dakota Senate at that time and they certainly weren’t happy with me beating Hilton and so they flexed their muscle to see to it I was one of those that got reapportioned out during that cycle. Then I came back in 93 and ran for the House seat that I hold presently and I was, I think it’s three or four sessions now I’ve been chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and we used to run every two years and we finally, the people of North Dakota gave us four year terms and I’m just finishing up my second four-year term I believe.
R: Great, great. Now running for, coming from the State Legislature to the Federal Legislature, into the Federal House of Representatives, what problems that face North Dakota today do you think you can address from the Federal House of Representatives?
D: Well I think that North Dakota is pretty indicative of just about all the rural states in the nation and particularly the Midwest. We’ve had declining populations although all the states for the most part seem to have leveled off now and are actually starting to grow again and we have pretty much an agriculturally based economy. Both Governor Schaeffer and Governor Hoeven have done a really good job of leading the charge to diversify our economy here in North Dakota and I think that we have seen that rural development works and I think I can take that firsthand knowledge to Washington DC in the writing of the next Farm Bill and see that rural development is an important part of the next Farm Bill and of course being an active farmer/rancher since 1978 I’m in the trenches. I know what works and what doesn’t work and I can take that to Washington and hopefully we can hammer out a new Farm Bill that will be advantageous to the North Dakota producers and the Midwest as well.
R: Great. I guess my next question is obviously we already have Earl Pomeroy in office, has been elected more than once by the people of North Dakota. Why do you think Earl Pomeroy should be voted out of office?
D: Well, the fact of the matter is that we don’t have a seat at the table. As I’ve mentioned already I served as a minority in the North Dakota Senate and it’s just the way the legislative process works is that the majority party is the one that does the legislating and unfortunately with Congressman Pomeroy, he does not have a seat at the table with the majority party. Now there’s polls out there now that show that the Republican-held Congress is certainly at a low ebb right now but there isn’t anybody taking the lead to predicting that the Republicans are going to lose either the House or the Senate so if we return Pomeroy we will be returning another legislator who does not have a seat at the table. I mean all he can do is fight from the edges and try to take North Dakota’s message but when the party leadership and the committee chairman sit down and finalize their plan, Earl Pomeroy will not be there.
R: Sure. Now I think that answer kind of plays into my next question which was a lot of people often say that North Dakota shouldn’t change its congressional representation too often because every time we make a change and we send a new face to Congress that person becomes junior in the ranks of Congress and North Dakota’s standing in Washington then is diminished. What do you say to the people who say that?
D: Well if our congressman was in the majority party I would agree with them but what good does seniority do us if it’s in the minority party? I mean he may have some sway within his own party but when I say again, when the people, the leadership and the committee chair sit down and put bills together he is not going to be there and it doesn’t matter how much seniority he has, he still does not have a seat at the table.
R: Great. Many conservative Republicans in the country and I think many just Americans in general, have been upset or at least concerned about the amount of spending taking place in Washington, a lot of which has come under Republican leadership. What is your philosophy on government spending? Are you in favor of slowing it down and if so, how would you go about doing that?
D: Well I think that we definitely need to slow it down. I mean we are putting a debt nationally that we are going to pass on to our children and grandchildren that is just unconscionable and I think we need a seat at that table in the Republican Caucus to take that message to Washington because it’s not only the Democrats who have been traditionally the spenders, it seems to be that now the Republicans need to hear that message. I think their system on the way they govern and the way they do appropriations needs to be changed. It’s way too easy to just slip useless things into the budget and get them passed so you that can run back home and say look how much money I’m bringing home for your state. I mean a perfect example of that is we have a $250 million bridge that goes nowhere in Alaska now. Those are the types of things that need to be cut. I think we can actually increase spending in areas of national defense, farm programs and things that are very important to the healthy, stable economy of this country but we need to do away with the frivolous spending and I believe there is an awful lot of people not in just North Dakota but in the whole country that believe that also.
R: Great. Now when you say that you’re going to cut spending, if the budget, I guess I’ll just go on to the next question here, I think you answered that one pretty well. What do you think North Dakotans are looking for in a Representative?
D: Oh I think they want honesty and integrity and I think they want representation. I think that they know that their congressman has a seat at the table and they can make a difference for North Dakota. I think that they want someone that has a past of leadership. I’ve shown leadership in the military, I’ve shown leadership in my community, I’ve certainly shown leadership in the North Dakota Legislature and I think that they want to see that leadership taken to Washington and to benefit them that when the priorities are set that they have a seat at the table to help set those priorities and see to it that their interests are not just taken care of but interests that are just frivolous and unconscionable don’t happen.
R: Sure. Now, but before you get a chance at running against Earl Pomeroy you need to get the Republican nomination and you have some competition in Matt Mechtel and Ian Carvo. What advantages do you feel you hold over those men? Why should state Republicans choose you instead of them?
D: Well I think that can be summed up in the word experience. I have run a campaign, I’ve beat an incumbent, I know how a campaign has to have money, I know how hard it is to campaign and what you have to do day to day to run a campaign and I mean those are the types of things that, those are the types of experiences that will help a candidate, whoever takes on Earl Pomeroy, hit the ground running. I mean those are all very important things that are in a campaign and if you’ve never done them before and you’ve got to learn them in your first campaign, that makes it pretty tough. I mean we all know that whoever the nominee is, they’re going to be starting way behind the 8-ball in dollars. Pomeroy’s last report I saw has already got over $700,000 in the bank to run this campaign so whoever comes out of the convention in Minot has got a monumental task of raising money and I think that my experience in raising money and knowing how to run a campaign definitely sets me apart from the rest of the candidates.
R: That makes a lot of sense. If you do get the nomination and you end up running against Earl Pomeroy, what do you think the most important issues that are going to come out during the campaign, what do you think those issues will be?
D: Well we certainly, you know immigration right now is an extremely hot topic. I noticed that they expect the United States Senate to pass some kind of a guest worker program which President Bush supports and then in the House version it actually makes it a felony to be here illegally. I haven’t seen the details of either program but just off the top of my head I don’t think we have any shortage of space in our prisons and I’m not so sure the way to deal with immigration is to start making them felons and locking them up, that just sounds to me like we’re going to be adding more expense to an already, budget that’s in trouble. I can tell you from experience right here in my own county with all the irrigated potatoes and everything that we raise, that the Mexicans that are coming here legally and working for our potato farmers are a very intricate part of their operations and I would hate to see us pass anything that would harm their operations. I think immigration definitely is going to be a hot topic. The war in Iraq, that’s going to be a continual topic and we’re going to hear all kinds of different opinions on how that war should be handled. I think that’s another issue that sets me apart from my fellow Republicans is that I’ve got 28 years of experience in the military in one way or another. I’ve commanded a company, I’ve commanded a platoon, I was an infantry officer, I have all those leadership experiences and I have the knowledge of how the military works and when it comes to national security and the Defense Department budgets and those types of things I think I have a definite leg up with my military experience. Other issues, of course the Farm Bill is coming up. That’s extremely important to North Dakota. Nationwide we have 67 million people that are involved in agribusiness and only about 2 million of those are actually farmers and ranchers on the ground and so we need to take a long term look at the Farm Program, write a long term Farm Bill that not only keeps farmers and ranchers healthy but also looks to the future and positions the United States agriculture in the global market which we are in now. Those are just three quick issues that I believe will be big in the campaign.
R: Sure. Switching gears a little bit, what is your stance on tax reform? Do we need it in the country and if so, what would be your approach to reforming taxes?
D: Well definitely you know taxation is a very important part of government. It needs to be fair. I mean the system we have, it needs to be fair and those people, that everybody pays their fair share. I think the present system we have now definitely could be improved on. I know there’s a quirk in the different types of property that you own that we’ve got many farmers and ranchers now who are in their late fifties, early sixties that would like to retire but the way our tax code is set up, for them to get out of farming they just about have to give it all to the government. If there would be a way in the tax code that we could switch like property for other property they could take their lifelong investment they have in their farm and ranch and put that money otherwhere without penalty that would actually help the rest of the economy and help the rest of the nation and it also would help transfer the farm ground out here that is largely owned by people that are facing retirement to get it into the younger generation and spur some more people from the younger generation to get involved in farming and ranching.
R: Sure and something of the same ticket, you know taxes are something we all deal with. Social Security is something that we all have to deal with, too. It’s been a hot topic in the last couple of years. What is your stance on Social Security? Do we need reform and if so, what would you see done?
D: Well we definitely need reform. When President Bush came and talked to us in Fargo last time about his vision for Social Security reform I was quite interested to find out that when he was stating in what year Social Security was either going to have to cut benefits or raise taxes to maintain the level of benefits that we’re at, happens to be the year in which I should draw and so I am very acutely interested in Social Security reform. Unfortunately our nation is not a nation of savers and many people, when they get to retirement age, unfortunately they’re looking at Social Security as their only form of retirement and that’s a pretty meager form of retirement and so we need to improve that so that if the nation is going to have Social Security as its primary retirement it’s going to have to amount to something so that people can actually live decently and not in poverty and I’m certainly not in favor of raising the taxes that people pay for Social Security benefits. If you’re self-employed right now you’re already looking at an over 15% burden on your earnings and then you add that, the minimum tax bracket is 15%. We’re already looking at over 30% of our disposable income going to Washington and so we need to take a look at that. I know that privatization of accounts for the most part hasn’t seemed to be very popular with the people and I think the main reason it isn’t real popular with Congress is they’re so busy dipping into the Social Security trust fund to pay for all the other bills for things they shouldn’t be spending that they see that as a loss of revenue to them and that’s just wrong. I mean Social Security should be a dedicated fund that’s set aside and used only for Social Security and to insure a proper retirement for our elderly citizens.
R: Do you support privatization of the Social Security fund?
D: I do in a limited form. Right now as a federal employee you can take a portion of the money you pay into that retirement system and you can prioritize that yourself. I’ve been a longtime National Guard member and my paycheck is actually considered as a federal paycheck and in the National Guard I can take a small percentage of my earning out of my own pocket, it’s not matched by the federal government or anything, it’s my money and I can stick it into a private account. Now the accounts are regulated, you just can’t go out and pick anything you want, I mean you can’t go out and buy a bunch of rare coins or something and say that’s what you’re spending that money on. I mean they have varying accounts with different mixes of stocks and bonds, mutual funds and that type of thing and you pick which level of risk you are willing to accept and then you invest in one of those accounts that is held by the government but nevertheless it’s your money and it can’t be touched then by the federal government. That type of a privatization I would be in support of.
R: Okay, okay. Next question, recently certain members of Congress, and we’ve been hearing a lot about this in the media, have come under fire for apparently shady dealings with lobbyists. Do you feel lobbying reform is needed and if so, what sort of reform?
D: Well there’s always room for improvement but I think the thing to bear in mind here, to remember is that they were caught. It would be different if it was going on and they were just getting away with it and everybody knew it was going on but we have to remember these people were caught and they’re actually serving time now and so although there’s always going to be people that are trying to beat the system and line their own pockets, I think when it comes to lobbying, it is pretty fairly well regulated. Like I said there always is room for improvement but I mean when all three of our delegations gave money back, that should tell you about how confident they are that all that money is clean and so I think we need to definitely take a look at it but we can’t throw the baby out with the bath. I mean the average citizen cannot go down to Washington DC and lobby Congress. I mean it needs to be a member of a group, a farm group, a business group or whatever and they need to pool their assets so that they have an effect on Congress, that’s just the way the system works and so lobbying is necessary because it gets the message of the people to Congress but it definitely needs to be safeguarded and there’s always room for improvement so I definitely wouldn’t be opposed to looking at lobbying and seeing if we do need reform but I think that a lot of the media have overblown the problem. Like I said, the people that have done it have been caught so obviously there are some checks and balances there and they are working for the most part.
R: Great, just two more questions here. First one, entitlement spending goes up every single year in this country either automatically or at the discretion of Congress. Programs like Medicare and Medicaid are taking up more and more of our budget every year. Anytime there’s a move to even reduce the rate of growth and not even cut actual spending but just reduce the rate at which the spending is growing, it’s met with some pretty fierce opposition. What is your view on entitlement spending?
D: Well I think that entitlement spending really needs to be looked at because we cannot continue to be just be on this spiral of up. I mean there are many other priorities in this country and we just can’t become a nation of welfare. I mean we have got to spend our dollars wisely so that we keep our economy robust. I mean I think there’s a real fear out there that if we continue to just let the entitlement programs explode that eventually it’s going to harm our economy and our country and we have to look no further than Europe. Look at the mess France has got right now. Look at the mess that Great Britain is in. I mean those are countries that tended to be more socialistic than democratic and tried to provide cradle to grave to their citizens and they actually have a mess now because they’ve let it get so out of hand and so we need to get that under control. I mean they’re rioting in the streets now in France over some of these issues and we certainly don’t want that kind of a situation in this country.
R: Absolutely, absolutely. Last question, and this one is about health care, which is sort of on the same line as the last question. It’s a very important issue facing America. Every citizen needs health care at some point in their life. The president has suggested, and the problem with health care is that it costs so much money that paying for it either through insurance or however it’s set up is becoming a problem. The president has suggested we solve the problem by using things like Health Savings Account to move the individual back in charge of managing and paying for their own health care rather than government or insurance companies. I guess the way I like to put it is making the individual responsible for their own health choices rather than the collective. What is your view on the situation?
D: Well I agree with the president. We have seen that situation here in North Dakota. We have a private businessman in North Dakota, Hedahl, and they have come to the legislature the last two sessions and shown us how they have dramatically, dramatically reduced the health costs for their company and how did they do it? They put their employees in charge of it. The employees decide what their deductibles are going to be, what constitutes a valid doctor’s visit and they put all those things together and the employees themselves can see the benefit of it where it saves them money in health care costs and then those are dollars that their employer has available to actually put in their pocket in higher wages because it’s not all spent on the medical. I think that we’ve got to wean ourselves on these plans, that you just pay your monthly fee and then you go to the doctor and do whatever you want and then the legislature in some instances has mandated coverages that these companies have to provide for and that takes away consumer choice and what we’ve gotten ourselves into is a situation where the spending on health care is just absolutely unchecked because the people that use it have no incentive whatsoever to shop around and try to save some dollars.
R: Great, absolutely. Well that’s all I have for you. Thanks for taking the time to speak with me and answer these questions. Is there anything else you’d like to add before we close out?
D: No, I’m real happy that you called. A good friend of mine, --- said that you’d be calling and that you were good people so I was more than happy to visit with you and we’ll see what happens at the convention.
R: Great, great, thank you. I hope to see you there.
D: Look forward to reading your site and make sure you grab me at the convention and introduce yourself and look forward to seeing you.
R: I sure will. Thank you.
D: You bet.
Rabid American
Harry
likwidshoe
Hannitized
Kenny
