One of the hottest contests this election season is between Republican John Koster and Democrat Suzan DelBene for the open seat in the 1st Congressional District.
As part of our coverage, we posed a handful of questions to the candidates and plan to run their responses throughout the remaining weeks of the campaign — beginning today.
Q: If you know you can introduce one bill that will be signed by the president, what would it be? In answering, please consider and address the potential ramifications for this new law.
Suzan DelBene
Bad behavior on Wall Street crashed our economy and nearly sent us into a full-scale depression in 2008, and unfortunately we have not done enough to rein in excessive Wall Street risk-taking and ensure that those mistakes are not repeated. The financial reform legislation that was passed in 2010 did not do enough to protect the public from having to again bail out “too big to fail” banks. To get our economy back on track, we need to make sure these powerful banking interests don’t gamble away our savings. Middle class families must be protected from the recklessness of Wall Street.
At the beginning of the next session of Congress, I will introduce legislation to implement a modern-day Glass Steagall Act. This is the law that was passed during the Depression to separate the deposits of middle class families in commercial banks from the high-risk bets made by investment banks. It protected us from a financial meltdown for more than 50 years, but unfortunately it was repealed in the 1990s, setting the stage for the financial implosion of 2008. We need to restore Glass Steagall so we never have to suffer through that kind of meltdown again.
John Koster
After careful consideration of all the problems facing our nation, without question the most serious is our stagnate economy. To address this crisis, I would introduce “The Jobs Through Growth Act,” legislation that is sponsored by the Republican Study Committee.
Why? This law addresses the three key components of major economic recovery: simplified taxation, reduced business regulation and increased energy production. All of these components are essential to creating an environment for businesses to create jobs.
This legislation allows entrepreneurs and consumers to keep more of their own money for spending and investing. By simplifying the tax code, reducing the corporate tax rate to 25 percent, eliminating: the Death Tax, the Alternative Minimum Tax — all the while responsibly closing various tax loopholes that have been exploited – this legislation will reverse the trend of closing shops and layoffs.
We need to cut through the red tape. Reducing regulation allows business to do what it is that they need to do, and not spend precious time meeting artificial benchmarks and drafting meaningless statements demanded by the government. There are some well-thinking but greatly misguided politicians in Washington D.C. who seem to think we can’t be business-friendly and respect the environment simultaneously.
Finally, this bill promotes energy production — the key to kick-starting the lifeblood of business. The hallmark of this legislation is unlocking areas for exploration, be they on or off-shore, and approves the Keystone XL Pipeline that will help eliminate our dependence on foreign oil — a serious national security risk. We must provide fuel to literally drive this economy, and secure the sources of fuel away from unstable regions across the globe. American businesses should not be subject to the instability of the Middle East. We have the capacity, the ability, the resources and the need to develop our own sources of energy, all-the-while being good stewards of our land.
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