Bontrager: Economic recovery, education, transportation. Improved business climate creates jobs, generates revenue, and reduces individual tax burden. In education, we need to focus more resources in the classroom. Targeted transportation improvements will boost productivity, increase time with families and improve quality of life.
McAuliffe: My budget priority is to get a K-12 finance study in place to fund basic education. This would outline a long-range plan for providing an equitable and stable funding system for our schools and educators.
QWhat can the state do to make sure growth occurs in a responsible way?
Bontrager: Minimize regulation, properly structure tax laws. Making Washington good for business will induce growth and expand our economy. The Boeing 7E7 victory and aerospace are prime examples. We can do the same for biotech companies in Bothell, with right-minded tax laws and regulation reforms, and affect responsible growth and prosperity.
McAuliffe: Preserve and protect the Growth Management Act (GMA). This act protects our region’s livability and directs urban development to urban areas, reduces the loss of rural and resource lands and prevents sprawl.
QWhat is the best way for state government to help the economy and create jobs?
Bontrager: Reduce taxes and regulation. Washington’s slow recession recovery is due to its unfriendly business climate; excessive taxes and regulation are directly to blame. Reducing taxes encourages growth, reinvestment, and innovation. Reducing regulation enables businesses to focus on core activities. Then business growth occurs, the tax base expands, and everyone wins.
McAuliffe: Provide access to our community colleges and technical colleges for job training and retraining into the jobs that need skilled employees: health care, professional services and high-tech construction and education.
QWhat should be the next step in addressing transportation needs in the district?
Bontrager: Map improvement priorities to actual use. We must target increased capacity where people are actually traveling. Studies clearly show we can reduce congestion by 36 percent with 6 percent new lane miles. That’s an opportunity and mandate to provide better stewardship of state resources. And we can do this without increasing taxes.
McAuliffe: A) demonstrate to the public that the projects financed with the 5-cents per gallon increase in the gas tax can be done on time and within budget; B) work to pass a regional transportation plan; C) secure the funding for the fly-over ramp for UW-Bothell and Cascadia Community College.
QWhat can you as a state legislator do to improve access to health care?
Bontrager: End frivolous lawsuits. Soaring health care costs are largely due to frivolous lawsuits. Physicians must cover insurance premiums; insurance premiums must cover lawsuits costs. Consequence: costs soar and physician leave. We’ll protect citizens who’ve been harmed, but ending frivolous lawsuits will reduce health care costs, attract physicians and make health care affordable.
McAuliffe: I will work to establish health insurance purchasing pools for employers and incentives for employers to provide health care for their employees.
QWhat is the single biggest educational problem in the state and what would you do about it?
Bontrager: Focus of resources. Bureaucrats don’t educate children, teachers do. Less than a third of education funding reaches the classroom, less than half goes toward basic instruction. We’ve dramatically increased funding, yet we’re seeing little improvement. We should put children and educating first, and empower teachers by focusing resources on classrooms.
McAuliffe: Staying the course on education reform and restructuring. In 2008 students will have to pass the 10th grade WASL and receive a certificate to graduate. I will work to refine HB 2195, which allows five retakes, a route for special education and ESL students and alternative assessments.
QWhat is the biggest social issue in the district, and how would you go about solving it?
Bontrager: Quality of life. Parents spend too much time in traffic instead of at home; families spend too much in taxes; businesses spend too much energy meeting debilitating regulations. When people have more money and time, they invest in things important to them, like children, community, business and charities.
McAuliffe: Homelessness, as seen by the response to tent city. We need programs that build low-income housing and allow families to have low-rent subsidies; uniform state requirements for siting tent cities in communities, and to allow cottages, detached homes and mid-rise, low-income apartments to be sited in our residential communities.
QWhat is the biggest issue facing the state today related to law and justice?
Bontrager: Frivolous lawsuits. They diminish access to quality health care, place a terrible burden on businesses, and cost innocent victims in untold ways. We must protect our citizens who’ve been harmed, but we must reduce the strain frivolous lawsuits place on our justice system, our health care premiums and our businesses.
McAuliffe: The rising cost of prisons. We need to do more home monitoring, early release for nonviolent offenders and find efficiencies that will reduce cost.
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