PDHblog
This is a place for members of Progressive Democrats of Hawai‘i to express their thoughts
and exasperations about political happenings. The opinions and views are not necessarily
those of PDH's steering committee or membership as a whole.

Read Brian Schatz’s answers by clicking on “more.”

PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRATS OF HAWAI‘I QUESTIONAIRE
U.S. HOUSE

Rep. Brian Schatz

1. REGARDING IRAQ AND IRAN

1a. The United States is now engaged in a very controversial war in Iraq. Please tell us your thoughts regarding the way in which this country entered the war.
1b. How do you assess the current situation in Iraq?

The war in Iraq has been a diplomatic, strategic, financial and moral fiasco. While our military men and women have served valiantly and with honor, they have been poorly served by civilian leadership. Hawai‘i’s own General Eric Shinseki of Kauai paid the career price of speaking truth to power. Only now are other generals – mostly retired — speaking out about the reservations they had before this bungled war began.
Representative John Murtha, a Democrat but a conservative with strong ties to the U.S. military, has a plan that will not abandon our responsibilities to Iraq (we “broke” it so we can not abandon trying to “fix” it) but will get U.S. troops out of the line of fine and force the Iraqis to govern themselves, as only they can avoid a civil war and create a new country.

The war was based on trumped-up intelligence, and mind-bogglingly poor planning. It has undermined the United States’ credibility – not to mention popularity — in the international community. Our strategy was flawed from the start, with too few troops on the ground at the beginning and no plan to deal with the insurgency and sectarian divisions that many capable experts predicted would arise. We must immediately change our approach.

The most troubling aspect of this war is that we have squandered the most significant power that the United States has – our ability to inspire the admiration and cooperation of people around the world. Countries (and their people) used to respect, emulate, and follow the United States in terms of culture, economy, and international diplomacy. This Bush administration has squandered the international sympathy and good will the United States enjoyed in the aftermath of September 11 through arrogance and incompetence.
Iraq has been a disastrous distraction from the fundamental challenges of undermining Al Qaeda (and capturing Osama bin Laden, a potent symbol of the threat to our values and our lives), finishing the job of liberating and energizing Afghanistan, and containing Iran and North Korea. We must rebuild our diplomatic relationships by joining hands in the spirit of cooperation and equality with the majority of countries who see these necessary actions as part of their own national interests.

1c. What steps do you believe the United States should now take to resolve the situation in Iraq?

I support John Murtha’s plan for redeploying troops.

1d. The Bush administration is making sounds like it may attack Iran over their nuclear
program. Please share your thoughts about this prospect.

We must use diplomacy first, and avoid fighting another war. The war in Iraq has made Iran stronger, and we must not compound this error by engaging militarily.

2. REGARDING HEALTHCARE – The cost of healthcare in the United States continues to climb. We currently spend more per capita on healthcare than any other industrialized nation, yet 45 million Americans have no health insurance at all, and life expectancy and infant mortality rates are worse than those in other countries with comparable wealth.

The cost of healthcare puts a tremendous burden on both our people and our businesses.
Families are sometimes driven to bankruptcy by unanticipated medial emergencies and
healthcare costs for employers have become a growing business expense. More and more, we are seeing healthcare as the sticking point in labor disputes.

2a. What do you think can be done to control rising healthcare costs, while expanding
coverage for all Americans?

Luckily in Hawaii we have the Prepaid Healthcare Act (PHCA) which requires employers to provide coverage to their workers. The PHCA has been able to keep our uninsured rate relatively low and has prevented cost shifting to employees. Other states are experimenting with an employer mandate of this type requiring businesses to “pay or play.” I would be interested in examining how this could be implemented on a national scale without creating an unfair burden on businesses.

There are many ways to help decrease rising health care costs. One would be to increase the government’s payment rates to physicians and hospitals for Medicare and Medicaid recipients. These payments have been steadily decreasing causing many medical service providers to be under-compensated for the care they are providing. There also needs to be a change in our thinking as Americans in how we care for ourselves. I would like to see an increase in physical education programs and improved nutrition at schools to ensure our children are learning healthy behaviors from an early age.

2b. Please share your thoughts regarding proposals for a single-payer healthcare insurance plan, similar to that in Canada.

I have concerns about implementing a Canada-like system here in the United States. Frequently there are reports of individuals in Canada having to wait long periods of time to access certain services.

3. REGARDING TRADE – The increased integration of the U.S. economy into the world economy has resulted in major disruptions to the lives of many American workers and businesses. Some people believe that the international agreements, like GATT, NAFTA, and CAFTA, have undermined U.S. labor and environmental standards, led to the loss of millions of high paying jobs, and driven many small and medium sized companies out of business.

3a. What is your position in the debate over “Free Trade” versus “Fair Trade?”

I believe that all trade agreements should be negotiated with environmental and labor standards in mind, and that while trade can benefit countries and forge relationships internationally, these agreements must not serve as a way to facilitate a “race to the bottom” which enhances the profits of international corporations.

3b. What do you think can be done to ensure high wages and good working conditions in an era of international trade?

America must lead in the area of an international minimum wage, which can be adjusted country by country, and America must regain its leadership position on environmental issues, both through more thoughtful executive action (after 2008) and through Congressional oversight.

4. REGARDING POVERTY – Poverty rates have been rising in the U.S. for several years. Currently, 37 million Americans are living in poverty, according to governmental standards, including 27 million children. Yet social programs providing relief to these people have seen major cuts to their funding.

4a. Please describe what role you think Congress can play in reducing the effects of poverty upon our people and in creating conditions that will increase economic equality, rather than continue the trend toward increased economic disparity?

First, we must reverse the cuts in Medicaid, Medicare the Veterans Administration, Community Development Block Grants, and Pell Grants. These successful programs have lifted millions of people out of poverty, and the recent tax cuts have been financed both by borrowing and by cutting services in these areas.

Until we reverse these tax cuts, funding will not be available for these important anti-poverty measures.

REGARDING VOTER’S RIGHTS – The federal elections in both 2000 and 2004 were
marred by voting irregularities and by the widespread disenfranchisement of voters. Voters have not had equal access to reliable voting systems; voters have been purged from the voting rolls in ways that appear to have been designed to suppress turnout of poor and minority voters, and there is widespread concern that new, paperless voting systems are being forced upon voters that lack adequate safeguards against votes being lots due to system failures or even deliberate fraud.

5a. What can be done to ensure that all voters have an equal chance of casting their votes, that the votes shall be counted on secure systems, and that the results can be verified in a manner that gives voters confidence?

We must nationalize our voting process. It is simply not a matter of “states rights” or “home rule” to have each individual county in America with their own, often irregular voting system. Other modern countries have a national voting system with paper trails, and America has the financial resources to accomplish this, once the Congress changes hands.

5b. Do you have concerns about the current method of funding election campaigns and the influence of special interests on elections?

Yes, I believe it is costing taxpayers billions of dollars. The most recent and offensive example is the Medicare Part D debacle in which the federal government prohibits itself from negotiating a bulk purchasing price for prescription medicine, costing taxpayers more than 200 billion dollars.

5c. Do you support legislation for public funding of elections, such as were enacted in Maine and Arizona, and proposed locally by the “Voter Owned Elections” initiative?

Yes, I have been one of the strongest advocates for this program in the State House of Representatives during my eight year legislative career.

6. REGARDING EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY
6a. What are your views regarding claims that President Bush, pursuing the doctrine of the “unitary executive,” has over-stepped his Executive Authority, as granted in the U.S.
Constitution, by such actions as warrantless wiretapping, indefinitely holding detainees,
disregarding legislation, and presenting false information to Congress?

I believe that the President has consistently and willfully expanded his authority to reverse what Dick Cheney views as an inappropriate balance of power between the branches of government. This is wrong and may be the most important and damaging effort of the Bush Administration. This will take decades to reverse.

Of all of the Bush administration’s dangerous blunders, the greatest threat to our liberties is the outrageous – unnecessarily and illegal — use of our intelligence community to tap the phones of American citizens. Rather than use existing legal mechanisms, or ask Congress to authorize changes if those mechanisms did not work, President Bush and his closest advisors chose to perform these intercepts without warrants. This means they can (and may have been) done to any one of us with no oversight whatsoever.

There is an adequate, perfectly legal mechanism available to the president and security agencies to listen in on suspected terrorists. It is called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (or FISA) passed by Congress in 1978. Under FISA, carefully selected Federal judges who make up the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court grant surveillance warrants and have so done so thousands of times in the past. In an emergency, security agencies can start tapping a phone and receive permission from the court as late as three days later.

Why did President Bush not use this system but choose to violate the law? Why did he not ask Congress, with both houses controlled by his own party and led by his friends, to change the law? What does that tell you?

The fundamental question here is not how you feel about monitoring terrorists — which we all support, if done legally — or even if you are personally concerned about being spied on. The real issue is whether the President of the United States is above the law. The president says “Trust me.” But in the lifetime of many of us, we have seen presidents secretly break national laws for their own purpose. And this administration, which went to war on false pretenses, bungled the Katrina response, keeps Americans and foreigners in prison for years with no charges or even outside contact, uses torture but calls it by other names – all this in addition to illegally wiretapping Americans – has not earned our trust.

In fact, the Constitution says that under our system of checks and balances, Congress (and the courts) must hold the President accountable, because no one, not even the President of the United States, is above the law.

6b. Rep. John Conyers has introduced HR 635 to create a Select Committee empowered to investigate various allegations against President Bush and Vice President Cheney and to determine if the alleged abuses might constitute grounds for impeachment. What are your views on such a resolution? What actions, if any, do you think should be taken by Congress?

I believe that while there are likely to be impeachable offenses committed by the Executive that Democrats should focus on reversing the wrong-headed policies of the last six years rather than on impeachment.

7. REGARDING ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND THE ENVIRONMENT – U.S. economic development is currently based upon the highest per capita consumption of resources in the world. The citizens of many other countries, such as those in Western
Europe or Japan, have managed to have comparable prosperity while consuming substantially fewer resources. Countries such as China and India are industrializing at a rapid rate and their consumption of resources and production of pollutants is also rising at an alarming pace. This is having a destructive impact on the environment, both locally and globally and is clearly not sustainable.

The Bush administration and the Congressional Republicans, resist even the mildest regulations designed to reduce pollution, increase recycling, and preserve wilderness areas.

7a. What role do you believe Congress can play in reducing the destruction of environment and moving us towards sustainable economic development?

First, in treaty ratification, the Senate must put environmental protection at the top of the list of priorities. Second, we must take the approximately 60 billion dollars in annual subsidies for the oil industry and provide incentives to renewable energy producers. Third, we must make sure that public lands are not used as resources for mining, timber cultivation, and other commercial enterprises. Finally, we must protect ANWR.

8. OTHER IMPORTANT ISSUES
8a. In your opinion, what are other major important issues facing the country?

College Affordability
In a nation that takes pride in opportunity and optimism, higher education has been the pathway to the American dream. As tuitions become increasingly expensive, we must look for ways to make college more affordable. In the name of trying to balance the Federal budget, Congress has thrown cold water on the educational aspirations of many young people. It cut Federal student aid by $12 billion and raised interest rates on student loans. President Bush’s budget freezes Pell Grants once again, while tuition costs continue to soar. The result? Many young people in Hawai‘i and throughout the nation won’t get financial aid to pursue higher education.

Tax cuts for the wealthy are not free – they are paid for by the cuts in Federal student aid and other vital programs that benefit many, many of us. Recent fiscal policies are squeezing, not helping, the middle class. We must invest in the next generation by making college affordable. By repealing the tax cuts lavished on the rich, we can reverse these draconian cuts in student aid and start investing in a brighter future for our kids.

No Child Left Behind
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has two major problems. First, it is sorely under-funded. When NCLB was first passed, President Bush promised Sen. Ted Kennedy that it would be fully funded in return for his support. Democrats in Congress recently estimated that NCLB has been shortchanged by $40 billion in the last four years. First and foremost, we must provide adequate funds for this or any education initiative. Second, we must change the way we define school “success.” By imposing arbitrary and unrealistic standards, NCLB makes it nearly impossible for a public school system to be considered successful. Under NCLB, if a school does not meet the requirements of adequate yearly progress in any statistical subcategory, then the whole school is deemed a failure and the Federal government can take over the school. This program is deeply flawed – it is passing schools that should be failing and failing schools that should be passing. We need to measure the right things, measure them fairly, and eliminate the takeover process to keep local education under local control.

As a consequence of NCLB, we have lost sight of what matters in school. Teachers and administrators have become preoccupied with complying with mandates – and “teaching to the test” — but we have forgotten about learning. True education reform does not need elaborate statistics and harsh mandates. Recruit good teachers, train and pay them well, give them the resources, and equip their classrooms – then let them teach.

8b. What are your personal legislative priorities and why should Hawai‘i voters choose to vote for you?

My legislative priorities are:
1. To develop a more rational, multilateral, and strategic foreign policy
2. To protect Hawai‘i’s natural environment
3. To repeal or radically amend No Child Left Behind
4. To bring home money for roads on the neighbor islands