Posted on 09/27/2012 10:38:29 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the third in an occasional series of stories based on meetings between The Telegraph editorial board and candidates running for federal and state offices in the Nov. 6 general election.
The first time former Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter ran for office, she had just returned from New Orleans soon after Hurricane Katrina, where she found people struggling and abandoned by their government.
Now, six years later, she worries Congress is heading down the same road.
“In 2006, I said the poor have fallen and the middle class are stumbling, and it has not gotten easier,” Shea-Porter, who is running once again in New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District, said Thursday during a meeting with The Telegraph’s editorial board.
“We are not paying attention to the middle class, We are not paying attention to small businesses. We’re not watching out for our senior citizens and for the military,” she said. “It really has been a very difficult two years.”
In the two years since they took office, the Repubilcan majority in the U.S. House of Representatives has largely abandoned the middle class in favor of the interests of wealthy taxpayers and large corporations, said Shea-Porter, who served two terms in Congress from 2006-2010 until she fell to sitting U.S. Rep. Frank Guinta, a Republican, in the 2010 race.
Co-opted by the tea party wing of the party, Republican lawmakers have sought to peel back the business regulations that caused the current recession, Shea-Porter said. They have tried to turn Medicare into a voucher program, she said, and they have brought the country to the economic brink by hestitating to raise the federal debt ceiling.
The debt ceiling deal, reached just as the country was set to default, left lawmakers facing $1 trillion in cuts now hanging over the military and other domestic programs.
“That’s a result of having about 78 tea partiers go down to Washington, including Frank Guinta,” she said. “They pushed us right to the edge of default, and that has cost us more than $1 billion in higher interest already. … It’s fiscally irresponsible to do that.”
Rather than bowing to an extreme tea party agenda, Shea-Porter said, if returned to office, she would work for the middle class by supporting President Barack Obama’s proposed jobs legislation.
“That’s going to be the first order of business I’m sure if Democrats come back and take the majority,” she said.
Shea-Porter would work to preserve Medicare in its current form, she said, and she would foot the bill by asking the country’s wealthiest taxpayers to pay more, allowing the Bush-era tax breaks to expire on income after the first $300,000.
“The system is broken. The tax system is not fair,” Shea-Porter said, quoting business magnate Warren Buffett. “We can’t give every single person, no matter what their income, a free ride in this country.”
On federal health care reform, the candidate acknowledged the Affordable Care Act, which she voted for in 2009, may require tweaks to eliminate waste and fraud. But, on the whole, she lauded the controversial law for making health insurance coverage more accesible to young adults, seniors and those with pre-existing conditions, among other patients.
“There are lots of good benefits there. But like anything else, after you write a bill and then they actually start to implement it, there are going to be changes,” she said.
On the issue of Social Security, Shea-Porter said the program will require changes, as well.
Unlike some claims, Social Security is not facing bankruptcy, but it will require some adjustments to ensure full coverage for those paying in, Shea-Porter said.
To keep the program solvent, she offered support for raising the taxable cap, currently $110,000, on taxable income.
“What they like to say is if we raise the cap, that will hurt small businesses. But, think about it, how many small businesses do you know actually pay their employees more than $110,000 a year?” Shea-Porter asked. “Not that many. … So the reality is that raising the cap would obviously provide more funding to Social Security. (It) would be the answer.”
Still, Guinta and many other House Republicans are not free to consider this solution, Shea-Porter said, because they have agreed to conservative lobbyist Grover Norquist’s pledge to oppose tax increases.
“They are locked into this pledge, but I’m not locked into any pledge,” she stressed. “People recognize there has to be some revenue and I think most people really don’t want to drain government to the size where it can go down a drain.”
Looking toward the Nov. 6 election, recent polls show Shea-Porter and Guinta running neck-and-neck.
A poll released last month by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center shows Shea-Porter leading Guinta 45-43 percent, within the margin of error.
“The jobs situation is still tough. There’s a lot of frustration, which we all share about where that is,” Shea-Porter said. “But I think more people understand what really happened in 2008 at the great Wall Street crash. … There’s more optimism.”
Huh? Let me get this straight. According to this mental midget Shea-Porter, she's for raising the salary cap on taxing income for social security to provide more funding for the program because nobody who owns a small business actually earns that much so nobody will be hurt by the tax increase.
Hell, I can't even write about her stupid idea without making my brain hurt.
New election, same old Marxist hag. No way I’m voting for Che-Pelosi.
NH Ping! FreepMail me if you want on or off this list.
LMBO!!
It still cracks me up when a communist Democrat scumbag like Shea-Porter uses that phrase "by asking taxpayers to pay more", when everybody knows she means, "by putting a gun to taxpayers' heads and taking more".
“The first time former Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter ran for office, she had just returned from New Orleans soon after Hurricane Katrina, where she found people struggling and abandoned by their government.”
The article neglected to mention that the “government” was Ray Nagin-DEM Mayor of N’awlins and Kathleen Blanco-DEM Governor of Louisiana. Hell, post Katrina we never heard or saw Blanco again in my parts.
CAROL BELIEVES IN FAIRNESS. Fairness means all Americans should pay their fair share—no special breaks for millionaires and unfair subsidies for corporations.
Not one word about the 47% who pay no income tax because of the broken tax system she refers to in another part of her website.
CAROL IS COMMITTED TO PRESERVING SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE. She opposes the 2011 and 2012 Republican Voucher-care privatization legislation that will hurt seniors.
Can she tell us exactly how it will "hurt" seniors?
CAROL HAS WORKED FOR CLEAN AIR AND WATER, SAFE FOOD, AND A CLEAN ENERGY FUTURE. Carol supports laws that punish polluters. She wants America to invest in an Apollo-type program for clean energy and energy independence—a national security priority.
I wonder what kind of car she drives and how many times she has been on an airplane? Would she support a law to punish herself for polluting?
CAROL IS A HARD WORKER AND AN EFFECTIVE LEGISLATOR WHO GETS THE JOB DONE. During her four years in Congress, Carol brought construction and jobs to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, helped secure funding to rebuild Portsmouth’s Memorial Bridge, increased Pell grants for students, got funding for community health centers and grants for police and firefighters, and much, much more.
Why did she need to go to the Federal government for all of this? Why did the residents of NH not pony up to pay for these things?
Just some musings that I am sure would never be answered by this candidate. On that last one, we must never forget the following quote:
“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville
JoMa
Medicare Advantage is a voucher program. My Mom loved the flexibility. Obamacare cuts funds to MA.
This woman was a disaster as congresscritter. I can’t believe that anyone would consider putting her back in. She’s awful.
In 2006, Jeb Bradley had pulled off what was thought to be impossible by saving the shipyard. He was rewarded for his effort by being thrown out of office and replaced by this hag. It will be a sad day for NH and the country if she gets back in.
It is ‘abortion uber alles’ for NH women...that is where the support comes from for Shea-Porter, Hassan, Kuster, Shaheen, and their ilk...
Shea-Porter (a proud hyphenated-American, who so far as we know has not yet claimed to be a Cherokee) believes every article of faith in the left-wing catechism: that government is the source of all wealth and jobs, that evil billionaires don't pay taxes, that social welfare is a right but that property is a privilege, that "fairness" is defined by equal distribution of stuff, etc. etc. I hope she gets clobbered hard enough by the voters of this district (NH-1) that she doesn't try to run again.
Dumb as a rock
Your typical Obama lover.
Glad to see she has come out for taxing the leeches in America. /s
You missed the point. She thinks that “hurting small business” refers to the employees of small businesses, rather than the owners of the small business. Shea-Whatever is hopelessly unclear on the way business works. She apparently thinks that small businesses are owned and run by its employees.
Shaheen in particular never met an abortion she wasn’t thrilled about.
All federal employees salaries across the board should be cut 1%....is that asking too much? They will still make more than the civilian employee...
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