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Economic Stimulus, Health Care: Congressmen Camp and Kildee Speak Out By Mike Thompson The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is better known as the economic stimulus plan, or on Review Magazine’s pages this year, Stimi. In the seventh segment of our ongoing “Stimi Series,” we had the privilege to interview our two congressmen from mid-Michigan, Republican Dave Camp of Midland and Democrat Dale Kildee of Flint. Camp says that of the $787 billion for Stimi, the $252 billion for tax cuts was not enough and the $535 billion for public spending has been largely ineffective. Kildee says that the economy needed a stimulus jump start under President Barack Obama, after eight years of general decline under President George W. Bush. Since we had them on the phone, we tossed in some questions regarding the ongoing health care reform debate. Here’s what they have to say:
REVIEW: Small business aid, both through the Recovery Act and through established programs such as the Saginaw Economic Development Corporation, is geared toward purchases of new equipment and new technology. Funds for basics such as working capital or debt retirement are “ineligible” for such small enterprises as neighborhood markets, bakeries, restaurants, beauty salons and barbershops, and so forth. At Review Magazine, we believe this focus in small business aid is too narrow and inflexible, and that more of the Recovery Act should have been invested into small business aid. 98% of this money is going to anything but small business. How do you respond to our concerns?
When it comes to health care, we must absolutely help small businesses afford and provide health insurance for themselves and their employees. I believe we should allow small businesses to band together and form larger pools of employees that would help them get the same lower costs plans available to large corporations.
Small business initiatives in the stimulus have already shown results. Compared to the worst points in the recession, Small Business Administration loans are up over 70 percent and small firms have benefited from nearly $13 billion in SBA supported lending since the stimulus went into effect. These improvements are critical, as small firms create approximately two thirds of all new jobs and will lead the effort to reduce unemployment in our nation. But the stimulus is not the only one way that the Administration is working to help small firms. Recently, the President announced a new initiative to help entrepreneurs access credit and grow their businesses. This will be done by seeking legislation to increase the maximum SBA loan size, providing community banks with lower-cost capital, on the condition that they first submit a plan explaining how this would enable them to increase small business lending, and convening a summit of small business leaders to explore ways to ensure credit is available to our entrepreneurs. There is still a long way to go, but these steps will be critical in helping our small firms achieve success and spur economic recovery.
REVIEW: Now that we are eight months into Stimi, how would you measure the impact? KILDEE: We must remember that when President Obama took office, the economy was facing the worst crisis in a generation and had nearly collapsed into a depression. Job losses exceeded 700,000 in January 2009 and the economic growth rate had hit negative 6.4 percent, the worst decline in more than 50 years. Inaction was simply not an option. This economic decline was years in the making, and unfortunately there is not an overnight solution. But I do believe that the stimulus has helped stabilize our economy and that we are better off now than we would have been had we done nothing. According to Moody’s and the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the Recovery Act has saved or created 1 million jobs since it was enacted and it is widely credited for adding 2 to 3 percentage points to our economic growth. In the last three months of the Bush Administration, job losses averaged 673,000 compared to 256,000 during each of the past three months. I am positively certain that the actions taken by this Congress helped our nation avoid a near certain depression and put us on the road to economic recovery. In fact, under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), American taxpayers have already earned $12 billion in dividends and interest on the funds that were invested in banks and financial institutions. (Editor’s Note: Congress passed the $700 billion TARP “for Wall Street” at the end of the Bush Administration, four months prior to the $787 billion Stimi “for Main Street” at the start of the Obama Administration.) We are certainly making progress, but I will not be satisfied until we have positive job growth and that all workers in our country are able to bring home a decent wage. That is the goal, but the stimulus is an important tool in the fight to get our economy thriving again.
CAMP: The Democrats’ plan to get our economy moving again has been ineffective. We cannot spend our way out of an economic crisis. We are now $1.1 trillion more in debt, and unemployment continues to rise. In fact, the “Obama Misery Index,” which measures the combined change in the public debt and unemployment since President Obama was inaugurated, is now 40 percent higher than the levels for his first full day in office on January 21, 2009. Michigan is one of the states hardest hit by administration's failed "stimulus;" in fact, 49 of 50 states have lost jobs under the administration’s plan. Michigan has lost the fourth-most jobs under the President’s stimulus plan, yet still has the highest unemployment in the country at 15.3 percent. And, Michigan ranks 48th out of all the states to receive stimulus funds for job creation. How is that helping, and where are this administration’s priorities? All this goes to show we should rescind the current stimulus plan. We need to better target those funds and focus on tax cuts, which get more money into the hands of American families and our economy faster than government spending. This administration's entire stimulus plan was off-course. The spending was misplaced and too slow, and the tax cuts were either poorly targeted or scaled back so much that they were ineffective. But we could go much, much further with tax cuts, as I suggested in the stimulus plan I introduced, along with other programs that have been proven to show immediate relief in Americans' wallets and to our unemployment rates. Nearly 88 percent of stimulus funds have not yet been spent. This crisis called for a very quick economic turnaround. Republicans had a proposal that would have seen twice the jobs at half the cost. Yet under the President's plan, at this rate, it's going to take another 5 years to spend all the stimulus money. The American people cannot wait 5 more years for jobs. Michigan's unemployment is the highest in the nation, at 15.3 percent, and it continues to grow each month. I can't imagine where it could be in another 5 years. We need turnaround now.
REVIEW: On health care reform. Congressman Kildee supports proposed reform legislation. Congressman Camp has other ideas. Please state your points. CAMP: Congress must take the following steps in order to expand access to affordable health care options: 1) Reduce junk lawsuits that force doctors to order unnecessary, costly tests. 2) Reform insurance regulations to force health insurance companies to compete by allowing Americans to band together and buy insurance across state lines. 3) Eliminate waste, fraud and abuse in government health care programs that costs taxpayers billions of dollars every year. KILDEE: Some 14,000 people a day are losing their employer-sponsored health care. Employers simply can’t keep up with rising health care costs. As the President pointed out, the rising cost of health care in this country has forced small businesses to make their employees pay more for insurance or to drop their coverage entirely. It is also why so many aspiring entrepreneurs cannot afford to open a business in the first place, and why American businesses that compete internationally — like our automakers — are at a huge disadvantage. That’s why it is so urgent that Congress act now to reform health care and create lower costs.
REVIEW: Congressman Kildee asserts that Democratic health care reform plans would not increase federal debt, but Congressman Camp predicts annual budget deficits would skyrocket. Please elaborate. KILDEE: As President Obama stated to Congress, this plan will cost $900 billion dollars over the course of 10 years. The House bill is paid for by eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in health care savings from prevention and wellness programs, and a tax increase on couples making more than $500,000. While this may sound like a lot of money, we already spend $2 trillion a year on health care. The President insisted during his address to Congress that he “will not sign a bill that adds one dime to our deficits, now or in the future, period.” In fact, the public insurance option would work exactly like any private insurance company — it would be self-sufficient and rely on the premiums it collects to pay for the program. CAMP: There is nothing automatic about these cuts, as has been shown with other programs that have similar “triggers,” such as the Medicare cuts in the Sustainable Growth Rate formula (reimbursement rates for doctors), meant to curtail Medicare spending. Congress has waived those cuts every year since 2003. I think that any plan that includes a public option or co-op will devolve into massive amounts of deficit spending. Right now, House Democrats plan to pay for their plan’s $1 trillion price tag partly by increasing taxes and partly by cutting Medicare by $500 billion. That would especially hurt our seniors and hurt Americans struggling to pay the bills during this recession. That massive amount of taxing and spending and those types of cuts to Medicaid will not help our economy or reform our health care system.
REVIEW: Congressman Camp says Democratic health care reform plans would place added hardship on small businesses. Congressman Kildee offers a 100 percent opposite view, saying small enterprises would benefit. Please state your cases. CAMP: Businesses will face an 8 percent payroll tax, and possibly even more fines, if they do not provide their employees with the right kind of health insurance. That’s right, even if you are providing health insurance for your employees you could still end up paying this tax and other fees. And, Americans who don’t have health insurance or have the wrong kind of health insurance also face fines --- and possibly jail time. This is one of the primary reasons I voted against the House Democrat bill. KILDEE: Small businesses are the backbone of our nation’s economy creating approximately two thirds of all new jobs. The House bill is designed to support them, not add more burdens. In no way do we want to harm small businesses. Very small businesses employers with payrolls under $250,000 are exempt from requirements to cover their employees, and this legislation also offers tax credits for small businesses that offer health insurance to their employees. As the President indicated in his speech to Congress, 95 percent of all small businesses, because of their size and narrow profit margin, would be exempt from these requirements.
REVIEW: Critics say that when Republican South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson shouted “You Lie” at President Obama during a speech after Labor Day, it reflected an increasing breakdown in civil discourse. Wilson claimed Obama was lying in regards to preventing federal health care coverage for illegal immigrants. What’s your take on this? KILDEE: This is a democracy but we should be more civil. Rudeness and rashness don’t contribute. In the House of Representatives, it’s not about any one member. We have 435 members and this requires a certain decorum. I serve on committees with Congressman Wilson, and I have even supported some of his amendments, but he was wrong in this case. There has been a lessening of civility in Congress compared to when I started, a degradation of civility. However, with Dave Camp, we may disagree, but we represent adjoining districts, and he and I are friends. CAMP: I believe that Representative Wilson should have apologized and he did. But the truth is, the House Democrat bill would allow illegal immigrants to obtain health care coverage. In my committee, the Ways and Means Committee, we proposed an amendment to ensure this would be prevented, and all Democrats voted against it. It has been proposed again and again, in committees in both the House and Senate, and Democrats have continuously shot it down. I think we also have to remember that it is our job to listen to what our constituents say, as we represent their opinions and have to take them back to Washington as we frame our debates here. So I don’t think it is “un-American” to express your viewpoint — in fact, it is a Constitutional right, the basis of what this country was founded on. Obviously, we all have the obligation to conduct our debates in a civil and respectful manner. |
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