Cross-posted from Minnesota Progressive Project
The race for Minnesota's 8th District congressional seat heated up Tuesday as former U.S. Representative Rick Nolan blasted incumbent Representative Chip Cravaack for furthering the agenda of the Tea Party at the expense of the people of his district.
Nolan, who insists that people matter more than big corporatons, issued this press release:
Incumbent Congressman Chip Cravaack and radical right wingers in his caucus, have “lost sight of America’s well being ” with an approach to the debt ceiling crisis Nolan called “a blind attack on government services to people – not the debt.”
Nolan cited Cravaack’s efforts to put Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits on the budget chopping block, as well as votes to cut millions of dollars in Essential Air Service (EAS) funding to regional airports in Hibbing-Chisholm, International Falls, Thief River Falls and potentially Brainerd and Bemidji. “Chip Cravaack’s hands are all over the debt ceiling crisis in Washington,” Nolan said.
Nolan also pointed to Cravaack’s support of House Republican efforts to eliminate funding and shut down the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which is responsible for airport safety and regulation. While the agency’s funding is suspended due to House and Senate Republican procedural moves, he said the nation’s major airlines are continuing to collect and pocket some $200 million a week in airport usage fees from passengers – money that would ordinarily be passed on to a separate fund to support airport construction, rural airports and other public services of the FAA.
“Right wing attacks on Social Security, Medicare, small regional airports and the FAA – none of which have anything to do with a debt ceiling crisis driven by Bush tax cuts for the rich, corporate tax and trade policies that encourage American jobs to move overseas, and multi-trillion dollar wars of choice in the Middle East – is a blind attack on government services to people, not the debt,” Nolan stated.
“If Chip Cravaack were really committed to eliminating the national debt, he would be supporting regional airports in places like Hibbing, Chisholm, Brainerd and Bemidji, that bring jobs and economic development to northern Minnesota. He would be supporting an increase in the Social Security income cap so the rich would be paying their fair share. He would be supporting an end to Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. And he would be supporting efforts to permit the government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for fair prices under Medicare Part D.”
“But in every case,” Nolan continued, “Chip Cravaack is voting and working against the people he was elected to represent – because he clearly doesn’t believe they matter in Washington.”
Nolan is right; we don't matter to New Hampshire Chip. But we mattered to Nolan's good friend and colleague Jim Oberstar and it's clear we will matter in an 8th district represented by Rick Nolan.