Previously, I discussed the battle to keep Quinn as the Illinois Governor.
The 3rd stop of my tour: Illinois' 17th District, which includes Moline, Quincy, Macomb, Galesburg, Sterling, Carlinville, part of Madison County, small portion of Springfield (surrounded by IL-18 and IL-19, both Republican districts), Decatur, and Kewanee.
Incumbent Phil Hare is trying to stave off a challenge from Teahadist Bobby Schilling. Green Party's Roger K. Davis is also in the running.
SEIU: "We can't afford Bobby Schilling"
Phil Hare TV 'Sick & Tired':
from stlouis peacenik's Kos blog: Don't Let Dishonest Tea Prevail!
I created a video yesterday documenting the dishonest techniques that constitute the new "conservative citizen journalism movement" that the tea party has used so effectively to push their media narrative. The video is a case study of the operations of Adam Sharp of sharpelbows.net, a local conservative blog. In the past, Sharp has stalked Congressman Carnahan, hilariously tried to accuse Fox 2 reporter Charles Jaco of "assaulting," him (which, BTW, earned Sharp an Ass Clown of the Week awardfrom Riverfront Times voters), and falsely claimed that Congressman Phil Hare said he "doesn't care about the constitution."
Phil Hare's Issues:
Labor
For 13 years, I cut the lining for men’s suits at Seaford Clothing Factory in Rock Island, where I also served as union leader and President of UNITE HERE Local 617. There, I saw first-hand the struggle of hard-working Americans to make ends meet. Like me, they were ordinary people merely wanting the opportunity to own a home, earn a decent living, raise their family in a safe neighborhood, afford health care, send their kids to college, and in the end have a little left for retirement.
I ran for Congress to help make people’s lives better one day at a time. I believe I can do that by fighting for better wages, secure pensions, adequate health care coverage, and for workers to exercise their right to organize and collectively bargain, which is why I am a strong supporter of the Employee Free Choice Act. This legislation requires employers to recognize a union formed by a majority sign-up and increases penalties for breaking the law. Above all, it restores fairness to the process by letting employees decide how or whether they want to form a union.
Healthcare
Since coming to Congress I have fought tirelessly to put health care in reach for every family throughout West Central Illinois. Ensuring quality, affordable health care for American families is essential to the economic prosperity of our nation, our children's education, workers' productivity and businesses' competitiveness. For too long insurance companies have placed profit over people, care has been unattainable, prevention has been ignored and too many Americans have been left in the shadows of the system unable to afford care.
For the millions of Americans who are uninsured, the thousands of Illinois residents who are denied coverage each year as a result of a pre-existing condition—often children, and for the families who are forced into bankruptcy or lose their homes as a result of overwhelming medical bills, I was proud to cast my vote in favor of health care reform.
When President Obama signed health reform into law, he joined Congress in ensuring that all Americans have access to quality, affordable health care and significantly reducing long-term health care costs. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has determined that it will provide coverage to 32 million more people, or more than 94% percent of Americans while reducing the deficit by $143 billion over the next ten years, with $1.2 trillion in additional deficit reduction in the following 10 years.
Small Business
Small business is the backbone of the American economy and this rings just as true here in West Central Illinois. We must do whatever we can to make it easier for those that create most of our jobs to compete. I believe the stability of locally owned small businesses is the key to the success of our economy as there are over 6 million small employers with 43 million employees and nearly 22 million self-employed people. Small business is the preeminent creator of jobs across this nation and I have worked throughout my time in Congress to advocate for them throughout Illinois. I believe we must focus on policies that will promote entrepreneurship and small business growth, including increasing small business access to capital.
Economy
Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. My number one priority as a Member of Congress is to help enact policies that will lead to the creation of good-paying jobs in Illinois. I have been working tirelessly to address the unemployment crisis across this nation and will continue to work in a bipartisan manner to create lasting employment in every corner of Illinois and America.
Since the beginning of this economic crisis I have been working aggressively on legislation to put Americans back to work and give our families the economic security they need and deserve. Specifically, I’ve taken the following action:
· In April 2010, I introduced the Security in Energy and Manufacturing Act which would extend and improve the Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit program. The program provides a 30 percent tax credit for the creation of new manufacturing facilities that produce alternative energy components. The bill is aimed at rebuilding our manufacturing base and creating good paying permanent jobs in the emerging clean energy field.
Education
Higher Education
In these difficult economic times it is critical that students have the opportunity to go to college, advance their education and receive the training they need for a good-paying job. As a member of the House Education and Labor Committee, I have had the privilege of working to enact groundbreaking reforms that will make higher education more affordable for all Americans while eliminating wasteful and abusive subsidized lending practices. I proudly supported the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, the new student loan reform law that the President signed on March 30, 2010. It is the single largest investment in federal student aid ever– at no cost to taxpayers. The law increases the Pell Grant program, provides new and needed resources to community colleges, and helps students better manage their debt.
Pre-K and K-12
I am also committed to ensuring equal educational opportunities for every child. I believe we have an obligation to tackle the challenges facing our public education system. As Chairman of the House Rural Education Caucus, I am one of the leading voices in Congress on issues affecting rural schools and have helped create solutions to meet the unique challenges facing these school systems.
In reforming our education system, we must first focus on rewriting the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). While I support the accountability goals under the law and its effort to provide high quality teachers in every classroom, NCLB is flawed and substantial reforms are necessary. The previous administration failed to fully fund the law, leaving the states to bear the burden and students to pay the price. Currently, NCLB punishes schools not making substantial progress on standardized testing, encourages teachers to "teach to the test," and forces schools desperate to improve test scores to eliminate courses in science and the arts. As the House Education and Labor Committee begins to craft the reauthorization of this legislation I am committed to seeing it be formed in a bipartisan way that puts the needs of our teachers, students and communities first.
Roger K. Davis's Issues:
The National Health Care Insurance Program
Implement a single payer program that will cover all of one’s medical needs: Doctors, Hospital, Dental, Eyes, Prescriptions, and Medical equipment that one might need.
Simplify billing and forms process.
Institute Tort reforms. That covers ones lost wages and medical cost. And that covers punitive damages fairly and honestly.
Federal licensing for all medical personnel. This prevents a person who loses their license in one state from going to another state and obtaining a license to practice medicine.
Education
We must stop the waste, fraud and abuse in our educational programs.
The only responsibility that our Federal government should have is to insure that the state and local governments are providing our children with an education, and that that education meets the National standard.
The Federal and State governments should not mandate any programs on the local community’s educational system without being able to fund those mandates.
We need to stop complaining about our educational system and see what we need to start fixing it.
Because of the "no child left behind" philosophy in our educational system we are graduating students whose reading, writing, comprehension, and math skills are below a sixth grade level. This is unacceptable: stop worrying about how the child will feel if they fail and start helping them succeed.
For those students who graduate high school: I want to offer them a college education or technical school training, but only if they meet the admission standards and will do volunteer work at any nonprofit agency or enlist in the state’s National Guard or military reserves. If they chose the guard or reserves they will be paid for their service.
No child will be allowed to drop out of school without being placed in a job training program where they will receive vocational and GED training. After completion of this training program they will be eligible for the college or technical school program.
For the Economy:
To help fix America’s Economy I would start by repealing NAFTA, CAFTA, Fast Track and other trade agreements that have done a great job of moving our American Jobs overseas.
I then would stop all tax breaks and incentives for businesses to relocate from one local community and state to another. This is pitting our local communities and states against each other with the winner giving all these breaks to get a business to move to their community or state by using Taxpayers money and the loser sees their community and states economy devastated by the loss of these jobs.
For Jobs:
I want to institute a program that I have named "THE PUT AMERICA BACK TO WORK" program
This program will get its funding by placing an Import Fee on all goods produced by any businesses that do not bring their jobs back to America after we repeal NAFTA, CAFTA, Fast Track and other trade agreements that moved our jobs overseas. The Import Fee will be equal to the cost of manufacturing that product here in America and may not be passed on to the consumer or taken off their Taxes as a cost of doing business.
These funds will cover the cost of operating a 1930s style WPA program that will put the Unemployed and those on Public Aid to work. At No Cost to the American Taxpayer.
The types of projects that will be done under this program are:
- Repair and Replacement of our cities Infrastructures. Water lines, Sewer lines, Street repair, Repair of government buildings.
- Locks and Dams repair or replacement and fitting them with hydro electric generators.
- Levees and Flood walls.
- Building roadways and bridges.
- Building of distilling plants for our bio-fuels program.
- Building of incinerators to burn human waste, manmade garbage, and animal waste to make energy.
- Working on our Solar and wind generating program for homes, business, and cities.
- Building on the Monorail Passenger Railway system.
Bobby Schilling's Issues:
Seniors
I believe we must work to continue to provide excellent services to our seniors. No promise made by the United States government should be broken. I do not believe in privatizing Social Security, and I do not believe in raising the retirement age. I will not endorse what will amount to a broken promise.
Healthcare
The recently passed health care bill focuses on government control of the healthcare system, which will destroy the greatest system of care in the world by allowing bureaucrats to control it and driving doctors and nurses out of it. The government has horribly mismanaged the Medicare and Medicaid programs – these programs have widespread fraud and waste, and are headed into trillions of dollars of debt.
In order to lower costs and expand quality coverage, reform must address:
Education
An extremely vital part of working to make this country better is ensuring that our children are well educated. The blame for the problems in our education system cannot be put on teachers and administrators alone. Parents must take responsibility for their children’s education and lawmakers must take a step back from creating more regulations that make it harder for teachers to teach. Teaching students takes place at the local level, and that is where decisions regarding instruction and funding need to be made. The A-PLUS Act, which has been introduced in Congress, would return authority to the state level by allowing states to opt out of No Child Left Behind. States and local governments would have greater control of federal education funds to use on local priorities. States could end ineffective or inefficient federal programs and direct funds toward greater needs. There would be less administrative costs and less bureaucracy to deal with. States, rather than the federal government, would establish standards and assessments and be responsible for publicly reporting results.
Protecting Life
Life begins at conception. Abortion takes life – approximately 1.2 million unborn babies’ lives each year in this country. The most basic rule of law tells us that it is wrong for one person to take the life of another person, no matter what stage of life they are at. Sadly, my opponent Phil Hare not only supports a woman’s’ right to take the life of her unborn child, but he also supports The Freedom of Choice Act, which, if passed, will remove basic restrictions on abortion, such as the partial birth abortion ban and notification of parents of minors attempting to obtain an abortion, and consequently lead to many more of them.
Jobs and Economy
Americans need to keep as much of their hard earned money in their pockets as possible. By cutting taxes, we will ignite the economy by creating good paying, high quality jobs and allowing people to spend their money on the goods and services they desire. We have seen in this state that raising the taxes on businesses only chases these quality jobs to other states and countries. Phil Hare believes in raising taxes to support government programs, despite the fact that this leads to greater job losses and more dependence on the government. We have seen throughout our history that if government cuts taxes, jobs and positive economic results follow. In the early 1960’s President Kennedy cut taxes and it strengthened the economy as wages increased and unemployment fell, and again in the early 1980’s President Reagan cut taxes and the economy exploded as wages increased, unemployment fell, and an astounding 19 million new jobs were created during his eight years in office. And because of the amount of new jobs, tax revenue for the government nearly doubled during his presidency. This type of tax policy will bring us out of recession and back into prosperity.
IL-17 Polls:
10/14/10 Penn Schoen and Berland Associates: Hare (D) 38.0% Schilling (R) 45.0%
09/08/10 We Ask America: Davis (G) 3.85% Hare (D) 38.41% Schilling (R) 41.15%
07/12/10 Magellan Strategies (R): Hare (D) 32.0% Schilling (R) 45.0%