Congressional candidates on the issues, part 3

Today I found out that I must be living up to my political influence rating, as I’ve now had two candidates (and/or their campaigns) contact me directly about some of the issues I’ve covered or will cover in this series. In this installment I’ll talk about the tandem of energy independence and entitlements, particularly Social Security and health care.

I’ll begin with energy independence, something I’m certainly in favor of. I discussed my philosophy briefly when I covered the subject in the Presidential race – it’s the only issue I didn’t discuss on my original 50 year plan that spawned this whole idea. More important than my personal view though is those of the contenders for the Congressional seat.

I’ll begin with John Leo Walter, who just posted his ideas on the subject.

Joe Arminio also weighs in on the printed page:

…our infrastructure policy should be expanded to include the needs of energy. Research into solar, hybrid, hydrogen, bio-renewal and fusion sources of energy, are the leading candidates for funding. Tax incentives should be offered those companies who pursue alternative energy.

On the other hand, incumbent Wayne Gilchrest has a voting record that generally goes against the idea of short-term energy independence (witness his opposition to drilling in ANWR and along the continental shelf) and for the idea of energy conservation through regulation, like supporting higher CAFE standards.

Part of Gilchrest’s stance (along with part of Joe Arminio’s) can also be found in Democrat challenger Christopher Robinson‘s statement:

Protecting the Bay and promoting clean, efficient sources of energy are two urgent national priorities. Conservation must be the cornerstone of our nation’s energy policy, but conservation alone is not enough. Our government needs to mobilize the best minds and industry leaders behind a project similar to the Manhattan Project to develop technologies that are clean and affordable.

In looking at how I’d score each of the responses, it’s clear that Andy Harris may have missed an opportunity, but I’m sure he may elaborate on this at a future date.

Quite honestly John Leo Walter sounds like he took a page or two from monoblogue. I think the sole objection I have to what he says is that when he says “we” I begin to think that “we” is the government. Perhaps a better way of putting it is that “we” need to get out of the way and cut back on the burdensome red tape that’s not allowing companies who would love to do these things the power to do so. A philosophy like that would have allowed him to get all 17 points from this part of the scoring, but I’ll give him 14 for such a robust strategy. Oh, do just a bit of proofreading too.

On the other hand, Joe Arminio wants to see the government do a lot of research and I don’t think that it’s the government’s place necessarily to do research that private companies would devote R&D dollars to if they only knew that they could easily put their research into development without the fear of red tape barring their chance at profitting. Nor am I wild about tax incentives for companies when my taxation philosophy is to convert to a consumption-based (rather than income-based) tax system. Right ideas, but not quite the correct solutions – so I’ll give him four points.

Before his frequent votes against fighting the Long War, the biggest issue I had with Wayne Gilchrest was his stance on energy independence. I’d say that I disagree with about 90% of the recent votes he’s taken on the topic, so I’m deducting about that much from his score, 15 points. He has a sound long-term view but misses the mark on the more immediate future.

Christopher Robinson falls into the same sort of trap as Gilchrest does, since we cannot conserve our way into energy independence, whether short-term or long-term, without severe damage to our economy and way of life. He then follows Arminio’s lead by looking at the government to lead on research instead of trusting the private sector. Maybe he thinks oil companies don’t want to progress into energy companies who use a number of other sources? I’m docking him all 17 points for having exactly wrong approaches.

Now I’ll shift gears and talk about entitlements. As always I’ll discuss Republicans first, starting with Andy Harris. Harris’s website note on health care is so simple I won’t bother to link to it:

As a physician, Andy wants to bring his experience and expertise in healthcare to improving our healthcare system and making it affordable all Marylanders – without expanding government run healthcare (HillaryCare).

He doesn’t touch the “third rail” of Social Security though. Obviously, Wayne Gilchrest does since he’s been in Congress for 17 years. Generally, his Social Security voting record is pro-senior. I have a little difference of opinion on some of his health care votes, such as voting to renew the SCHIP program.

As one might expect, the two main Democrats in the race are all over entitlements. Frank Kratovil goes into health care here while Christopher Robinson states:

It is estimated that nearly forty-five million Americans lack health care insurance. This is unacceptable. Christopher Robinson believes that access to basic quality health care should be available to all Americans and will strive to make that goal a reality.

I’m not surprised neither go into Social Security as most of their Presidential cohorts didn’t either. (For reference, my personal view on Social Security is here and Medicare here. Not a lot of support for our two Democrats’ point of view is to be had.)

Since I’m starting to get into big-ticket items as far as points are concerned (as entitlements are worth 19 points on my scale) it’s disappointing that Andy Harris doesn’t elaborate more. Of course I’m against HillaryCare but part of making healthcare more affordable to me is getting the government out of it. So I’m giving him just four points for this part.

His opponent Wayne Gilchrest fares little better; since I have only tepid support for Social Security as a whole his pro-senior record won’t help him balance his support of SCHIP. I’ll be charitable and give him a wash, no points given or deducted.

A message for Frank Kratovil: I do not accept the premise that every adult and child has to have health insurance. I also don’t favor all stem-cell research because embryonic stem cells haven’t been conclusively found to help anything (whereas adult stem cells have) so the blanket support you have leads me to believe you’re referring to embryonic research.

Federal law already provides that treatment cannot be denied to a person regardless of the ability to pay so that throws half of Christopher Robinson’s statement out the window. And just like his opponent, Robinson is on the “every American needs to have insurance” bandwagon. Both candidates are docked the maximum 19 points.

Again, I have one change I need to make before I redo totals. This time it affects GOP hopeful Joe Arminio, who does have a position on eminent domain:

Let us rid the country as much as we can of both direct and indirect abuses of eminent domain…The Kilo (sic) decision, and any others like it, must be reversed. But there ought also to be the establishment of or maintenance of adequate buffers between industrial and non-industrial land use.

It’s worth more than one point for calling for overturning Kelo v. New London, but the establishment of buffers is truly a local zoning issue and not the purview of the federal government. So the net effect is one point of five. A small adjustment but I’ll sleep that much better.

Now, the revised totals for the Republicans in the race:

1. Andy Harris, 23.5 points
2. John Leo Walter, 21 points
3. Joe Arminio, 11 points
4. Wayne Gilchrest, -23 points

For the Democrats, Frank Kratovil is at -19 and Christopher Robinson now sits at 37.5 below zero.

My next look on Monday will be a single key issue – taxation.