by Ramona du Houx
Congressman Tom Allen works tirelessly for the
people of the First District in the state of Maine. When he’s not fighting for the
needs of Mainers in Washington, DC, he is at home attending meetings, talking to
constituents, or visiting businesses and schools.
Recently the congressman sat down for an informal
discussion.
Do you think we will win back control of
the House?
"I believe we’re going to get control of
the House for a host of reasons, mainly because of the failure of the president’s
policies in Iraq, his effort to privatize social security, and his failure to do anything
about the health-care crisis that is really driving small business and the uninsured
crazy."
Does the lack of health care make
Americans more afraid to take risks?
"It’s adding insecurity. It’s not the
bankrupting of America, but it’s putting us in a fiscal hole that is totally
unnecessary; totally exorbitant tax cuts for the wealthiest people and reducing programs
and services that make a difference with the middle income and the poor. I believe these
are all reasons why we can take back the House."
Investment in R&D through the efforts of the
governor enables the availability of federal funds, which you help secure. Recently you
and the governor attended the Jackson Lab extension celebration that will add 125 research
scientists to the facility, helping grow the economy. How do you feel Maine
is doing economically?
"Too many people in Maine feel that we are
doing worse than the rest of the country economically when in fact, even with this Bush
administration, economic growth has been slightly above the national average, and the
unemployment rate has been below the national average.
"York County is the fastest growing county is
Maine. The in-migration now is significant. People are — for a whole host of reasons
— coming to Maine.
"Maine is a relatively high-tax state, but I
think too often people don’t realize that 87 percent of our state budget goes to
K–12 education, the university system, and Medicaid. Our expenses in those areas are
somewhat higher than other states, because we have so many people spread out through such
a large area."
Recently you introduced a new small
business bill; tell me about it?
"I have a seven-point plan, and the center
piece is first a small business health plan act, which would essentially provide people
working in small businesses — with 50 employees or fewer — with a kind of health
insurance that federal employees get. And each state would have two or three — at
least — health-care plans to which small-business members could sign up. It
wouldn’t necessarily be the responsibility of each business to get one plan, but
individuals could sign up for one of any number of plans.
"The plans would have a bit of a federal
subsidy in that the federal government would pick up the cost of catastrophic health-care
cases, and that would reduce the cost for the commercial insurers, entice them into the
bargain, and then you’d wind up covering a lot more people and at the same time
driving down the insurance cost of the small-business owner.
"The other parts of the small business plan
involve provisions to help businesses that are especially dependant on oil — heating
oil for buildings, or gasoline and diesel for trucking companies, for example — and
it would give them a bit of a tax break for two years to get them through this rough
period."
What should we do to be less dependent on
foreign fuel?
"In the long run we need to reduce our
consumption by adding more efficient vehicles and by converting more of those vehicles to
run on non-fossil fuels, particularly ethanol, and different varieties of ethanol. Ethanol
can be made from corn. Eventually it will be made efficiently from grass and wood chips.
Then we’ll have cleaner fuels, more widely available, and we won’t be so
dependant on Middle Eastern oil."
You’re a champion for the
environment. What have you done?
"I have either written or cosponsored
legislation to clean up aging power plants and to take broader steps to control carbon
emissions, which are the primary causes involved in climate change or global
warming."
What’s it like with the
anti-environmental Bush agenda?
"The battle just keeps going on. Basically,
we’re trying to stop bad things from happening. When Democrats get control of the
House, we’ll finally get a positive environmental agenda. I think it’ll be a
helpful contrast which could lead to more important changes in the Senate."
You always opposed the war in Iraq. When
the president failed to solicit real international support, you and then Congressman
Baldacci voted against action in Iraq. What about the war in Iraq?
"The war in Iraq is a very important issue for
millions of people in this country, and people finally realize that the Bush
administration’s "stay-the-course" policy is taking us nowhere. We need to
get out of Iraq next year in a way that will give the Iraqis the best chance of avoiding a
civil war. They are partially in one now, but it can get even worse, and we need to set a
general timetable on getting out in order to put the maximum amount of pressure on Iraqi
politicians to resolve their differences. Whether that is through the means of a
tripartite state or something that’s closer to a federal system, they’re just
going to have to come to terms, because we can’t stay there. There’s too much
loss of life.
"Having made the instability worse, the
question is: What is our moral responsibility to leave it in the best possible condition
we can? Bush is wrong — we’re not going to finish the job, have success, and
then leave, having accomplished all of our objectives.
"We have to leave because we’re part of
the problem. We don’t have enough of a military force — and we’re certainly
acting in ways that make it clear that we don’t have enough political smarts —
to build the country for the Iraqis. They have to do that.
"We don’t control the rest of the world.
This is a battle going on within Islam over the interpretation of their scripture, and
part of this is the resistance of fundamentalist Islamists to the culture of the West. We
didn’t create all of this, but we certainly have made it worse by invading Iraq under
the pretense that it has something to do with Al Qaeda.
"All the good things that are happening over
there — there are good things happening over there — are because of the
ingenuity of the American military, but their leadership leaves a lot to be desired."
Do you think we can pull out by next
year?
"That should be the goal. I’m not
confident that George Bush is going to do that, because it’s hard to imagine
circumstances in which he could draw down troops and claim a victory. I think he will keep
people on the front lines. The bloodshed has been so intense that he has not a prayer of
pulling people out saying that the mission has been accomplished, and therefore he
can’t bring himself to reduce the force."
By taking back the House do you think
we’re getting closer to bringing the troops home?
"Probably, because although the House
doesn’t determine foreign policy, we would start doing investigations; we would start
conducting oversight over the administration’s foreign policy and domestic policy
that would hold them more accountable. But right now the administration basically does
what they want."
Clinton did so much in a short time, can
we get back to that kind of agenda and progress?
"The hardest part about living with the Bush
administration and the Republican Congress has been to watch them be so fiscally
irresponsible; they’ve increased the national debt dramatically, and it’s very
hard to dig out of that hole, but Clinton proved it could be done.
"The deficit got smaller every year Clinton was
in office until it became a surplus, and then it became larger every year.
"Bush took office and turned everything around.
We went back down in the other direction to the largest deficits in American history. We
can turn that around, but it won’t be easy. And everyone needs to contribute.
Everyone’s got a role to play. Everyone has to sacrifice to some extent for the
common good in order to make this country more competitive economically, to have a cleaner
environment, to deal with the threat of climate change and to make sure our kids are
healthy and educated."
So, helping rebuild community will help
us recover our democracy?
"Yes, that’s a major part of the American
experience.
"I think fundamentally, that these Republicans
are only focused on one half of the American experience — the part that emphasizes
standing on your own two feet, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, and not getting
help from other people. But there’s another half to the American experience, which is
all about community, which is grounded in the notion that everyone needs a helping hand,
that no one does anything important alone, and that if you’re going to have a healthy
society we need to care about every single member, that we don’t have a person to
waste, and therefore, through our governments at every level, we need to invest in people,
to make sure we have a well-trained, well-educated workforce.
"The majority of immigrants came to this
country so that their children could have a better life than they did. And some of the
stories of one generation sacrificing for the next are legion. And here we are, far from
investing in our children, we are putting chains around their necks, in the form of
increased national debt, a rapidly changing climate, and a health-care system in crisis.
All of which needs our attention and action. The current administration just defers to the
insurance and pharmaceutical industries for their good ideas, just as they defer to the
oil and coal industries to deal with energy problems. It’s that link between
multinational corporations and the federal government that is really leading us in the
wrong direction."
Are multinationals in control now?
"The industries that supported Bush have done
very well. They got a big return on their investments."
Tell me about the tax cuts.
"The Republicans operate under the delusion
that if you reduce taxes, revenues to the government increase. Revenues to the U.S.
Government almost always increase, but they increase regardless, if you increase taxes, or
if you reduce taxes, for a whole host of reasons related to the level of economic activity
in the country.
"The incomes of the upper one percent are
expanding faster than any other group in the country. From 2003 to 2004 people making over
about $380,000 a year got 30 percent of the entire growth in wages and income in the
entire country. Thirty percent of growth in income went to the upper one percent. And
that’s why middle-income people feel stuck — because they don’t get
anything. Almost all the gains have gone to people in the upper 20 percent, and a third of
the total gains have gone to people in the upper one percent."
It’s been about year since you
worked with Governor Baldacci and the congressional delegation to fight for Maine’s
bases. And despite overwhelming odds PNSY remains open.
"That was the most intense collaborative experience I’ve
had. We were a team. We just knew we had to save jobs, and we all worked very hard to do
that. It was an important accomplishment. PNSY represents a major part of Maine’s
economy. We have work to do in Brunswick, but I think that the Brunswick facility can be
adapted to a variety of different economic uses. The area will be okay in the long
run."
