With a few days more than a week before the Nov. 6 election, Joe Radinovich, DFL candidate for the 8th District, stopped in Borderland Thursday to meet with voters.
He made his way from the North Shore, noting he enjoys the drive to International Falls from the east side of the district for a variety of reasons.
“I think the 8th District is the most beautiful congressional district in the country,” he said smiling,”but I’m a little biased.”
He made several stops in the community to hear what’s on the minds of district voters before he headed to other communities, as time hurdles toward election day.
He faces Republican Pete Stauber and Independence Party’s Ray Skip Sandman.
Radinovich said recent endorsements by “just about every union out there”... “represent the message of campaign: That the interests of working people are best served when special interests in Washington D.C. don’t rule the roost, when we have a government that’s accountable to the people not the most monied interests, and also reflect that a lot of people sense that even though the economy may be good, the country is going in a strange direction.”
Several high placed Democrats in the state and nation have also endorsed Radinovich. “What I see are people who grew up, if not right where we are at geographically, they grew up with the same kind of atmosphere we did, with working class parents, and who recognize the fight really is about making sure people can afford the things that they need for life. It’s about protecting retirement security, about affordable health care and child care, it’s about college affordability and that message has been resonating.”
Along the campaign trail, Radinovich said the No. 1 issue he hears about is health care, and related to that is prescription drugs prices. He said he’s been told of people needing to ration their insulin, farmers paying $40,000 on the individual insurance market for family health coverage, steel workers in Virginia nearly striking when their employer asked them to make concessions to their health care in contract negotiations. He said he’s hearing from people impacted by the opioid crisis, which he said is creating a generation of lost parents.
A single payer system, similar to the Canadian system, is probably a better option to the current system, he said. “We pay more than any other country in the world, we still have 30 million people who don’t have insurances, and the outcomes we get for our health care system aren’t necessarily better than anywhere else,” he said.
And while he acknowledged no system is perfect, he hoped people would not give into scare tactics about the Canadian system. “Most Canadians are satisfied and we have the ability to do that,” he said.
A solution to rising health care costs hasn’t been put in place because he said special interests, such as insurance and pharmaceuticals, are funding campaigns in an effort to retain the status quo.
Asked how Radinovich would address the struggling Borderland economy, he said while some people are making a lot of money now and the stock market is generally going up, not all are feeling the benefit of that growth.
“Our economy has been growing for decades,” he said. “Since the 1970s, we’ve seen CEO pay increase over 900 percent. Worker pay has only gone up 10 percent. College has become unaffordable or out of reach for some people. Health care is expensive now and are sticking points for negotiations.”
Locally, he said he discussed at the Minnesota Workforce Center in International Falls the need to be able to train people displaced by greater technology and mechanization in the paper mill, mines and farms.
“We have to better prepare people to better adapt in the face of those changes,” he said. Seeing things like the paper mill becoming more efficient and employing less people wouldn’t be so bad if those people knew they could go to Rainy River Community College and get retrained into a job that will support themselves and their family. It might not be so troubling if it meant you wouldn’t lose your health care; people could adapt to those changes.”
Border to border broadband internet is essential to the future of the local economy, he said. It would provide access to global markets, allowing people to live and work where they choose, as well as access education and health care systems.
In addition, he said it’s important to protect and keep healthy the Falls International Airport and, infrastructure investments that keep rural America competitive with other countries.
Radinovich said he does not subscribe to the idea that economic development is driven by government throwing companies money to locate somewhere and create a number of jobs and then forgoing property taxes for years. Often, he said, the jobs cost much more than anticipated in the long term.
“To me, the way we should go forward is recognize that the valued proposition in this country is to have a workforce that is best educated in the world, to have infrastructure that puts us in the lead. If we have those things, we will see people’s entrepreneurship and ingenuity be the way forward.”
Meanwhile, Radinovich predicts a close election, with spending in the race for the seat if not the highest, among the highest spending in the nation.
Radinovich said the big spending by Republicans in support of their candidate, and against Radinovich, signals their concern about the outcome.
“I’m optimistic people see through the attack ads,” he said. “That they recognize the issues that matter are Social Security, Medicare, pensions, making sure we have affordable health care in the country, making sure institutions like the Rainy River Community College are funded and can stay open in places like this; that we’re going to support industry through changes. I know how important it is to loggers and the paper mill.”
