Spending isn’t causing America’s economic troubles, according to Rick Nolan. Instead, he said it’s how and on what that money is spent that has caused inequities, which is at the heart of many of the nation’s problems.
Nolan, a DFL candidate seeking the 8th District Congressional seat now held by Republican Chip Cravaack, visited with more than a dozen people in International Falls Wednesday on a tour of the northern part of the district.
Nolan said the country is facing serious trouble and is at a tipping point, which is why he is seeking office. “At some point it may be too late,” he said.
Many Americans are voicing pessimism about the future, and Nolan said at times, he shares those sentiments. But Nolan said he is certain that everyone must do what they can to effect the positive changes to turn the nation around.
“It’s only when we all stand up and demand change that change occurs,” he said, pointing to the recently considered Stock Act, which restricts insider trading activities by members of Congress, pushed forward by media coverage and citizen outrage.
Nolan, a former three-term Minnesota DFL congressman, serving from 1975-1981, and a member of the Minnesota House, said his previous service would allow him to hit the ground running as the 8th District congressman. He said he already knows the process and how to work within it, has contacts and would receive committee appointments and other benefits because of his previous terms.
And Nolan says he’s got lots of experience in business as well as government.
Nolan notes that he is chairman, president and CEO of the Minnesota World Trade Center, credited by the World Trade Magazine for helping generate Minnesota jobs and expand exports. He is the chairman of International Association of World Trade Centers Trade Policy Committee, the world’s largest private sector international trade group and has 31 years international business experience exporting American made goods and services, generating U.S. jobs, selling U.S. products, setting up distributorships, joint ventures, partnerships, agency relationships, business training and finance for U.S. Companies.
He is the former president, owner, and CEO of Emily Forest Products, a sawmill and pallet manufacturer in Emily.
Nolan said campaigns are about hope and a prescription for what ails the nation.
“There is a way forward and out of this and it has to start with changing the way we do politics,” he said.
Big money is corrupting the political process — “the candidate with the most money gets the most votes,” he said.
Change must start with reforming public financing for campaigns and that can come about by reversing a U.S. Supreme Court decision that gives personhood to corporations. “I want representatives to work for the American people, not corporate interests,” he said.
After that, he said “wars of choice,” which cost Americans trillions of dollars, must be ended and that money instead used to balance the budget and rebuild America’s infrastructure, which will put people back to work.
The nation’s military footprint must also be reduced. He pointed to examples, which he says have little to do with national security, including spending $50 billion to air condition a facility in Baghdad; allocating $20 billion to move a military base from downtown Okinawa, Japan, to rural Okinawa; and establishing a new military base in the northern Mariana Islands.
“There is enough right there to give us a tax holiday in Minnesota for the next three years and pay for our schools, our municipal government, our roads, our bridges,” he said.
The nation needs to end tax cuts for the super rich and close tax loopholes that “add nothing to our social and economic wellbeing” and only benefit the super rich.
That money could be used to add more grants for college students and money to programs that help special needs kids realize their potential, he said.
“We’re not a poor country,” he said. “It’s all about allocating our resources.”
Claims that the super rich are the people investing in jobs and requiring them to pay more taxes could hurt America aren’t true, he said. Tax cuts, he said, don’t equal more jobs and he said that’s been proven in recent years.
America has exported more manufacturing and jobs in the last 10 years than in the last 70 years, he said.
Other countries provide incentives through tax and trade policy to their domestic manufacturing. “We do just the opposite,” he said. “We incentivize the movement of jobs and manufacturing overseas. That’s not only destructive of our economic strength and future, but it’s unfair (because they must compete with countries that do not have the safety and environmental regulations the U.S. has).”
The health care system in the U.S. must be reformed to a single-payer system, like other nations, which spend less money on administration and can cost half what the current American system costs.
“The system we have now is bankrupting businesses and people who don’t have insurance. We need to fix that and again, there is more money that we can use to balance our budgets, add to personal income and do what we need to do here in America,” he said.
Making cuts to Medicare and using investments to fund Social Security are not wise, he said. Most people don’t mind paying those taxes to ensure that they have protection in the future.
“I will do everything in my power to protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare,” he said. “Those are not entitlements, in judgment, they are earned benefits that people have worked for, paid for and have every right to expect. We’re not going to turn them over to Wall Street and the insurance companies.”
Meanwhile, questions from the group prompted Nolan to say that he believes that requiring members of Congress to work five days a week — like most Americans do — would encourage cooperation and agreement.
Instead, he said many members spend more time obtaining campaign money to get reelected to another term than they do governing.
