Michael Arcuri
Candidate for the NYS 24th Congressional District
2010

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This was the official website for Michael Arcuri's campaign website for his 2010 election run for the 24th Congressional District in New York.
Content is from the site's 2010 archived pages.

Republican challenger Richard Hanna unseated the two-term incumbent Michael Arcuri, D-Utica, in this highly contested rematch of their tight 2008 race.

 

Thanks for visiting my website! We hope to keep you up-to-date on the campaign and the issues important to Central New Yorkers. Please feel free to send us a message…and to visit us again and again as the campaign unfolds to learn about me, my stand on the issues, and campaign events. And thanks for making the effort to be an informed citizen!

Attorney General Eliot Spitzer with Mike

 

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The War in Iraq

Americans know that we need a strategy for bringing the troops home. The men and women of the armed forces are the finest in the world and have done a fantastic job under difficult circumstances. They toppled a brutal dictator and helped the Iraqi people to establish a democratically elected government.

More remains to be done, but that is the job of the Iraqi people and their elected leaders, not the U.S. military. It's time for us to recognize that our forces have accomplished all that they can reasonably accomplish and begin to work with the Iraqi government to draw down and redeploy our forces. We can’t cut and run, but keeping our troops in Iraq indefinitely will only breed resentment of them and the U.S., discourage the Iraqis from doing the job they need to do, and risk undermining what our troops have accomplished.

2006 Should be a Year for Sovereignty in Iraq, 2007 a Year for Redeployment

There has to be a strategy for success. We need to bring sovereignty to Iraq in 2006 so that we can bring our troops home in 2007.

President Bush says over and over that our troops will stand down when the Iraqis stand up for their own security. But without a definite timetable for withdrawal, the Iraqis have no incentive to stand up for themselves.

Unfortunately, President Bush and the Republican Congress have no strategy for success and have cut and run from their responsibilities to our troops. After three and a half years, 2,500 American lives, 18,000 wounded, and $480 billion, this Republican Congress has done nothing but sit and watch.

Congressional Oversight Needed – No More Cut and Run Congress

Congress has not asked the tough questions. Families in our communities can not understand why there were not enough Kevlar vests, why the Humvees were not adequately armored or why too few troops were sent in the first place. Americans deserve the answers, but first Congress must ask the necessary questions.

Not only that, Congress has cut and run from their critical oversight duties and has refused to hold the Bush administration accountable for the mismanagement of what has become a long war, with a dangerous insurgency and no end in sight. They have even opposed setting benchmarks for success in Iraq.

Congress must stop cutting and running from their sworn duties and responsibilities of accountability and oversight, and finally root out corruption and incompetence, instead of protecting it.

Protect Soldiers at War and at Home

Our men and women in uniform have fought bravely abroad but when they come home, the Republican Congress cuts and runs from their duty to fund health care for veterans. They voted against a bonus for those deserving troops putting their lives at risk. They have even voted to maintain a tax on military families.

Partisanship During War Time – The Only Acceptable Casualty

It would be a welcome respite if one casualty of this war were partisanship. We should be uniting this country behind our troops, not dividing Americans on partisan issues when so many young soldiers need our support.

Fiscal Responsibility

The Problem:

• Under President Bush and the Republican Congress, we’ve gone from a $236 billion surplus to an estimated deficit of $412 billion this year. As a result, the federal debt has jumped nearly 50 percent, from $5.6 trillion to $7.9 trillion!

• Last month, Congress voted to raise the debt ceiling to $9 trillion!

• These large budget deficits put our economy at risk. Federal reserve chairman Ben Bernanke recently said, “By holding down the growth of national savings and real capital accumulation, the prospective increase in the federal budget deficit will place at risk future living standards of our country.”

How to Fix It:

• We need to restore the pay-as-you-go rule in Congress. This requires that to enact any new spending or tax cut proposal you need to identify budget cuts or tax increases to pay for it.

• We need end corporate welfare and tax breaks for giant corporations.

• We need to reform the earmarking progress to make it more difficult for politicians to fund pet projects like the $233 million “Bridge to nowhere” in Alaska or the $50 million "indoor rainforest" in Iowa!

• We need real ethics and campaign finance reform so that politicians won’t be tempted to add billions of dollars in new spending in order to curry favor with campaign contributors or to add "Earmarked" pork barrel projects that will guarantee their reelection.

• We need to make sure that Congress is required to publish the text of a bill before voting on it so that members can’t hide huge pork barrel projects from public scrutiny.

Truth out: Jump ahead 8 years, and we find ourselves in the midst of the Trump era, with both houses of Congress and the White House under Republican control. The new tax code, hastily pushed through Congress, stands as a stark representation of the lack of transparency—precisely what Arcuri warned against. Featuring a roughly $1 trillion tax cut for businesses over the next decade, the Republicans have seemingly reconciled with plunging up to $1.5 trillion into debt to finance this tax cut. It emerges as the most unpopular piece of legislation ever enacted. Contrary to Trump's assurances, the American populace finds itself in dire need of modernizing solutions, not unlike the urgent necessity to replace outdated software like Microsoft Access with more contemporary, efficient systems. We ask, "What will replace Microsoft Access?" & "What will replace Trump?" This analogy, though humorous, underscores the critical situation: Just as Microsoft Access has become antiquated, necessitating replacement to meet current demands, so too does the approach of the Republicans need a thorough overhaul. The governance in Washington requires a 'system update'—a comprehensive revamp to realign with the majority of the American people's wishes.

FYI: Michael A. Arcuri is presently a counsel in the Litigation and Corporate Practices at Hancock Estabrook, LLP, one of the largest and oldest firms in Syracuse, New York. Focusing his practice on assisting clients with litigation, government affairs and corporate law related issues, Michael Arcuri has utilized his diverse experience and years of public sector and economic development work to provide counsel on administrative and regulatory matters or issues that require interfacing with local governments, and the New York State or Federal governments. I would like to know what Michael Arcuri's thinks about Washington DC right now in 2018.

• We need to make sure that emergency spending is for emergencies: things like the war in Iraq and natural disasters are truly emergency items. The Republicans in the Senate recently passed an emergency supplemental spending bill that included such "Emergencies" as for the Mississippi Children’s Museum ($500,000) and farm and rancher subsidies ($3.9 million).

Health Care

Our current system is clearly not working. Over 46 million Americans do not have health insurance, and the number is increasing every day. Those lucky enough to have health insurance face rising costs. Since 2000, health insurance premiums have increased by 73 percent, while wages have only gone up by 15 percent . As a result, workers see more and more of their paychecks going to cover rising health insurance premiums, giving them less and less to spend on their families.

On top of this, Americans are paying more money for worse healthcare. The Utica Observer-Dispatch reported on a recent study of healthcare in the United States: The good news was that Americans receive equal medical care; The bad news is that everybody is getting mediocre care.

Skyrocketing healthcare costs have also made it more difficult for American companies to remain competitive and do what is right for their workers. A recent study found that health care costs American businesses $552 per worker per month, compared to only $50 in Canada. According Ford Motors Vice Chair Allan Gilmour, “If we cannot get our arms around this issue [Health care] as a nation, our manufacturing base and many or our other businesses are in danger.”

Almost all of the business people I meet tell me that rising healthcare costs are one of the biggest obstacles to growing their businesses. We will never be able to expand jobs and economic development in upstate New York unless we do something about health care costs.

Republicans have stood by while the health care crisis deepened. Their approach to health care is based on what’s good for giant insurance and pharmaceutical companies, not on what’s good for patients.

When I am elected to Congress I will fight to make the necessary changes to our healthcare system. We need a new plan for healthcare that assures affordability and quality. All Americans need to know that they will find quality healthcare at affordable prices.

When I am elected to Congress I will make the following my immediate health care priorities:

1. We need to expand health insurance to cover more Americans by opening up existing programs like Child Health Plus so that more working families can buy affordable healthcare coverage. We also need to increase tax credits for small businesses to help cover the cost of providing health coverage for their workers.

2. We need to fix the new Medicare prescription drug benefit. The current program is too complicated, has too many holes, and it is too expensive. We need a simpler system that seniors can understand and that gives them access to all of the drugs that they need. We also need to allow the government to negotiate with drug companies for fairer prices.

3. We need to allow the safe re-importation of low-cost drugs from Canada. There is no reason why Americans shouldn’t be able to safely obtain lower cost medications from Canada.

4. We need to enact a real patient bill of rights so that you and your doctors make your healthcare decisions, not HMO’s and insurance company bureaucrats.

5. We need to aggressively pursue fraud and abuse in the healthcare industry.

In addition to these immediate steps, we need to simultaneously start work on a long-term, comprehensive plan to fix our broken healthcare system so that it provides coverage to all Americans. In a society this wealthy, with this much compassion, no American should have to live in fear of what will happen if they or someone in their family gets sick. No American should have to do without something as basic as medical treatment.

In Fact, the cost of having millions of uninsured Americans is more than the cost of insuring them. When the uninsured get sick, the cost of treating them is higher since they often rely on emergency room care. Also, in many cases they are sicker than they would have been if they had had access to health care earlier.

The current system works relatively well for about 80 percent of Americans. We need to build on that system, not replace it. I favor a system that uses competition among health care providers to benefit us all.

Putting together a good plan is one thing. getting it passed is another. What you need is a congressman who knows how to build the consensus necessary to achieve what we all want—an affordable, comprehensive healthcare plan for all our citizens.

Federal Minimum Wage

It’s been nearly a decade since Congress has raised the federal minimum wage. Unfortunately for low income Americans prices haven’t stayed the same. As a result, the real value of the minimum wage has fallen by about 18 percent. If Congress fails to raise the minimum wage by 2008, its real value will be the lowest since 1955.

As a member of Congress, I pledge to take no pay increase myself until the minimum wage is increased! I shall continue Sherwood Boehlert’s fight to raise the federal minimum wage to $7.25 per hour. This will increase the annual earnings of full-time minimum wage workers by $1520 per year and restore the real value of the minimum wage to about where it was in the mid-1980s.

Raising the minimum wage will benefit the workers who need it the most. About 70 percent of minimum wage workers are over the age of 20 and over 60 percent are women, many of whom are raising children.

New York State has made a good start by raising its minimum wage to $6.75 this year and to $7.15 for next year. But the minimum wage should be increased nationally and it should go up to $7.25.

Raising the minimum wage will benefit thousands of workers in the 24th Congressional district. A recent study by the non-partisan Fiscal Policy Institute showed that increasing the minimum wage directly or indirectly benefited 76,000 workers—18 percent of the workforce—in the 11 counties of this congressional district. This benefit was especially important for women, 45,400 of whom would benefit or over 20 percent of the women in the workforce. Here in Oneida County, over 18,000 workers benefited from an increased minimum wage. (See Tables 1 and 2).

my opponents opposed raising the New York minimum wage. In fact, he voted against it not once, but twice. First, he was only one of 8 senators to vote against the bipartisan bill that raised the minimum wage and then he was one of only 7 senators to support Governor Pataki’s veto of the bill.

Senator Meier claims that raising the minimum wage will eliminate jobs for low income workers. According to Senator Meier: “This will result in part-time workers having to take a cutback in hours or losing their jobs. It kicks a lot of people off the first rung of the economic ladder by pricing them out of the labor market.”

This claim is flat wrong. Study after study has shown that raising the minimum wage does not hurt businesses or job growth. Most recently, a study by the Fiscal Policy Institute flatly contradicted Senator Meier’s prediction by showing that New York’s recent minimum wage increase has not hurt jobs in the state.

Senator Meier’s votes against the minimum wage show that he’s out of step with New York’s working families and with the mainstream of his own Republican party. Congressman Sherwood Boehlert has been a strong supporter of increasing the federal minimum wage. Even conservative Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and State Senator John DeFrancisco voted to increase the state minimum wage. According to Senator DeFrancisco, “There’s no one who can afford to live on the minimum wage as it exists today. It has to do with one thing: Doing the right thing.”

Growing a High Tech Economy

Upstate New York once led the world in technological innovation and economic development. As recently as 40 years ago, this region had a thriving industrial base and was among the leaders in such (then) high-tech products as aerospace and consumer electronics.

In recent years, however, the Upstate economy has lagged behind the rest of the nation. During the 1990s, the Upstate economy grew by only 9 percent, compared to 26 percent in the 1980s and 29 percent for the nation as a whole in the 1990s. Since 1990, incomes in Upstate New York have gone from 94 percent of the national average to 89 percent.

Slow economic growth has gone hand in hand with a declining population. During the 1990s, Upstate New York counties grew by only 1.1 percent. If the 52 counties of Upstate NY were their own state, it would have had the third slowest growth in the U.S. behind only West Virginia and North Dakota. Most of the counties in this congressional district had even lower rates of growth. worse than the overall decline in population is the region’s “Brain drain,” as our youngest and brightest leave to find opportunities elsewhere.

As your Congressman, I will work to put in place the investments, infrastructure, and policies necessary to revitalize and modernize the Upstate economy and restore it to its place as a national and global leader.

Any sensible plan for economic development in Upstate New York must take a two-track approach. First, I will work with leaders in business, education, and government at the local, state, and national levels to help bring jobs to the region.

But just brining jobs isn't enough, especially if many of them are low-paying or low-tech. These types of jobs, Even if they do come to the area, are increasingly vulnerable to competition from other states and around the world.

Second, Upstate New York needs political leaders who will think long-term about economic development that will bring in high-paying, high-tech sector jobs. I will work to encourage the type of economic development that will not only create jobs, but will also create spin-offs and synergies that will lead to further economic growth.

Here is my six-point vision for a high-tech future for Upstate New York’s economy.

1. Regionalization:

As the saying goes, united we stand, divided we fall. Areas like Silicon Valley with successful economic development have relied upon regional cooperation. Unfortunately for us, cities, towns, counties and regions in Upstate New York compete with one another rather than cooperating. We need to understand that economic development in Auburn or Norwich will in the long-run help development in Utica and Rome, and vice-versa. Regionalization allows for pooling of resources and the more efficient delivery of services.

As District Attorney for Oneida County, I’ve joined forces with local officials from around the region to establish programs like the Oneida County Drug Task Force and the Utica Arson Strike Force. I am also currently working with local officials in Whitestown, NY to determine the feasibility of reducing the number of police departments from five to one. Regionalization efforts like these have and can continue to give taxpayers better law enforcement and cost savings.

As your congressman, I will continue to collaborate with government officials at the federal, state, and local levels throughout Upstate New York to encourage and support regionalization of services, job training, and economic development. I will work to make federal funds available for grants and incentives for new businesses, big and small, and create Regional Skills Alliances to train and educate workers who are entering the workforce and those who are changing careers to meet the needs to Upstate New York’s growing economy.

as your representative, My first step toward creating a regionalization strategy will be to convene a first-of-its-kind summit of local leaders from Auburn to Herkimer, Norwich to Rome. Together we can formulate and implement effective approaches to our area’s most pressing economic development needs.

But we also need to think about regionalization more broadly than just the counties in this district or even in Upstate New York. Our region is part of much larger area that has lagged economically behind the rest of the country as manufacturing industry in the United States has changed. This area stretches from eastern Ohio, across much of Pennsylvania and Upstate New York, and into western Massachusetts and southwestern Vermont and it is home to approximately 15 million people, 27 representatives, and 12 senators.

In Congress, I will work with other representatives from this region – Democrats and Republicans alike – to establish a caucus devoted to economic development in this region, much like the current caucuses that focus on rural areas, the West, and coastal areas. By pooling our smarts and energy, this caucus can be an important means of spurring economic and infrastructure development for this entire region.

2. Infrastructure:

A high-tech economy requires the development of a unique infrastructure. Developments like wireless communication and broadband internet were unheard of even a few years ago, but are now the key to any economic development effort. According to a report on the Upstate economy by the Brookings Institution, “Cities not served by cheap, high capacity fiber-optic networks are ruled out as potential locations for many types of information intensive activities.” Furthermore, they hold the promise of bringing economic opportunity to even the most rural and isolated of communities. As your Congressman, I will work to extend high-tech infrastructure to all parts of Upstate New York and help to pass legislation, like the Rural America Digital Accessibility Act, which will facilitate this process. I will also support federal grants and Technology Bonds for towns and municipalities that provide free wireless networks in downtown areas to help in their economic revitalization.

But it is not enough to just build our high-tech infrastructure – we must also develop the physical infrastructure in Upstate New York. Our cities, towns, roads, and rails are suffering from years of neglect. In order to be a player in New York State’s economy, we must revitalize existing city and town centers and expand our housing stock to include rental and affordable unites. As your Congressman, I will fight for community development block grants, funding for brownfield cleanups, and New Markets Tax Credits so that we can transform our downtowns and old industrial facilities to meet the needs of a new, high-tech economy and a growing population and housing market. In addition, I believe that tax-exempt bonds should be used to support retail expansion in downtown areas, which is not currently the case. I also support the creation of incentives to relocate government and educational facilities into Upstate New York’s downtown areas. If we are successful, and our economy and populations grows, we will need small businesses, like supermarkets and coffee shops, as well as schools and libraries to sustain our new neighbors. At the same time, I would vigorously oppose any legislation attempting to alter the Community Development Block grant formula to favor Southern and Western Cities over Northeastern Cities.

Federal support is also crucial for upgrading our transportation infrastructure. We need an improved North-South highway to integrate the various parts of this district and provide better access to and from the area. As your Congressman, I will continue to push for improvements to Route 12 – an essential transportation artery – as Senators Schumer and Clinton and Representative Boehlert have done in the past. Air and rail service can also serve as key links between Upstate New York and the greater New York State economy. I will work to expand convenient and affordable commercial airline service to and from the region, and to expand and upgrade high speed passenger rail service to and from Upstate New York.

3. Public-Private partnerships:

The high-tech economy requires partnership between the private sector and government. By providing support and resources, government can work hand-in-hand with businesses – helping them get off the ground, grow, and prosper. New Jobs for New York has been at the forefront of this effort, connecting businesses, entrepreneurs, and students from Upstate New York to the greater New York State economy and the wide range of resources it offers.

Since small start-up firms are often the most important engines of high-tech development, I support the expansion of micro-Credit loans so that promising businesses have access to the capital they need to get up and running. Furthermore, the federal government has many special needs that can spur economic development. For example the rise of computer networks and the fears of terrorism following the 9/11 attacks have created a new focus on cyber-security among both government and business. Much of the most important research in this area is being done right here in our district at Rome Labs and the Center for Identity Management and Information Protection at Utica College.

To build on these efforts, I will work in Congress to create a Cyber-Security Institute in the region that will partner government and private industry, creating safer computer networks and providing high tech jobs and economic development for the area. I will also work to expand the “Access to Business Capital” model, which is in a pilot program stage in Yates County, to this district. This program, inaugurated in September by Senator Clinton and others, provides small businesses and entrepreneurs with the financing and training they need to develop and succeed.

For government to help economic development, we need a strong leader who can champion the economic benefits of the region. For example, the decision to locate the AMD chip plant in Saratoga rather than here in Marcy shows my opponent’s failure to be a strong advocate for this district, even when it is such a clearly superior choice.

The workers and business leaders in this area can compete with anyone as long as it’s on a level playing field. As your congressman, I’ll fight to make sure that we get a fair deal when it comes to jobs and economic development.

4. Education:

From the earliest stages of a child’s life to the pursuit of the highest levels of learning, education is crucial centerpiece for any successful economic development strategy.

Nearly every study shows that universal pre-kindergarten programs improve student success and help boost the quality of the workforce. We know this to be true not just because the studies show it. Just ask parents and teachers who have seen the results from their own experiences. High quality, full day pre-kindergarten readies children in critical areas –from language and pre-literacy to basic motor skills to social and behavioral development. I will work in Congress for more federal funds to expand access to these programs – to ensure that all our children are getting the running start on learning they need and deserve.

We also know that a high-tech economy is a high-education economy. It requires workers and business leaders with advanced skills and knowledge. Upstate New York is well suited for this challenge. We are proudly the home of such nationally recognized institutions as SUNYIT, Utica College, SUNY Courtland, SUNY Oneonta, Hartwick, Hobart and William Smith, Wells, and Hamilton College, among others. In addition, Cornell, Clarkson, Ithaca, Colgate, and Syracuse University lie just beyond the borders of the district. As a result, the region has a higher percentage of college students than the nation as a whole, providing it with a potentially vast pool of highly skilled workers. Unfortunately, many of these students leave for other areas after they graduate.

Equally important, higher education represents one of the most important businesses in Upstate New York, with thousands of talented workers, many of them at the cutting edge of science, technology, medicine, economics, and business. These institutions and their employees represent a huge potential pool of knowledge, skills, and innovation for local businesses.

To help take advantage of these resources, I will work to provide tax credits for area businesses that hire local students for internships and for a program modeled on AmeriCorps that helps forgive student loans for young people who live and work in regions such as ours. These initiatives will help address the region’s “brain-drain” problem by creating incentives and opportunities for local students to stay in the region after they earn their degree. In addition, local businesses will be able to tap into the knowledge and energy of our best and brightest students.

As a member of Congress, I will also work to expand opportunities for college educations and job training. Not only will this help working families give their children the opportunities to compete in the new economy, but it will also directly benefit Upstate New York since higher education is one of our region’s most important businesses. I support making the tax breaks enacted in 2001 for college tuition and state sponsored 529 college savings accounts permanent.

5. Our Region’s Resources:

Upstate New York is blessed with many of the resources necessary for a high tech economy. Water is a vital resource for economic development. Fortunately, while other parts of the country struggle to find adequate water to meet their needs, we in the 24th District have it in abundance. We need to insure that the quantity and quality of our water remains high and that we not allow Albany politicians to arbitrarily limit our water use.

We also need to make sure that businesses have access to reliable and affordable electrical power. That’s why I strongly oppose the New York Regional Interconnect power line proposal. This plan would increase electric rates in the region by as much as 7 percent and make us less competitive in the quest for high tech businesses. Equally important, the NYRI plan would put an eyesore right through the middle of the district and damage property values. As your Congressman, I will fight to keep the cost of power affordable and to limit the use of eminent domain by private companies and utilities.

This issue represents a clear divide with my opponent. In 2003, after a secret meeting with utility corporation lobbyists, Governor Pataki proposed a bill that would have made it easier to build these power lines and to use tax payer money to do so. Ray Meier voted for that bill. That’s right, if Ray Meier wanted to make things easier for power line companies like NYRI, and to use your money to help them.

But now he wants to claim that he’s opposed to the power line. I guess Senator Meier would say that he voted for the power line before he was against it. The people of this district are smart enough to see through these sorts of political games. This district needs political leaders who will stand with the people, not with the utility company lobbyists. And it needs political leaders who won’t say one thing in the district and vote the other way when they are in Albany or Washington.

6. Energy:

Our nation is facing an energy crisis. Gas and oil prices continue to rise and too little has been done enough to address our energy crisis or reduce our dependence on these finite resources. We need to change our energy policy and change it fast.

Instead, we need to support the development of renewable and alternative energy sources, like wind and solar power, to reduce pollution and lower energy costs. We need to invest in the use of agricultural products as an alternative energy source, which can lead to the creation of new businesses in Upstate New York. Upstate New York is also rich in the engineering and skilled labor necessary, as well as the natural resources, to develop alternative energy sources. Addressing these issues are critical for our nation’s future and security. In Congress, I will work to bring alternative energy research and development programs in Upstate New York.

I have not gone into great detail here, but energy policy is a very broad topic and one I will talking about a lot over the coming months of this campaign. This is a conversation to be continued.

Conclusion:

Developing a high-tech economy is a huge challenge and requires the ideas and efforts of many people. As I travel around the district this summer and fall, I hope to meet with as many people as possible to hear their ideas for the future and more about the great work that many businesses are already doing. I am firmly convinced that Upstate New York has the people, the skills, and the resources necessary to compete in the high tech global economy. All it needs is the leadership to do so. As a member of Congress, I look forward to implementing these ideas to begin building a high-tech economy in this region and restoring Upstate New York as a global leader in technology and innovation.

And More...

Mike on Wiretapping...

"As a district attorney who has had to apply for many wiretaps, I know that liberty and security are not mutually exclusive, and there are lawful ways that we can protect both."

Mike on Gun Control...

"As a district attorney, my office has prosecuted many illegal gun cases, and we know it is not the legally-possessed guns that cause danger to our citizens but the illegally- possessed guns. We don’t need more gun laws; we need better enforcement of existing gun laws and more funding for police to enforce those laws."

Mike on the Bush Tax Cuts...

"I Believe Tax Cuts Should be Aimed at the Working Middle Class. Tax cuts should be aimed first at the working middle class, and the child tax credit should be made permanent. But I oppose tax credits to big oil companies, corporations and the wealthiest Americans at a time when we cannot balance the budget and are forced to make drastic cuts in student aid and health care."

Mike on a Woman's Right to Choose...

"The Constitution protects an individual’s right to privacy. I support a woman’s right to choose."

Mike on a National Energy Policy...

"The President’s current attempts to make us less dependent on foreign oil, and to develop alternative sources of energy, is simply crisis management at its worst…because it is reacting belatedly to a situation we have known about for years. We need policies that support the development of renewable and alternative energy sources to reduce pollution, lower energy costs, and create new businesses. And we need policies that encourage energy conservation. It would make far more sense to give tax breaks to encourage state-of-art energy policies for the future than to give tax breaks to oil industries to build new refineries which permit them to continue to profit from exploiting oil… a valuable but finite resource."

Mike on Stem Cell Research...

"Stem cell research provides hope to those suffering life threatening and debilitating diseases. Like Congressman Boehlert, I support stem cell research and would oppose any unreasonable attempts to restrict this research and deny hope to those suffering life threatening and debilitating diseases."

 

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