Pingree, Summers talk NAFTA, health care

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AUGUSTA – Maine’s 1st Congressional District candidates differ on whether they could support a single-payer health care system and on the merits of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Democrat Chellie Pingree and Republican Charlie Summers discussed those issues and others, including earmarks and the financial crisis, in questions posed by The Associated Press.

The southern Maine seat is open as six-term Democratic Rep. Tom Allen challenges Republican Susan Collins for her U.S. Senate seat.

Summers is an Iraq war veteran and former Small Business Administration regional director who has run for Congress twice. Pingree headed Common Cause in Washington after her unsuccessful campaign for U.S. Senate in 2002.

Q. Sen. John McCain has called himself “an unapologetic supporter of NAFTA,” while Sen. Barack Obama says he wants to revisit some aspects of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Is NAFTA working or does it need overhauling? What specific changes do you support?

Summers: I think that, overall, NAFTA has been positive for the United States. In today’s global society, the United States cannot afford to close its markets to the world economy. However, I am concerned about worker protection as well as making certain that our work force is retrained for jobs in the 21st century.

The key to maintaining America’s pre-eminence in the world markets is through the best education and training possible for our young people and those displaced by technological advances. As a result, today’s children must have sufficient technical and community college opportunities, particularly for those not wishing to pursue a traditional four-year baccalaureate degree.

Pingree: By 2005, more than 1 million workers had lost their jobs due to growing trade deficits since the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

We do need to revisit NAFTA and examine the lessons we’ve learned when considering pending and future trade deals. We must immediately address and reduce our trade deficit and end tax subsidies for outsourcing jobs.

At the same time, pending and future trade agreements must include guarantees of stronger worker and environmental protections, as well as a way to protect the jobs of working Americans while promoting those standards abroad. Equally or more importantly, we need an administration that is willing to enforce those standards – that lack of enforcement of current agreements was one of the reasons for the contentious recent debate on the Peru and Panama FTA.

Q. Given the growth in federal spending, do you support action to restrict earmarks? The federal Office of Management and Budget defines earmarks as funds provided by Congress for projects or programs in which executive oversights are circumvented. They can include funding provisions that do not name a recipient, but are so specific that only one recipient can qualify for funding.

Summers: Yes, I absolutely support action to restrict earmarks, but more importantly, to make the earmark process transparent. Sen. McCain is correct when he says that “pork barrel spending is an insult to the taxpayers.”

While I understand that federal funding for many state and local projects is critical, attaching a controversial earmark to an appropriations bill at the very last minute does not represent the kind of government Mainers or Americans deserve.

Every piece of spending legislation should have a full accounting of where taxpayer money is being spent, and that information should be listed on a Web site so that the public has a complete understanding of how its tax revenue is being used.

Pingree: From a good-government point of view, earmarks are no way to allocate the resources of the federal government. It is much better for Congress to fund programs based on need and merit instead of based on which member of Congress has seniority or who can slip a provision into a bill in the dead of the night when no one is looking.

I served for eight years in the Maine Legislature, where it was unacceptable to tack on spending to unrelated legislation, and I would like to be a part of reforming the current earmarks system.

Until that system is changed, however, members of Maine’s congressional delegation will need to fight to make sure our state gets our fair share of the federal budget.

Q. Setting aside the merits of the $700 billion bailout of the nation’s financial industry, do you support increased government oversight and bolstered regulation of the financial services industry over the longer term? If so, should those include increased restrictions on salaries of executives whose companies share benefits of the bailout?

Summers: As we have seen over the past several weeks, the greed and excess of a few has cost all of us – and we may be footing the bill to the tune of $700 billion. Given these circumstances, the government must perform stringent oversight on the financial services industry, and particularly on the bailout.

While this may require new regulations, the Congress needs to do a better job of enforcing existing regulations, so that we are never again caught up in a mess of this magnitude.

I also support restricting the benefit and severance packages that executives from these bailout firms receive. People are angry about the situation, and the Congress must channel their frustration by providing proper and thorough oversight of our financial system.

Pingree: I’ve called for increased regulation and oversight of the financial services industry. The anything-goes climate that the Bush administration has helped create a crisis that threatens our entire economy. Wall Street has put far too much money into risky, wasteful schemes like credit default swaps and not enough money into productive investments that create jobs for the rest of us.

Not only do I favor tighter government oversight and a salary cap for executives, but I am also glad to see that the FBI has begun an investigation into the Wall Street companies involved in this crisis, and I fully support congressional hearings to expose the people responsible for this mess. Individuals found guilty of fraud should go to jail.

Q. A Commonwealth Fund survey suggests that nine of 10 adults consider health care reform a top national campaign issue. As a way to achieve universal health care coverage, would you support a government single-payer role? Why or why not?

Summers: This next Congress has to be the Congress that finally makes progress toward fixing health care. The biggest problems facing people are accessibility and affordability.

The answer to our nation’s skyrocketing health care costs is not to implement a big government-run, single-payer health care system. Instead, we need patient-centered reform that allows for more individual choice. Study after study shows that small-business owners want to offer their employees health insurance, but they simply cannot afford to.

I would introduce legislation to expand access to health care through small-business health plans, which allow firms to pool together across state lines so that their employees may select the best health insurance plan for them and their family at a lower cost.

Additionally, to lower the cost burden to the individual, I would introduce a bill to make the cost of health care 100 percent tax-deductible for all Americans. These two steps, while not a silver bullet, would move our debate on health care forward.

Pingree: Everywhere I go in the 1st District, I hear people’s stories about their struggles to access the health care system. People often tell me that they have two or three jobs and would be making it if it weren’t for medical expenses or insurance premiums that are out of reach. And even people who have insurance are finding that out-of-pocket expenses are becoming unaffordable. Clearly, something needs to be done.

I would vote for a single-payer system like HR 676, a bill currently in Congress that has over 90 co-sponsors. However, I understand that there is more than one way to achieve universal health care and am open to working on a compromise plan.

For me, the bottom line is this: We can no longer be content making small changes along the edges of our health care system – we need significant, large-scale reform so every American has access to quality, affordable health care. If we have a Democrat in the White House and large majorities in Congress, and we don’t enact significant health care reform, we don’t deserve to govern.