What makes you more qualified than your opponent?
There are some very important contrasts in this race. First, I have a record of putting partisanship aside and working toward the solutions that are best for Colorado. My opponent has the opposite reputation, and you don’t have to take my word for it; his hometown paper has even called him “combative” and asked him to put aside his partisan politics for the good of Colorado.
Second, my positions on the issues are the best path forward and the way to get our country back on the right track. I support tax relief focused on the middle class and small businesses and have a record of cutting taxes for both. Bob Schaffer supports continuing the same failed tax policies implemented by the Bush Administration. Bob Schaffer thinks George Bush’s economic policies have been “fiscally prudent.” I could not disagree more.
Where I support a responsible and honorable redeployment from Iraq, Bob Schaffer supports an open-ended commitment. When asked if the U.S. should be hunting down Osama bin Laden instead of being hunkered down in Iraq, Bob Schaffer said “absolutely not.” That’s just flawed thinking similar to the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld playbook. We need to get away from that — not repeat it.
Where I have put forward a bipartisan and comprehensive energy strategy, Bob Schaffer has consistently opposed any plan that takes away tax breaks for an oil and gas industry making record profits. He even believes oil company profits have been “modest.”
Would you support an expanded guest worker program and how would it work?
I believe we need comprehensive immigration reform in the United States, and that starts with securing our borders. We need to and I have introduced legislation that will add more law enforcement on our borders, improve border and port surveillance, and utilize barriers and fencing where law enforcement authorities believe these will be effective.
Currently, an estimated 12-15 million undocumented immigrants reside in the U.S. We must bring them out of the shadows and create a path for documentation. However, if they are to stay in the U.S. legally, they should pay a fine for breaking the law, submit to a criminal background check, and be required to learn English. At the same time, we must hold employers accountable who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.
Colorado’s recreation, tourism, agriculture, and other industries frequently rely on workers from other countries to meet their labor demands.
Therefore, comprehensive immigration reform must include expanded legal channels for guest workers. But in the meantime, I strongly support increasing the number of temporary visas available under the existing H-2A and H-2B visa programs (which provide for legal entry of agricultural and other workers), so that Congress’s delay in completing immigration reform does not come at the expense of Colorado employers.
Should Congress permit increased off-shore drilling? In the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?
I support opening additional offshore areas to energy development, but I agree with John McCain and Barack Obama that drilling in ANWR is a bad idea. We have so many other options on the table to break our dependence on foreign oil. I believe we should pursue those first.
Along those lines, I support a comprehensive energy reform package that lessens pain at the pump in the short term and sets us on a course to energy independence in the long run. The energy plan I have championed in the House has bipartisan support, and if done right, can solve our current energy crisis in a way that improves national security, creates new jobs, and revitalizes our economy.
For immediate relief from high gas prices, I support an emergency release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and efforts to crack down on speculation. My plan also includes additional domestic offshore drilling, nuclear power, and fast-tracking renewable energy sources to break us free from our dependence on foreign oil.
You can find full details of my plan on my website, www.markudall.com.
Should Congress provide the requested $50 billion in low-cost loans to the auto industry for retooling and development of fuel-efficient cars?
I was not enthusiastic about this, but supported it as part of the legislation that provided fiscal 2009 funding for the Defense Department, VA, and other agencies. Another way to lessen our dependence on foreign oil in the medium term is to retool our motor fleet to be much more fuel-efficient. I support a fuel economy standard of 35 mpg by 2015 and 50 mpg by 2050. To get there we should create incentives for fuel-efficient vehicles such as tax credits for consumers, providing billions for research and development to overcome technological barriers, and billions in tax credits for U.S. automakers that retool to make alternative fuel vehicles.
What’s your assessment of recent Supreme Court picks Samuel Alito and John Roberts?
When it comes to selecting new Supreme Court justices, I would look for someone in the model of a quintessential Western member of the Supreme Court: Sandra Day O’Connor. She was a moderate – appointed by a Republican – who brought to the bench experience, judicial temperament, and a broader look at the world. She was unique and a team player.
With that in mind, had I been in the Senate for their nominations, I would have supported Chief Justice Roberts but opposed Justice Alito.
Should the U.S. government make it more difficult for American businesses to “outsource” jobs?
Yes. I believe we need to encourage the development of small businesses through tax breaks and initiate a new energy economy that creates jobs in America that can’t be shipped overseas. Stimulating our economy and creating jobs that stay in America will be my focus in the Senate. To that end, I have co-sponsored and supported legislation to discourage corporations from sending their headquarters and plants overseas in order to secure unfair tax advantages.
How would you reform the Department of Education or would you recommend Congress abolish it?
A sound public education system is the cornerstone of a strong, modern society, and our children deserve the very best we can provide in order to secure their successful future. Our students must have the tools to be innovative and competitive if we want our economy to remain the strongest in the world. I believe that we can meet and exceed these demands, but we need to continually renew our commitment to education.
These are considerable goals to set for our country, and meeting them will require policies that work at the local, state and federal levels. With that in mind, I believe that the top education priority for the next Congress is to reform No Child Left Behind (NCLB) to allow additional flexibility to states in meeting its requirements, clarify discrepancies between mandates in NCLB and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and to provide full funding from the federal government.
I supported the ideas behind No Child Left Behind because I believe that accountability and standards are important pieces of improving public education. But NCLB needs serious reforms to better serve our schools, and I am a cosponsor of legislation that makes reforms based on listening to teachers, parents, and administrators. Accountability shouldn’t be about teaching to a test. And we can’t keep setting our schools up to fail by passing mandates but denying them the funding to reach those goals.
In addition, we must send our children to school ready to learn regardless of their parents’ income. High-quality, comprehensive, early childhood programs like Head Start have been proven to help with the long term performance of students, and I will continue to work to fully fund Head Start.
Do you support a constitutional amendment to bar homosexual marriage? Why?
No. I oppose amending the U.S. Constitution to bar homosexual marriage. I do not believe we should amend the U.S. Constitution to deny equal rights for any group of citizens.
Is global warming primarily caused by human activity and should reducing greenhouse gas emissions be a priority for Congress?
Our climate is changing, and human activity is contributing to it. I believe that we must pass legislation to limit carbon emissions. I am a cosponsor of H.R. 620, the Climate Stewardship Act of 2007, which would create a cap-and-trade system to lower carbon emissions. We must put all options on the table, including energy efficiency, conservation, and increasing fuel-economy standards, to address this challenge. And we must continue to invest in science to better understand our climate system. I authored the Global Change Research and Data Act of 2007 (H.R. 906) to update and reorient federal climate change research.
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