Reader interviews Sen. Elizabeth Dole
Question: Senator the economy is first and foremost in the concerns of North Carolinians with the latest Public Policy Polling survey indicating that 30% of Republicans and 48% of Democrats rated the economy as there number one issue. Amongst all North Carolinians we can see a great deal of angst with oil at over $110 a barrel, a weakened US dollar, and inflation driving the price of everyday items such as food and groceries to all time highs. Senator what do you believe needs to be done to address these concerns, and to allow economic growth in concert with an increase in the value of wages?
Dole: Well let me say that I think most folks agree that at a minimum our economy has significantly slowed down, and I certainly share the concerns that North Carolinians have about energy and healthcare costs, the increasing number of home foreclosures too and the potential of unemployment rates to rise. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who I’ve had the pleasure of both meeting with and also questioning before the Senate Banking Committee hearings, said recently that it’s possible that the economy could face a mild recession but that he expects growth as a result of the interest rate cuts.
Additionally the Congress passed an economic stimulus package, with my strong support. That bill contains provisions that will allow for a tax rebate and temporary business tax relief among other helpful measures. And last week the Senate approved the Foreclosure Prevention Act that will help correct volatility in the housing market. This bill includes measures that will help state and local governments to buy foreclosed homes in the community and funding for pre-foreclosure counseling. The counseling is very important here, in fact we’ve had some housing summits that my office has sponsored in North Carolina to help people to know more about all the various steps and to prevent foreclosures. This most recent Senate action also provides for $7,000 in non refundable tax credit that taxpayers can receive if they purchase a home that’s in foreclosure. So I think that Washington has to continue taking appropriate actions to help Americans weather these times and get our economy back on course.
It’s critical that we help those who need it most while we are taking steps that are necessary to grow the economy like making tax relief permanent for families and for small businesses, having an oil strategy that includes increasing environmentally sound production at home, while lessening demand for oil through conservation and through technology. Washington must also ensure Carlton that trade agreements are fair for North Carolina and strengthening education and job training programs. I have legislation that’s included in the Higher Education Act to help our community colleges because they’re right in the forefront now, since we have had such an economic transition in North Carolina.
Community colleges have been doing a great job on the forefront and so there are several provisions in the Higher Education Act that are mine which would help these community colleges by providing funds to train people in jobs that would be available, 21st Century jobs, in the community. Then of course we have to invest in transportation and other infrastructure to foster economic growth. So all of this is important and we’re coming at it from many different ways. I have legislation with Senator Ron Widen (D-OR) that would be a $50 billion bond issue that would be specifically for our transportation infrastructure needs for rail and for highways and bridges. There are many components but all of it is extremely important and we’re focused very intently on all of it.
Question: In the battle for the Democratic nomination we have seen both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton speak out about NAFTA and the impact it has had on manufacturing jobs in the United States. This debate comes home to many North Carolinians as we have seen traditional textile, furniture, and other manufacturing jobs leave the state for Mexico and China. North Carolina has been among the hardest hit states by the policy of free trade with Third World countries. Do you believe that we should have a timeout on these agreements and to reexamine those that we have already entered into such as NAFTA, CAFTA, and normalized trade with China?
Dole: Well I’m a firm believer in Fair trade. When I see an agreement that’s coming through that I think may not be good for our state I will fight tooth and nail to improve it. I can remember a couple of weekends that all day Saturday and Sunday I was going back and forth with the White House over different provisions so that changes were made, adjustments were made before I would support it. Another example, there are many of them I can give you, I secured funding for additional Customs agents to focus on textile enforcement so that they’re doing only that, just the textiles.
I successfully pushed for the Commerce Department to expedite its release of import data to provide the government and the textile industry a more accurate picture of import numbers and allow them to assess and react to textile surges in a timely manner. What I mean by that is that the data was coming in two weeks after the end of a month and the Secretary of Commerce agreed with me after we talked about this a couple of times that it would be changed to a bi-weekly basis so that companies would see what was happening in terms of imports in a timely manner in order to really trigger the kinds of actions that would be helped to them to allow them to react to textile surges before their doors have to be closed. I have also secured funding for the development of a textile tracer to identify illegal textile goods. I think it was $57 million just to focus on textile enforcement.
So I think that’s the way we need to go about it. I was not serving in the Senate when NAFTA was enacted, but you mentioned CAFTA. That’s one of the one’s that I know Hickory and the surrounding area that hit especially hard in recent years by textile and other manufacturing job losses. I think that our manufacturers have got to be able to compete on a level playing field and this includes having fair trade agreements that are strongly enforced. I review them very closely if they come through and I supported CAFTA only after having secured hard fought concessions. I think on NAFTA that it appears that NAFTA has been an effective tool on coordinating the trading benefits between Canada and Mexico. There are a lot of reports that indicate that NAFTA has allowed more of North Carolina’s textile and apparel goods to be exported. That has resulted in a flow of income to North Carolina companies.
Question: One issue where we have seen you very active is illegal immigration. You have spoken out about the need to crackdown on illegal aliens convicted of drunk driving. I can tell you it is a highly emotional issue as we have seen all too many North Carolinians killed by people not even supposed to be in this country. Can you elaborate on your Safe Roads Enhancement Act of 2008 and what you would like to see done with this enforcement mechanism in combating illegal immigration?
Dole: I can go back, Carlton, for just a moment to our job training and trade issue question. I wanted to just mention to you that I’m a strong supporter of trade adjustment assistance; in fact I doubled the funding for that. This helps people who are eligible, displaced workers with job training and reemployment services. I introduced legislation to expand and improve the trade and adjustment assistance and I just wanted to add that one point because it’s extremely important for workers who are trying to transition into new jobs. Now on immigration, this is one of the top concerns that I hear about from North Carolinians, the broken immigration system. Literally when the broad immigration legislation was before the Senate I was one of those who decided that this has to be stopped because it was a very broad bill that affected every aspect of our society and economy. They weren’t even going to allow amendments that would help to fix this broken system. So I helped halt that Senate immigration bill.
North Carolinians called and wrote and sent emails opposing this broad legislation because it failed to secure our borders and enforce our law. I think clearly what is necessary, and we have been able to get $3 billion in border security enforcement and we’re going to need more as there is certainly much more to do on this front. Also I’ve been working with federal officials and sheriff’s all across North Carolina including Catawba County’s David Huffman to establish the first in the nation statewide partnership. This is a plan to allow sheriff’s to have access and to share with federal immigration officials and the plan will ensure that all North Carolina sheriff’s can readily access the tools that they need to identify whether or not a person is legal or illegal in their jail to help process undocumented aliens who have self identified themselves because of their criminal behavior. So no question that we need to secure our borders and fix our broken immigration system.
It is a very, very important issue and a number of North Carolina industries need a dependable labor force in addition we’re trying to help that they can have the workers that they need through a legal immigration process. I continue to push for actions that will help construction, agriculture, tourism, and other sectors and we want them to have a reasonable way to have the workers they need. I believe the government has got to do its part to provide a simple employee verification system. So there are a number of angles to this and one thing that I’m working on is to repeal Bill Clinton’s 1996 Executive Order that requires the federal government to provide services in languages other then English.
This requirement is costing taxpayers up to $2 billion annually and obviously proficiency in English needs to be encouraged. It’s required for citizenship and is essential to rise to the opportunities available in this country.
End of interview
