Mayor Young, Council Member Aho and I joined a group of 20+ other members of the Eden Prairie Chamber of Commerce Business Leaders Roundtable on Friday at the Hilton Garden Inn for a meeting with 3rd District Congressman Jim Ramstad. We had a good meeting with the Congressman. He covered five topics in detail that he felt were going to consume most of Congress’s available time and attention in 2008: economy, health care costs. transportation, education and the war in Iraq.
Congressman Ramstad talked about the success of the Bush tax cuts that he credits with 52 consecutive months of job growth in the United States – the longest streak of of consistent job growth in American history. But he wondered in the job growth numbers from the 4th quarter of 2007 is a sign that the streak may be coming to an end. He voted in favor of another one year fix of the AMT, but believes a permanent fix for the AMT is necessary. He also talked about the proposal to make the Bush tax cuts permanent (they expire in 2010), but understands that will mean a potential $2.5 trillion hit to the U.S. Treasury and wondered how the federal government would deal with that.
When discussing health care, Congressman Ramstad said that he favored the S-CHIP bills that came out of Congress this fall and credited Governor Pawlenty as one of the most innovative governors in America when it came to expanding and managing S-CHIP funded programs in Minnesota. He also shared his five suggestions for improving health care in the U.S.: cover the uninsured through refundable tax credits and vouchers; allow association health plans; implement medical liability reform; expand health savings accounts; and allow for the re-importation of pharmaceutical drugs from Canada.
The congressman said he would fight for earmarks for such transportation projects as highway 610, 494-169 interchange, Southwest LRT, and highway 212 because money is needed for those projects and because the projects have merit.
Congressman Ramstad said that the President and Congress should not become a national School Board and substitute its collective judgment for the judgment of locally elected school boards. He said the federal government should fully fund its 1976 commitment to pay for 40% of local special education costs. The federal government current funds about 18% of special ed costs.
Finally, Congressman Ramstad described the war in Iraq as the “800 pound gorilla in the room”. He was one of only 17 Republicans in the House to vote against the President’s “surge” plan. He acknowledged the reported success of the surge in reducing the overall level of violence in Baghdad, but wondered if the surge had just disbursed the bad guys into the hinterlands to lay low until the U.S. departed. He also offered some criticism of the Iraqi government for not making much political progress on the 18 benchmarks adopted by the U.S. Congress. So far, the Iraqi central government has only made substantial progress of 8 of the 18 benchmarks.
Congressman Ramstad is a great guy to have breakfast with. He is informative, but listens well too. He will be tough to replace.
