Gillibrand’s Priorities: Accountability, Responsibility and Trust
I have spent the last year talking to my neighbors and people I've met while traveling throughout the 10 counties of the 20th Congressional District. Despite the length and breadth of the district and differing rural and suburban communities, there are certain priorities that people in the district share: there is an overwhelming desire for honest, strong leadership in Washington, and someone who will fight for their concerns. Based on my many conversations, the biggest concerns I am hearing from folks right now are: health care reform for individuals and small businesses, lowering gas and heating oil prices, making sure social security and pensions for our families are protected, lowering our property taxes, ensuring that our children have the highest quality education, and how to manage the war in Iraq.
I hear over and over again from people in the district who feel as if our current leaders are not listening. That they are ignoring our needs to advance their own agenda. Worst of all, they are dishonoring the trust we have placed in them. So my top priority is to bring accountability, responsibility, and honesty back to our government and give our country a fresh start. The people of this district deserve a real voice in Washington -- a representative who is accessible and answerable to everyone, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike. Someone with the strength of character to put your interests first.
Accountability
It is time for the current leadership in Washington to stop wasting America’s greatness. I am running to be your Congresswoman to bring real solutions that are not about being a Democrat, Republican or Independent, but that are about solving problems for the right reasons - for our children, for our communities and for our country's future.
I have pride in our communities and want all of New York and the nation to view the 20th Congressional District as a model for success; together we can set an example for the nation by fixing the problems facing our community. We can develop energy independence to combat our rising gas and home heating prices, we can eliminate the fiscal mismanagement in Washington that causes our property taxes to keep going up, and we can improve our access to affordable healthcare and good doctors by driving down the costs for families and small businesses.
We have the strongest and best military in the world – I feel enormous gratitude to and respect for our dedicated men and women who fight for our freedoms every day. What our men and women fighting in Iraq deserve from our politicians and leaders is a comprehensive success strategy. We must call for a renewed strategic plan with defined milestones, including a resolution that we will have no permanent bases in Iraq and substantial renewed participation by our allies in training Iraqi security forces, so our forces can successfully do their job, empower the Iraqis to defend their nation and be redeployed as soon as possible.
Responsibility
We have a responsibility to promote the spirit of America's leadership and to protect those who are the most vulnerable in our society – particularly our children and our elderly.
We must strengthen our nation and our economic security by ensuring that our businesses, workers and families have access to affordable health care when and where they need it. We have 8 million uninsured children in our country today – this is a problem we can solve by enhancing certain targeted programs that can save taxpayer dollars by replacing emergency room care with preventative care. Our elderly are concerned about affording their medicines – the current prescription drugs bill does not do the job it was intended to do – we need better answers that include simple, easy to access solutions, not complex schemes that don’t give our seniors a clear choice or the lowest possible prices. We need to engage in an aggressive national dialogue about the future of health care, where all issues are on the table for open, honest discussion and meaningful problem-solving. Big drug companies and the insurance industry should not be allowed to determine the quality of our health care or to stand in the way of real reform.
We must also strengthen our economic security by supporting farms and protecting our rural landscapes, growing local business, encouraging wealth creation for working families, fixing our schools and supporting our teachers, promoting tax cuts for working families, reforming health care and ensuring the solvency of social security for generations to come.
The reckless fiscal policies that the current administration has promoted over the last five years represent a major failure of leadership. The people of this district have seen excessive tax giveaways to the ultra-rich, extraordinary levels of pork spending, and no-bid contracts to political insiders, all creating massive deficits that push the burden on to the backs of working families. As your Congresswoman, I will work to reverse this trend by opposing pork and wasteful spending that serve only to line the pockets of the well connected, and focus on the kind of tax cuts that will help the working families of the 20th District, including tax credits for home heating and property taxes for the families and seniors who need it the most.
We must strengthen our national security by supporting our military, standing up for American troops at home and abroad and by establishing our energy independence. Our armed forces deserve the armor, supplies and training they need, combat pay, access to healthcare benefits for them and their families, and housing and education assistance when they return. Our veterans deserve a fully funded VA and the benefits they earned for their dedication and sacrifice.
To combat the war on terror most effectively, we should double the size of our Special Operations Forces to take the war on terror to the roots of terror. We must also ensure that America is freed from our dependence on Middle Eastern oil – energy independence must be part of our national security agenda, and companies that develop energy independence and conservation technologies and solutions should be encouraged and supported though a National Energy Independence Initiative including tax incentives and increased Federal investment.
Trust
We have reached the point where we can no longer believe what our representatives in Washington DC say because too often they promise one thing and do another. Time and time again, our current Congressman has squandered the opportunity to act in earnest on behalf of the district and to reverse the negative economic trends hurting our working families.
I will call for campaign finance reform, clean elections, voting machines that work, and getting money and corruption out of government. I will lead by demonstrating how open government can work by regularly meeting with the people of this district to be accountable to them for my priorities and my votes. Voters have a right to know what their representative is doing in Washington – how they are voting and why they are voting a certain way. We do not have that now in the 20th District, and we must restore that right so we can believe in honest and accountable government once again.
I know that restoring trust in our government and bringing integrity to the political process requires strong leadership and as your representative in Congress I will listen to your priorities, respect your views and fight for your families. Together we will experience open government that works because you will part of the process and your priorities will be part of the solutions.
Please watch for more details on my policy positions after my formal campaign announcement in the New Year.