|
|
|
The end of one of the most unique political careers draws nigh, but U.S. Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-Del.) will keep busy when Republican Christine O’Donnell or Democrat Chris Coons replaces him on Nov. 15.
Kaufman was appointed to his seat by former Gov. Ruth Ann Minner for two years after former U.S. Sen. Joe Biden, a fellow Democrat, ascended to the vice presidency. And, while there were doubters, Kaufman insisted from the beginning to the end that he would never run to keep the seat and it gave him a unique way to govern. No one could ever accuse him of playing politics.
Kaufman, who will continue a 20-year career teaching at Duke University of Law and spend more time with his grandchildren, sat down with the Community News Tuesday, Oct. 19 for a question and answer session.
Q) In your two years of service, what legislation did you sponsor that you are most proud of?
A: One is the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act, which was the one that increased the number of FBI agents and prosecutors that go after those who committed fraud during the meltdown. That was the one where I got to go to the White House and get a signing pen from the president. I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d get a chance to do that just being there two years. The other, right at the very end, was the Presidential Transition Act. I was on the Obama transition and one of the problems we have with national security issues is you don’t really have enough time between January and Election Day to do all the things you have to do for a meaningful transition. It was all kept secret and you had to meet in conference rooms downtown. We wrote a bill that essentially said the day after you win the election, the government has to give you an office space, electronic equipment and security clearances. You can also raise salaries for people working on the transition and it won’t count toward your campaign so that the taxpayer doesn’t pay for the transition team.
Q) Last time you were here, you said that if Congress could not pass health care reform now with all the contention surrounding it, it would never pass. What are its best and worst qualities?
A: The best thing about the bill is that we now have a framework, and we’re going to start a process that normally happens when you pass a major bill. Every year we’ll change it and improve it. If we had not passed the bill, nothing would have happened with any of things people are concerned about with health care. The mainstream media kept writing about this $850 billion bill. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office, a bipartisan office, says this bill will reduce the deficit by $130 billion over 10 years, then trillions in the second 10 years. There is money in that bill for 20,000 new primary care physicians in this country. You can’t deny people with preexisting conditions, kids can be on their parents’ plan until they're 26, you can’t have your health insurance removed if you get sick. … Most small businesses are going to get a credit for health insurance. If you pay $100 on average for your health care premium, $60 goes to a fund to pay for anything that goes wrong with you and $40 goes to administration, overhead and advertising. In this bill, 85 cents of every premium dollar has to go into health care. That is a big deal and that’s why the health insurance companies were so opposed to it. People basically bought into the ads that said the federal government is terrible, but the health insurance company is there to help me. People don’t say to me, ‘Thank God for my health insurance company. I called up and said I need this operation and they said, I’ll tell you what. We’ll give you two.’ The health insurance companies spent so much money trying to confuse the American people on this thing, it’s a wonder we ever got anything passed.
The end of one of the most unique political careers draws nigh, but U.S. Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-Del.) will keep busy when Republican Christine O’Donnell or Democrat Chris Coons replaces him on Nov. 15.
Kaufman was appointed to his seat by former Gov. Ruth Ann Minner for two years after former U.S. Sen. Joe Biden, a fellow Democrat, ascended to the vice presidency. And, while there were doubters, Kaufman insisted from the beginning to the end that he would never run to keep the seat and it gave him a unique way to govern. No one could ever accuse him of playing politics.
Kaufman, who will continue a 20-year career teaching at Duke University of Law and spend more time with his grandchildren, sat down with the Community News Tuesday, Oct. 19 for a question and answer session.
Q) In your two years of service, what legislation did you sponsor that you are most proud of?
A: One is the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act, which was the one that increased the number of FBI agents and prosecutors that go after those who committed fraud during the meltdown. That was the one where I got to go to the White House and get a signing pen from the president. I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d get a chance to do that just being there two years. The other, right at the very end, was the Presidential Transition Act. I was on the Obama transition and one of the problems we have with national security issues is you don’t really have enough time between January and Election Day to do all the things you have to do for a meaningful transition. It was all kept secret and you had to meet in conference rooms downtown. We wrote a bill that essentially said the day after you win the election, the government has to give you an office space, electronic equipment and security clearances. You can also raise salaries for people working on the transition and it won’t count toward your campaign so that the taxpayer doesn’t pay for the transition team.
Q) Last time you were here, you said that if Congress could not pass health care reform now with all the contention surrounding it, it would never pass. What are its best and worst qualities?
A: The best thing about the bill is that we now have a framework, and we’re going to start a process that normally happens when you pass a major bill. Every year we’ll change it and improve it. If we had not passed the bill, nothing would have happened with any of things people are concerned about with health care. The mainstream media kept writing about this $850 billion bill. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office, a bipartisan office, says this bill will reduce the deficit by $130 billion over 10 years, then trillions in the second 10 years. There is money in that bill for 20,000 new primary care physicians in this country. You can’t deny people with preexisting conditions, kids can be on their parents’ plan until they're 26, you can’t have your health insurance removed if you get sick. … Most small businesses are going to get a credit for health insurance. If you pay $100 on average for your health care premium, $60 goes to a fund to pay for anything that goes wrong with you and $40 goes to administration, overhead and advertising. In this bill, 85 cents of every premium dollar has to go into health care. That is a big deal and that’s why the health insurance companies were so opposed to it. People basically bought into the ads that said the federal government is terrible, but the health insurance company is there to help me. People don’t say to me, ‘Thank God for my health insurance company. I called up and said I need this operation and they said, I’ll tell you what. We’ll give you two.’ The health insurance companies spent so much money trying to confuse the American people on this thing, it’s a wonder we ever got anything passed.
Q: What do you say to your colleagues in Washington about the national debt and owing trillions of dollars to China, whose spies – along with the Russians – infiltrated our power grid, not to mention most likely stole the plans to our latest fighter jet?
A: Before I became a United States senator, it was a staggering figure. And it doubled, went up by $5 trillion, in the last eight years. I hear Republicans now saying it’s terrible. A senator named Daniel Moynihan had a great saying: “Everybody has the right to their own opinion. They don’t have the right to their own facts.” The facts are that when Obama took office, he had a $10 trillion debt. Economists say that 80 percent of the deficit for the first two years he was involved in it were things carried over. We passed the Bush tax cuts, the war in Iraq the war in Afghanistan, Medicaid Prescription B and we didn’t pay for them. We borrowed $5 trillion from China while he was in office and nobody said a word. … So don’t come to me now about the stimulus. Our gross domestic product turned around the month we passed the stimulus bill. In January, February 2009 we lost 700,000 jobs. It started turning around in March 2009. You want to give the devil his due, Bush’s approach was we never got China to sign on to any of the Iran sanctions we had before. China and Russia signed on the latest round of sanctions and, trust me, the sanctions are going to bite. How about North Korea? How about the currency? How about what they’re doing with Taiwan? How about what they’re doing with the Offshore Islands? China is a big deal and getting bigger. We’ve got to manage our relations with China. I’m worried about the deficits. You can’t operate with your deficit being 4 percent or more of your gross domestic product.
Q: During your time in office, you viewed yourself as apolitical in that nothing you did was motivated by a desire to run for election. However, you showed that you are partisan when you called Chris Coons “the witch slayer” at the Grand Opera House, where President Obama and Vice President Biden campaigned for Coons.
A: I never said I wasn’t partisan. I’m a Democrat and proud of it. I tried to do the best job I could and not as an elected official. That [comment] was totally just something in the moment. It was totally for humor. If you look at why I’m a Democrat, I do think there’s more of a role for government than most Republicans think. I am concerned about the middle class and that they get their fair share of whatever’s going on out there. Take unemployment benefits. Republicans blocked every extension of unemployment benefits for people out of work through no fault of their own. One of the legitimate differences is that most Republicans in a recession say we should cut taxes and growth and that’s what they did. One of the biggest mistakes Obama made was putting all these tax cuts in the stimulus bill – a third of the bill, put in there for the Republicans.
Q: You were appointed to the Congressional Oversight Panel. What does this job entail and how long will you do it?
A: TARP was supposed to cost $750 billion. The GAO has oversight, and they set up an inspector general for TARP and a congressional oversight panel with three Republicans and two Democrats. What this panel did was, first, to make sure the banks don’t bring down our whole financial system. Second was to oversee the money that went to automobile companies – Chrysler and General Motors. The third piece was to oversee A.I.G. Fourth was to oversee the smaller, community banks like Wilmington Trust, that weren’t involved in the major meltdown, but were having financial problems because of other things happening with the fall in residential housing. Fifth, was to do something about the mortgage crisis. [The other] four members - Republicans and Democrats – voted to make me chair. We’ve written 24 reports on all these different issues and we have hearings. We have oversight over the Treasury Department and how they handle TARP. It’s a part time job but now that I’m chair it’s going to take a lot of time. I serve on this until April 3 next year. There’s still $185 billion outstanding. The good news is the Congressional Budget Office forecast that when it’s all over it looks like the final cost of TARP is going to be $66 billion.
