With taxes, spending and health care atop the agenda in the race for the 5th Congressional District in Connecticut, which includes the Danbury area, Republican challenger Sam Caligiuri is also focusing on a bill from U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy that Caligiuri says would result in a trade war.
The two tangled in mid-October at a Waterbury debate sponsored by the League of Women Voters. The candidates hewed largely to party lines during the debate, with Caligiuri promising to “defund,” in his words, the federal health care bill while attempting to institute health reform in different ways. Murphy defended the stimulus as a plus on his resume, and said a vote for Caligiuri represented a return to the policies that brought on the recession.
“We”™ve got to start putting policies in place that will make it easier for the private sector to grow jobs again, starting first and foremost with small businesses,” Caligiuri said. “First and foremost, we”™ve got to get spending under control, because the deficit is so large it is confiscating capital that could otherwise be used in the economy to grow jobs.”
Caligiuri noted that he carried the endorsement of the National Federation of Independent Business, which has endorsed Republican candidates in Connecticut”™s major races.
Murphy countered that he realizes the future growth of the economy lies in small business ”“ as does the Democrat-controlled Congress.
“Over the past two years, this Congress has passed $87 billion worth of tax cuts for small businesses, punctuated by a piece of legislation passed last month that would extend an additional $12 billion worth of tax cuts for small businesses; exempting many small businesses from the capital gains tax rate; giving an enormous benefit to those who are self-employed who have to purchase insurance on their own; and setting up a pool of $30 billion that would be available to small businesses in order to access capital, one of the biggest problems out in the economy today,” Murphy said.
Caligiuri spent significant time on the debate attacking Murphy”™s “buy American” bill, saying it would spark a backlash from trading partners including Canada. Murphy defended the bill, saying its central tenet was to ensure that taxpayer dollars are used to buy American-made products, rather than those produced overseas.
“My legislation simply says that when companies are applying for federal work, they should be able to state how many jobs they are creating here in the United States and how many jobs they”™re creating overseas; and then that a federal agency should be able to award a contract based on how much work its going to create here,” Murphy said.
“Frankly, most of my constituents think that that”™s already happening.”
Caligiuri said he does not disagree with the stated objective, just how Murphy”™s bill would go about doing it.
“You”™ve got proposed legislation called the 21st Century Buy American Act that has two parts to it; the first is financial assistance to help manufacturers develop products so that they don”™t go overseas ”“ I actually think that”™s good,” Caligiuri said. “The second part of the bill, though, would gut exemption No. 3 to the Buy American Act, which has been in existence for many, many years. The stimulus bill that you supported included a relatively modest bypass of Buy American, by requiring that American steel be used ”¦ What you”™re proposing to do in fundamentally changing a small provision in the Buy American act could provoke an enormous trade war from which we would all pay a huge sacrifice.”
