Editorial Board: Denton Publications with Matt Funiciello

Interview

Voters will go to the polls on Tuesday, Nov. 4 to select a replacement for outgoing Congressman Bill Owens, the federal representative for New York's 21st Congressional District.

#Owens, a Democrat from Plattsburgh, is retiring in January after two full terms.

#Three candidates are running to replace him:

#Green Party candidate Matt Funiciello, of Glens Falls, Republican Party candidate Elise Stefanik, of Willsboro, and Democratic Party candidate Aaron Woolf, of Elizabethtown.

#We asked each candidate a set of identical questions covering issues that we felt would be of interest to our readers, including how they view public service, if they would vote along partisan lines if elected and how their proposed policies would directly impact residents of the district.

#The hour-long interviews were conducted in-person with our editorial board, which included Publisher Dan Alexander, Managing Editor John Gereau, Southern Bureau Chief Keith Lobdell and Reporter Pete DeMola.

#Denton Publications does not endorse candidates.

#MATT FUNICIELLO, GREEN PARTY

#Denton Publications: What do you see as the major issues you personally can address and have any impact on resolving?

#Matt Funiciello: "My platform: ending corporate welfare, single-payer health care and raising the minimum wage."

#The candidate said these will elevate workers and help end the government subsidization of big business that he said decimates communities.

#Funiciello said taxpayers subsidize large companies like Wal-Mart through tax breaks. This, he said, is paired with the "crony capitalism" that happens when companies like General Electric pull out of places like Fort Edward. Taxpayers are then indirectly left with paying the interest when General Electric lends funds back to the public through GE Capital, their financial services unit.

#"Most people in Congress take money from GE," said Funiciello. "If we're not going to talk about it, that's not going fix the problem."

#Funiciello said he wants to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour. He dismissed the argument that doubling the wage of fast food workers, to name one cohort, would also double prices, citing Sweden as an example, where the hike resulted in only nominal bumps in consumer prices.

"I'd be willing to pay an extra 60 cents [per hamburger] so my neighbor can make a living," he said.

#Funiciello, who owns a bakery in downtown Glens Falls, also cited a Harvard study that revealed 60 cents of each dollar spent on health care is taxpayer money. Residents of industrialized nations pay 10 cents less than Americans and receive health care, he said.

#"We need to do something about that," said the candidate. "We need to send people to Congress who understand and advocate for workers."

#As a congressman do you really have any control over job creation in the private sector? And if so, specifically how?

#Funiciello said jobs are often made part of the Congressional resume, like when incumbent Congressman Bill Owens attracted subway car manufacturer Bombardier to Plattsburgh.

#"But that could have been done as a private person," said the candidate. "Job creation should be the last thing done in Congress."

#The institution should instead focus on big, sweeping national issues.

#"Congress isn't a jobs program until you make it one."

#Funiciello said the Green Party is focused on redirecting corporate welfare money, including the funds used to prop up the military and prison industrial complexes, into building infrastructure.

#"We need to look at a Federal Works Program," he said. "Rebuilding railways is the cheapest way, then we're doing something that makes sense -- living wage jobs with single-payer health care to remove people from the welfare rolls. But we won't do it by bringing back pork. That's short-term thinking, not national thinking."

#Class warfare, the War on Women, racial injustices, immigration -- Isn't there a better way to appeal to your base without putting people into classes and pitting them against one another?

#"If I wasn't ardently running as working class representative, then I'd say yes," said Funiciello. "But I have to plead guilty: class warfare is a good thing."

Funiciello cited the financial backing of his opponents and their personal assets.

#"It is possible to be a millionaire with honesty," he said. "But what about ten million?"

#Ninety percent of the American population aren't millionaires, said Funiciello. As such, Congress needs voices who can represent the working class.

#"We're workers. We were born and raised here. We are connected to this place. That's me. The other candidates use these issues in a broader sense to open that wedge. They're having a meaningless, broad, ideological argument with each other."

#What specifically can you do to bring the debt under control when no elected official is willing to address the tough issues that affect their voting base?

#"I am a capitalist. We all suffer together. The national debt is $17 trillion. One of the major ways to [bring the debt under control] is to establish a centralized bank to control and isolate our own economic expenditures as a country."

#The North American Free Trade Agreement, said the candidate, was in essence a Republican measure passed by centrist Democrats in order to give the agreement a bipartisan seal.

#In the district, he said, a tough choice would be determining the future of Fort Drum. Funiciello said he would focus on keeping 10,000 people employed, not investing in large-scale defense systems that do little to build long-term sustainability.

#"We need to reestablish our own priorities," he said. "I'm more interested in soldiers and their families and economic development in Watertown than something like the Star Wars program. How many people are you benefitting? If you're arguing defense, Canadians are probably not going to attack us. It's a boondoggle, not economic development."

#Funiciello said it would be far cheaper to transition soldiers into living wage jobs and fund the small businesses that would subsequently pop up.

What do you see as the two best and the worst elements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and how can we move health care forward without wasting the efforts of the past six years?

#At its worst, said the candidate, the ACA is unconstitutional.

#"It's an insurance company bailout," he said.

#The solution is enacting single-payer health care by passing HR-676, the Expanded & Improved Medicare For All Act that would reduce the age of Medicare to zero. The ACA would then be rendered as unnecessary because all Americans will then have health care, explained Funiciello.

#"This would exist right alongside the ACA," he said. "If people still want to play on exchanges, they still can. This draws all the profit out of the system, like profit for CEOs."

#Funiciello said he agreed with the provision of the ACA that prohibited insurers from turning down applicants with pre-existing conditions.

#"Having grown up with a sick younger brother, I know how that hurt. I know people impacted positively who otherwise would have been denied."

#Another positive element, said Funiciello, was that it showed Democrats how weak their party is.

#"It's just one more betrayal by Democrats leading to massive political dissatisfaction," he said. "It will eventually lead us to the health care we already pay for."

#Is getting this job about you or about the country? And if about the country, then why do you need health care and a pension in order to serve?

#"I don't need health care to serve and I will not accept insurance until my workers have it," said Funiciello.

#The salary, he said, would be necessary because he makes $40,000 per year and has no retirement or savings that would fund his travels back and forth from Washington as well as a residence.

#On gold-plated benefits, Funiciello said while members of Congress are overpaid, he would rather withhold judgement before making "bold declarative statements."

The candidate said if his bid was successful, it would be first time in recent history that a third-party candidate would be elected.

#"This is public service and it shouldn't be like winning the lottery," he said in regards to term limits.

#Congress, he said, has strayed from its original conception as a citizen's body of common people. "Any of duties I would have, I would take very seriously as a representative. I wouldn't do anything in Congress without feeling the knowledge, duty, responsibility of all of the people behind me… including those who don't know about me yet."

#What's your position on the line-item veto?

#"There are a number of things injected into the legal behavior on how Congress acts that are disgusting," said the candidate. "Since when can you pick and choose what to accept or not accept? This is not what our Founding Fathers imagined."

#The candidate said he retained a "huge" streak of libertarian thinking, an ideology that would seep over to vetoing pork.

#"But it is being misused," he said. "We need to get back to a simpler part of governance. You shouldn't have to be a lawyer to figure out what's happening on C-SPAN."

#What can you do in Washington to get Congress and the administration focused on the major issues facing the country instead of political grandstanding for the benefit of your party?

#Funiciello said the question of being a Democrat or Republican isn't as relevant as the corporate influence behind both political parties.

#The candidate cited Owens' previous comments on the dysfunction in Washington that prohibited meaningful change, one of the factors underpinning his retirement.

#Freshman representatives, said Funiciello, have little power to determine legislation that would benefit their constituents and become backbenchers who are trotted out for floor votes.

#"Congress is functional and does what its controllers intend it to, which is to pass legislation that hurts the working class," he said.

At the end of the day, voters have to be more serious, said the candidate, who circled back to a question he often poses to voters on the campaign trail, that of the logic behind being a heredity voter if it does not represent their best economic interests.

#As a Green, Funiciello said he would have a national media presence at least for a short time and would use the platform to inject issues into the national conversation.

#"Around the country, interest would be piqued," he said. "And then nine more third-party candidates get elected. Guess who they caucus with? Now you've got real gridlock, but at least you have a group in the middle."

#Funiciello called for more civility.

#"We can create that kind of open avenue for discussion," he said.

#Congressman Owens proved he was willing to vote his conscience by crossing party lines on 35 percent of his votes. Would you be willing to do the same?

#"It's quite easy for me to cross party lines because there are no lines," said Funiciello.

#He cited the SAFE Act as one example of how he broke with his party.

#"I grew up with a .22. I love guns. These are not things urban Greens understand."

#Funiciello said he liked the Green Party because they like Nader, "and I would like them if they ran Ron Paul, too."

#The candidate said he was running on the Green Party line because of their ballot access, something that is impossible for independent candidates, in part, due to legal roadblocks thrown up by the two major political parties. But while he said he shared a lot of concerns about elevating the working class and the environment, he said he wasn't a Green.

#"I'm Matt Funiciello," he said.

#Owens, he said, crossed party lines to win election, something he said weakens the nobility of his bipartisan voting record.

"If any average voter had conversation with [Owens] for an hour and were asked to guess which party, they'd probably say he was a Republican."

#Which politician do you most admire?

#"I'd like to split it between [Democrat] Dennis Kucinich and [Republican] Ron Paul. Both represented everything about independent politics at the congressional level that I respect. They were on different ends of the political spectrum and both were assassinated by their political parties. They are amazing, principled individuals who have done amazing things, but their own parties don't want them there -- they didn't want to see how amazing these stars shine if they're paying attention."

#Where in the district do you take your vehicle to be serviced?

#"I own an F-150, which I love so much. I take it to Nemer Ford [in Glens Falls]. I really liked Henry Ford's attitude that his workers should make enough money to buy his cars. Even if I wanted to go somewhere else, I've already paid for the service work when I bought it, so I take it there."

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