Montgomery Advertiser - U.S. Senate
News Article
The Advertiser posed the following questions to candidates for the U.S. Senate in the June 3 primaries. The Democratic candidates are Vivian Davis Figures, Johnny Swanson III and Mark Townsend. The Republican candidates are Earl Mack Gavin and Jeff Sessions. Sessions did not respond to the questionnaire.
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What makes you the best candidate for this office?
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Figures: My character and my track record as an elected official make me the best candidate for the U.S. Senate. The first, my character, means that I put the needs of the people I serve ahead of personal or political concerns.
The second, my record, demonstrates that I have the right priorities and that I am willing to work with anyone regardless of political party. Jeff Sessions is one of the most partisan politicians in Washington, and a simple examination of his own Web site demonstrates a lack of focus and a complete lack of accomplishment that will only worsen now that he is in the minority party.
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Swanson: Mr. Swanson feels that he is the best candidate for this position because he has experience in national security and has conducted a campaign where he is indebted to no one. Having worked in Washington DC and in military service, he is up to date on military affairs.
As a corporate president and owner, he has met many payrolls and has hired and trained over 5,000 employees to work in national security. Mr. Swanson has several degrees in legal training and has applied this legal training to defending his country without fail. He supports his beliefs and the workers of Americans with his honesty and devotion to truth. He takes positions on issues that are of benefit to the improvement of the quality of life to workers, the elderly, and the handicapped. He is a disabled veteran who works to aid veterans and promotes education and training of America's youth.
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Townsend: I have been anointed by the Spirit of the Ghost Dancers of Wounded Knee. I have seen the angels that the Democratic mascot spoke of in the Book of Numbers. I have the best Web site named "Sessions is a Sissy" (www.sessionsisasissy.com ) and I am a truck driver.
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Gavin: I am easily the best candidate because I enjoy helping people and my opponent does not. In two instances Jeff Sessions has failed to help when he could.
Ten years ago, when my bedridden friend Burl got a notice before Christmas Eve that the government would cut off his home health care visits, Burl panicked, afraid of going to a nursing home to die. We wrote a one-page letter begging for help to Sessions. We never heard anything from him -- no phone call, no letter, nothing. Burl died.
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What do you see as the biggest issue facing the office that you are seeking, and how would you specifically address it if elected?
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Figures: The biggest issue in Congress is the animosity between the parties, because it results in a stalemate on finding solutions to the major issues confronting America. At the top of that list is helping families to make ends meet and to save for their future. To do this, we need a major overhaul of much of our tax code.
When a married couple gets their paychecks and one entire salary is spent on gasoline to get to work and daycare for their children while they are at work, that family needs a break. Child care should be 100 percent tax-deductible. It's a business expense, more vital than the $1 million that Exxon will write off for holiday parties.
And if a son or daughter moves an elderly parent into the house, and cares for that parent, it should be 100 percent tax deductible. They are doing their duty as a child and filling a role that would otherwise be left to the government. Republicans are too focused on cutting corporate tax rates. Our families are forgotten.
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Swanson: The biggest issues facing America, are the economy, the Iraq war, immigration and naturalization, Social Security, and the lame duck members of Congress who do not see the real problems in America.
Mr. Swanson believes that our country suffers economically due to greed and the failure of Congress to perform its oversight duties. In addition, Iraq affects our economy to the extent that we have no business there in the first place, and that the oil rich country is using our money and generosity to kill our American boys and milk our economy, while their own soldiers refuse to fight for their country.
Absent international affairs, trade agreements and Iraq, coupled with the greed, has put us in a bad situation that we must resolve by congressional oversight and demanding working congressional leaders working to benefit our country as a whole. Immigration must be resolved to permit only those legally here to retain citizenship, close the borders, then decide what to do with other illegal immigrants. However, if we need the workers, we must keep many of them.
Lastly, Social Security he believes is dying because we have allowed trade agreements and immigration to take the jobs from those people who work and pay into Social Security. Unemployed Americans do not contribute to Social Security.
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Townsend: I want to open America's eyes to the fact that all roads of evil lead to the NCAA who is metaphorically "the Devil's pitchfork".
NCAA has a system in play that all school textbooks from grade kindergarten to college must be approved by the NCAA before used in a classroom. Remember when Lemarcus Rowell had his scholarship taken away because of an eighth-grade textbook? The NCAA is the reason evolution is taught in public school systems.
When the University of Alabama and Auburn University became members in the NCAA, we the citizens approved contracts that allow only the NCAA members to bid on defense research contracts. NCAA gives Alabama and Auburn altogether about $100 million per year. NCAA gives over $1 billion per year to Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University each. This is not fair to Alabama. We can whip them in football, our marching bands outperform theirs, and our students are smarter. This is why NCAA controls and prevents testing of college graduates. MIT is the favorite son of the NCAA.
Alabama needs to take the pacifier out of the mouth of Jeff Sessions, who now proposes a nuclear waste dump be brought to Alabama soil. Nevada's Yucca Mountain dump site did not want it there. Nevada is the home of Coach Jerry Tarkainian, who fought the NCAA for 26 years.
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Gavin: The sluggish economy is No. 1. I support a moratorium on home foreclosures and a government freeze on gas prices of $2.50 a gallon, create jobs. A recession is when your neighbor loses his job, a depression happens when you lose yours; cap credit card interest at 16 percent.
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What do you see as the second biggest issue facing the office that you are seeking, and how would you specifically address it if elected?
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Figures: Overhaul our health care system. The lobbyists have made a mess of it, as they protect profits for insurance corporations, drug companies and hospitals. Who represents us, the people? Salaries rise far slower than health care costs, and today in America, the greatest country in the world, health care must be viewed as a basic human need along with food, water, and shelter.
It's a matter of getting very smart people who do not have a financial stake in the system to come up with solutions that distribute the financial burden fairly to all of those involved, from a mom with a sick child to the doctor to the drug company to the CEO of the insurance corporation to our veterans returning home from defending our country.
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Gavin: Eliminate VA policy of making an appointment to get an appointment.
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Swanson: I have merged all problems of immediate nature in Question 2. I feel that much must be done to correct all of these problems in order to correct the complete scenario.
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Townsend: Open the eyes of Americans to the fact that the program No Child Left Behind is really misnamed and should be No Bush Left Behind. Neal Bush indirectly heads up that program.
1985 was the beginning of the Americans with Disability Act. Parts of this bill make children who could not pass high math tests "disabled," like those with physical disabilities. State boards of education wildly accepted this measurement of disability because local schools could now tap into the vast wealth stored in the Social Security trust fund set up originally for the elderly, retired citizens through their golden years.
The number of learning disabled went from 6 million in 1990 to over 54 million people in 2008. This forced Alabama to spend $3 out of $9 collected on education in 1985. In 2008 Alabama will spend $7 out of $9 collected for education. This will require the state to backfill budget cuts from the federal government with more money to maintain these programs; you pay for this in taxes.
The bottom line is that we need more say-so if they use our money, not only NCAA control. I have been fighting the NCAA in court since before the 9/11 attack. In 2000 the federal government owed $20 trillion to the Federal Reserve Bank (a private, not government-owned, bank and corporation). Money paid into the Social Security trust fund by U.S. citizens was obligated by politicians as collateral for that debt.
To date that debt amount owed the Federal Reserve bankers exceeds $53 trillion and may be as high as $70 trillion. To put that into perspective:
1 inch thick of $1,000 bills = $200,000
5 inches thick of $1,000 bills = $1 million
400 feet thick of $1,000 bills = $1 billion
78 miles thick of $,1000 bills = $1 trillion
America must do away with the NCAA, Federal Reserve and Department of Homeland Security. We had homeland security already; it's called the National Guard and the Coast Guard. Bush sends our National Guard to Iraq and Afghanistan while private contractors like Halliburton and Kellogg Brown and Root ride around in U.S. taxpayer-purchased air-conditioned Hummers to guard our homeland. They receive more money in private contracts than our soldiers receive in salary.
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