Carolina Politics Online

This afternoon I had the pleasure of having a telephone interview with Tim D’Annunzio, Republican candidate for the U.S. House in North Carolina’s Eighth Congressional District.  I spoke to him for about 45 minutes and was able to ask him a variety of different policy questions from health care to economic issues and also learn a bit more about him as a person.

Tim is married and a father of six children and lives in Raeford located in Hoke County.  He is an army veteran and was a member of the Golden Knights, a parachute team.  He spent several years in the army before being honorably discharged in 1984.  Since that time he has been an active entrepreneur and has amassed a vast amount of business experience.  He has owned three companies, JS Industries, Inc. as well as Paraclete Armor and Equipment, Inc. which he eventually sold to MSA, a Pittsburgh based corporation.  He is now the owner of Paraclete XP SkyVenture.  The business operates the largest freefall simulator wind tunnel and is located in Raeford.

We started off talking about the health care bill that recently made it out of the House of Representatives this past weekend.  He was very clear in his belief that the Federal government has no Constitutional authority to enact such a legislation nor any other such type of national program nor do they have the right to put the American people in jail for not abiding by their insurance mandate spelled out in the bill.  I don’t disagree with him.  In his own words, the government starts these program claiming that they are for our own good, but they end up being to our detriment.  In many cases, the road to reform involves getting the government out of the way and letting the market take over.  Health care costs are rising because doctors are over engaging in the practice of defensive medicine out of fear of lawsuits.  There are no incentives for cost control with doctors, insurance companies, or the policy holders in our current system.  He supports tort reform that will put an end to frivolous lawsuits without putting patient care in jeopardy.  He also touched on policy mandates put in place by the government that require a sort of one size fits all insurance policy that covers people for many different tests, treatments, etc that they will never use.  Instead allowing individuals to pick and choose more specific coverages would help bring down costs.  He also added that if the current bill becomes law it is inevitable that the nation will shed jobs at a far greater rate due to the hikes in insurance costs that will result.

On the subject of Cap and Trade, D’Annunzio stated his belief that there is no such thing as man made global warming.  The earth has gone through these types of cycles throughout its history and it is no different today.  He feels that this is a situation in which those in power will create an issue to stir up emotions in people in order to get them to support more extreme policies that they normally would not.  I don’t disagree with him on that either.  He said that Cap and Trade will result only in a transfer of wealth from producers to non-producers without reducing carbon emissions.  D’Annunzio is concerned about the upcoming climate conference in Denmark in which the UN will try to get our nation to sign on to a treaty in which the American people will be subject to a 10% world wide tax in order to “stop” climate change.  I am in agreement with him that this is a dangerous move should President Obama take it in that we will be ceding a piece of our nation’s sovereignty over to the United Nations.

Along the lines of the economy, D’Annunzio said that to bring jobs back to America we need reduce the tax rates and regulations on businesses.  He said he would even be supportive of a hypothetical plan to eliminate taxes on businesses completely on  a temporary basis in order to get the economy pumping again.  Businesses will open and continue to grow when they are able to make a profit doing so.

I threw a bit of unexpected question at him and only because it is very recent news.  I asked him his opinion on Congressional term limits in the wake of the Constitutional Amendment introduced by Senators Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) just a few days ago.  D’Annunzio is not in favor of mandated term limits for member of Congress.  He said that is a decision that should be left up to the voters.  People need to be more vigilant when it comes to the actions of our government.  They should be able to keep effective members of Congress as long as they want and throw out the bad ones.  The good reps shouldn’t be punished along with the bad.

The National Debt is a big issue with me and we began to discuss that.  I asked him what we should do about the growing debt before our nation ends up in bankruptcy.  His answer was, that for all intents and purposes, we’re already there.  The total long term costs of the Federal government’s current obligations are around $68 trillion.  We would have to run multi-trillion dollar surpluses for decades in order to truly get a balanced budget.  The only logical way to fight this is to stop spending on just about every Federally funded expenditure with the exception of the military.  D’Annunzio stated that the U.S. now has a such a large class of people dependent on the Federal government through one entitlement program or another that if the government were to suddenly shut down out of insolvency there would be mass chaos and rioting in the streets across the country.  One option which he is in favor of is completely privatizing Social Security, getting it out of the hands of the government and back into the hands of the people.

I finally asked him about his strategy for winning the election.  He faces a few opponents in the Republican primary, among them Lou Huddleston who I have written about a few times already.  In the general election he would face Congressman Larry Kissell.  D’Annunzio said that his campaign will stick to the basic messages of our Founding Founders, a message of low taxes, limited government, and a strong military.  In other words, good ole Reagan conservatism.  Just like in the 1770s, we’ve reach a critical time in our nation’s history where something needs to be done.  He said he intends to spread an optimistic message that our nation’s best days our ahead of us.  We need to bring back the idea that the U.S. is that shining city on the hill and we are the world’s last hope when it comes to freedom.

Overall, I was very impressed with Tim D’Annunzio and I’m glad that I had the opportunity to speak with him.  He is a strong Constitutionalist when it comes to the role of government, much like myself.  I am in agreement with many of his views and in my opinion should he make it to Capitol Hill the Eighth District will be in very good hands.

You can visit his campaign Web site at http://www.timvote.com/

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