| Why Paulsen voted against stimulus plan |
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| Wednesday, 25 February 2009 | |
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Managing editor Congressman Erik Paulsen spent last week back in the Third District visiting schools and small businesses and conducting a phone conference call involving 10,000 constituents. He was gauging reaction to the $787 billion federal stimulus package that passed Congress and was signed into law by President Barack Obama last week as well as listening to constituent concerns on other issues. Paulsen voted against the legislation as did all his House Republican colleagues. But the reason he did was not because the stimulus bill was not needed, Paulsen said. “It was critical we do something,” he said. “People are hurting.” But Paulsen did not like the bill, he said. “It was a missed opportunity,” Paulsen said. “My biggest disappointment was that it deteriorated into backroom deals.” The 1,100-page bill which came out of conference committee was passed in less than 14 hours and no one had a chance to read it all, he said. “It was still flawed,” Paulsen said. In Paulsen’s view, there needed to be more spending on infrastructure improvements, more tax relief for small business and less spending on pet projects of Democrats. “Small business is the engine that runs the country’s economy and creates jobs,” Paulsen said. “I supported an alternative bill that would have provided greater tax relief for small business and created more jobs.” According to Paulsen, a great deal of spending that Democrats inserted in the bill should have been part of the regular budgeting process of Congress, not the stimulus package. Paulsen, who was elected to his first term in Congress in November 2008, calls his first month and a half in Washington, D.C., a “whirlwind.” Not only has the financial stimulus package been front and center on Congressional action, but so have other measures related to the current economic crisis, including the release of the remaining $350 billion in the bailout package for the financial sector approved last year, Paulsen said. In addition, Congress has also been dealing with bonuses given by many of businesses that have received federal bailout money to their top management, which Paulsen described as “completely inappropriate.” And as a freshman member of the powerful House Financial Services Committee, a position that he had sought, Paulsen said he will be involved in other issues like the federal loan requests from GM and Chrysler. But Paulsen said his goal in Congress, as he stated in his campaign, is to work in a bipartisan, pragmatic way. Paulsen has found the rank and file members less partisan, but the leadership more so than was his experience during his many years in the Minnesota Legislature, he said. “I have been working to build good relationships with my freshman colleagues,” Paulsen said. In addition, Paulsen approached Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., about co-chairing the Medical Technology Caucus with her and she agreed, he said. Serving as co-chairperson of that caucus is an ideal fit for him because of the large number of medical technology companies that are located in the Third District, according to Paulsen. As well, Paulsen, together with Minnesota Democrat Sen. Amy Klobuchar, has introduced bipartisan legislation to stem the growing endemic of metal thefts. Paulsen introduced the legislation in the House with Reps. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and Lee Terry (R-Neb.). Klobuchar and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) have introduced the bill in the House. According to Paulsen, the bill would deter thieves from a lucrative practice of stealing high-priced metal from public and private infrastructure. Paulsen has his full staff in place at both his Washington, D.C., and district offices. “We have been getting a flood of constituent concerns,” he said. And Paulsen is using new phone conference call technology to reach a lot more people than would be possible in the traditional town meeting format. Last week the phone conference call reached up to 10,000 people and there were 5,500 callers on the line with questions, he said. Those people he did not get a chance to respond to during the conference call, Paulsen said he was able to call back once it was over. The Third Congressional District includes all but one precinct of the city of Coon Rapids and suburban Hennepin County. Peter Bodley is at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it |
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