In a quiet boardroom away from last week’s job fair that many said lacked jobs, Culpeper’s congressman spent about 20 minutes answering a variety of questions from local and national media.
Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Richmond, kept up his criticism of Democrats whether talking about joblessness, banking, Afghanistan, healthcare or the U.S. Justice Department’s recent decision to try accused 9/11 terrorists in the Big Apple.
As whip for the minority party in the U.S. House, Cantor has been increasingly vocal in accenting a divide between red and blue in Washington. His rhetoric Monday before he left the job fair at the Daniel
Technology Center had more than a tint of politics.
Cantor, one of the GOP’s top fund-raisers, is up for reelection in less than a year. The Richmond Democrat who was going to run against him for Virginia's Seventh District Congressional seat dropped out almost as soon as he announced. But Floyd Bayne, a Richmond-area independent, has said he would run against Cantor in November.
Though “very hopeful” that Culpeper’s job fair would produce actual hiring, Cantor could not guarantee that all participating businesses and agencies were, in fact, hiring, though he said that was the original emphasis.
“You certainly hope people would start hiring again,” he said, mentioning that many employers at the job fair he held in Richmond in August had reported hiring.
Cantor said he hoped the administration of President Barack Obama would “finally focus on job creation,” and mentioned that the GOP had offered suggestions in that realm.
Pressed further about specifics of the Republican plan, Cantor mentioned a couple, including reducing income taxes for small businesses and “proposals to help start the housing industry again.”
In addition, he suggested changes to the way unemployment benefits are dispersed.
“Congress has continued to expand that program,” Cantor said. “The result in Virginia? The increase in the unemployment insurance tax on employers next year will be 80 percent.”
He mentioned pilot programs in New York and Georgia he believed “we ought to go and propose in a national way” in which people work part-time while also getting “some help on the unemployment benefits side.”
Cantor, though saying he supported public works projects as a way to create jobs, said it’s not the long-term solution.
“You can’t just keep cranking up the government spending machine,” he said of funding transportation projects. “We don’t have it. You have to go borrow right now and the increase in the deficit has spooked global investors as to the creditworthiness of our country. We ought to be extremely concerned about that.”
He acknowledged Virginia’s transportation challenges and questions about how funds are allocated, saying Governor-elect Bob McDonnell would be proposing solutions to such issues.
On the matter of small businesses struggling to stay afloat due because banks won’t lend, Cantor, whose wife is in banking, said, “In my opinion, the banks, yes, the small businesses can’t access the kind of credit they used to.”
He added, “If you don’t have operating capital how do you keep your lights on?”
Cantor said it’s up to federal regulators to encourage banks to lend more as well as, “You don’t want Congress telling anybody how to lend money.”
“There is a disconnect between the regulators and those in Washington, but also the aggravation comes from a sense on the part of entrepreneurs in our community that the price of risk is still too high to put capital to work,” he said. “That price of risk is being aggravated by the uncertainty created by policies posed by the majority.”
Cantor signaled out Rep. Barney Frank, a Democrat from Massachusetts who heads the House Financial Services Committee, and Sen. Chris Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut who heads the Senate Banking Committee, as generating the type of proposals with which he disagreed.
“They’re proposing a huge overhaul of the financial services industry that frankly will create an environment where you will have permanent bailouts,” Cantor said. “If you are going to have permanent bailouts and people aren’t sure where the government will go next that’s not a real good environment to foster entrepreneurial, risk-based investment.”
On the vote last weekend by the U.S. Senate to continue the debate on healthcare reform, the whip said he was “very disappointed.” He said the Democratic proposal increases the reach of government between patient and doctor. Cantor also said healthcare bills presented by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi “were not the way to affect reform.”
Regarding the U.S. Attorney General’s recent decision to try self-described 9/11 mastermind Sheikh Mohammed in a civilian court near the World Trade Center site, Cantor said no.
“I think it’s a terrible decision, one of bad judgment,” he said. “In no way will it increase the safety and security of this country and somehow seems to be a move to repair an alleged harm that we have been experiencing about our perception worldwide.”
Cantor spoke of the controversial military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, where Mohammed is housed and where he was repeatedly subjected to waterboarding as part of the CIA’s “interrogation techniques.”
“Why would a terrorist, an enemy combatant warrant a trip to the 9-11 site of Ground Zero to have a trial in our civil based system of laws in our courts?” Cantor asked of holding his trial in New York.
In doing so, Cantor went on, all the evidence used against Mohammed would “be exposed” and “that’s not a good thing.” He said New Yorkers do not want Mohammed tried in New York.
The congressman, asked if he thought waterboarding was torture, said he felt it was, “an appropriate method of interrogation for an enemy combatant seeking to tear down our government.”
On the issue of increasing American troops in Afghanistan as the military leader on the ground recommends, Cantor said the president’s decision, in order for Republicans to support it, would have to include: 1) a counter insurgency and counter terrorism element, 2) recognition of the Taliban’s as an American adversary on the level of Al-Qaeda and 3) recognition of Pakistan as “an increasing threat and something that will have to be dealt with.”
“Republicans want to do all we can to deliver for the safety of this country,” Cantor said, “which means heeding the advice of the commander on the ground, the one looking out for the troops who are looking out for us.”
Finally, he briefly touched on the topic of redistricting in Virginia as it relates to next year’s census.
Will Cantor remain Culpeper’s Congressman when the district lines are redrawn?
“I think you ought to ask Del. (Ed) Scott,” he said of Culpeper’s representative in the Virginia House of Delegates. “I do know that the Seventh District has increased in population … so it will have to be altered.”
Either way, Cantor said, “I’ve been very honored to serve as Culpeper’s congressman and hope I could continue to do so.”
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