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ELECTION: Clash of idealists

By Joyce Miles
Lockport Union-Sun & Journal
http://www.lockportjournal.com/local/local_story_300014212.html

October 26, 2008 —Alice Kryzan and Chris Lee are hewing to the party lines as they try to convince voters who has the cure for economic malaise.

The contenders in the race to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds, R-Clarence, both identify themselves as fiscally conservative, but their views on the appropriate role of government in the economy are distant.

Lee, a former manufacturing executive, claims to know from experience that businesses of all sizes need tax and regulatory relief. The more money businesses spend on taxes and noisome, inflexible regulations, he says, the less they have to channel into growth.

Big government is a reflection of Congress' composition, Lee said. Roughly half of 535 representatives and senators are attorneys while only 18 are Masters of Business Administration. "You need people in Congress who understand basic economics and finance. That's what's sorely lacking in Washington. There's no regard for fiscal responsibility in this country."

Kryzan, a semi-retired attorney, says Lee speaks in code for a governing style that favors the wealthiest Americans at the expense of everyone else. Tax changes known commonly as the Bush 2001 and 2003 cuts are regressive and deregulation of financial markets paved the way to Wall Street's near-collapse last month, she claims. "People have really been sold a bill of goods on this idea that a business executive running government is the answer to our problems," she said. "Government is not a for-profit entity. We've had, in the last eight years, a parade of horrible examples of executives who made mistake after mistake, at great cost to regular folks ... so I think that's a false choice. It's really a slick way of selling a political philosophy that favors big money and corporate interests over regular people."

Pro-Lee mailers and TV ads, many financed by the National Republican Congressional Committee, portray Kryzan as an unabashed "liberal" who would raise taxes across the board and inflict fresh financial pain on families and small businesses.
It's a portrayal stemming from a Kryzan statement about the Bush cuts that's taken out of context.

Tucked into the Bush cuts, alongside repeal of the estate tax and grant of larger-percentage tax breaks to higher income earners, were the middle-class friendly child tax credit and eased-back marriage penalty. Kryzan has proposed repealing the Bush cuts on income of $250,000 or more, while suggesting additional tax credits and breaks for those making less.

Lee favors making the Bush cuts permanent and would press for additional cuts for small businesses, which he says generated about 80 percent of new jobs in the past 10 years. The federal government does not spend tax money wisely now and isn't entitled to more, he added. "I don't want to send any more dollars to Washington. I am fed up with what they're doing," he said.

Lee has made deregulation — and the dearth of business know-how in Congress — another campaign issue. Lax regulation of financial markets did help cause Wall Street's crash, he agrees, and laxity is the fault of lawmakers who didn't have a clue what they were doing.

Not all regulations are bad, he's quick to add, but there are big differences in the needs of Wall Street and Main Street. The latter's ability to grow is stifled by voluminous rules conjured up Congress, whose habit is to respond to problems with one-size-fits-all answers.

Using the example of financial reporting regulations that arose from the Enron accounting scandal, Lee says, "In some ways (the law) helped create some of this fiscal problem we're seeing on Wall Street. The amount of time, energy and people required to do all this reporting is incredible. If you're a small business, it costs you a lot of money. At the end of the day, that eliminates your ability to hire more people to go out and try to grow your business and compete here in the United States and abroad."

Kryzan concedes Democrats are not typically seen as business-friendly, and she suggests Lee's assessment of small-business needs is partly right — but only partly.
"Democrats do need to be more aware of tax policy as it affects small businesses," she said. "As for regulation, though, most of the small businesspeople I've talked to don't complain about the regulatory atmosphere. They would like to see some more flexibility in how some regulations are applied, or faster turnaround on government responses to things like permit requests, but mostly what they talk about is the cost of health care. ... It's one of the most crushing costs they have."

Lee and Kryzan have starkly different views of government's appropriate role in health care delivery.

Lee doesn’t suggest any specific plans but thinks the free market should have the bigger role. In his talks with area hospital administrators, HMO and medical services personnel, he says, "One thing I heard loud and clear is people are terrified of growing government into a single-payer system ... . It does not encourage innovation or competition. I’m a big believer in a more market-based approach."

Citing a statistic indicating Americans will spend $2.2 trillion on health care this year, Lee figures the challenge is how to drive down costs enough so that more people can afford it. He sees "huge opportunities" to improve efficiency through information technology — think better diagnostics, for example — and preventative health care.
"You can’t radically change the whole system. You can go in and pick away at certain sections of it," Lee said. "What I don’t want to do is have the federal government be the solution to this. Time and again (it) has let us down; they are not going to spend our dollars wisely."

Kryzan doesn’t suggest a radical overhaul for the health system either, but she disagrees with the notion government would invariably make it worse. How well government works is a reflection of its administrators’ competence and desire to fulfill a charge.
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) "worked perfectly fine under President Clinton. It’s been a disaster under Bush," Kryzan said. "Government can work for the people and it should work for the people. I don’t think the private sector is the answer in every instance. If it were, we wouldn’t have this disaster on Wall Street. We wouldn’t have had Enron, wouldn’t have had Adelphia."

Kryzan said her preference is to "build on" the existing health system, which offers consumers choices. Far from discouraging competition and innovation, she thinks the federal government could help spark it. "I personally would like to see something like a federal program offered in the marketplace that is the best choice. Let the free market operate that way," she said.

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Paid for and Authorized by Kryzan for Congress