This question at the GOP Congressional Debate on July 30 provoked a lot of discussion.
Congress approval rating is low as it can be. Why is Congress performing so horribly?
Senator Greg Evers: First off, you have to remember that everybody dislikes all of the congressmen other than their congressmen. So you know, your congressman will perform at probably eighty percent. Where you know Congress is as a rule, going to perform about sixteen percent. What their whole purpose is and the reason I think that Congress is performing so lousy is the fact that, let’s face it, Congress, they’re not listening to the people.
You know one of the things they’re not listening to the people that elected them to go to Washington. They’re not accepting the responsibility to uphold the Constitution. You know, they have run a muck. They’re spending money like drunken sailors. That’s a pun okay? Congress is spending money crazy.
James Zumwalt: Rick, it’s an easy answer. It’s totally blatant. Here in Northwest Florida, it’s going to be even clearer. We boast the highest number of veterans than any other congressional district in the country. That’s something we should be absolutely proud of. Congressional approval rating is at its historic low because we have the lowest veteran representation in Congress. Those two things are not unrelated.
I saw it first hand when I was up there. It was driving me crazy because we keep electing people who are doing this for the wrong reasons. If you have a veteran whose already sworn to give his life to this country, whose saved alongside the greatest warriors this country has ever seen and been just lucky to come out like this. That to me is someone I would want to send to Congress because my primary goal is the preservation of this Republic and the protection of this Republic.
The answer to it, if you guys want to fix deals in Congress, send veterans to Congress.
Evers: Well, I think that is a great idea to send veterans, but have you ever stopped and thought about let’s going back to the beginning and let’s just get a group of farmers that use a little common sense and they can also fix microphones.
James Zumwalt: Like Adam and Eve? Farmers can come too but the difference is key. You can’t learn about the threats we are facing like I used to in a briefing. You can’t do it. I’ve sat down with Benjamin Netenyahu, who is chief of staff, about Islamic extremism. I’ve trained with the Jordanians, and I fought alongside the Kurds. This is what I have to offer the country and Northwest Florida. Inherent knowledge about the biggest threat that is facing us right now and it’s even in Pensacola, so it’s not hyperbole, it’s not an exaggeration to say, “We don’t have time to send anyone up there who gets brought up to speed in a briefing.” There is no substitute for experience.
Brian Fraser: I’ll agree that that we are sending unqualified, unprincipled people to Washington D. C. And we continue to do so. I agree with James, yeah you need to pick somebody who is running for the right reasons.
I’ll remind everyone here, many of you already know this, but I was the only one in this race before Jeff Miller decided to drop out. I’m not running because there is an open seat, I’m running because I am extremely qualified. I have what it takes, and I was going to run against him whether or not he stayed in the race or not. I know Mark ran against him before, but that wasn’t for the Republican nomination, and there would only be two names on that ballot this year I promise you if Jeff Miller hadn’t dropped out of that race.
I’m running for the right reason because I knew it was the right thing to do, and I was willing to do it along if I had to and yeah, you need to worry about why people are running for Congress that’s for darn sure. Thank you.
Cris Dosev: You know, running for Congress is one thing but being able to commit to winning the race is another thing. That requires a lot more than just simply good feelings. It requires, unfortunately, a heck of a lot of cash these days. The one thing that I find interesting about qualifications is go back to George McGovern. He ran against Nixon and lost, but he was a hero to this country. He was a Democrat senator from South Dakota. He spent eighteen years as a senator, and what did he say? What would he do after he lost? He ended up going and buying a small hotel, restaurant, conference center up in Connecticut. This is about 1989.
By 1990, the recession had hit and he lost everything. He went bankrupt. Keep in mind, he was a gentlemen probably in his late sixties, maybe seventy years old. What did he say? What was his take-away? This man was a hero. Okay? He was a veteran. He flew in World War Two as a bomber pilot. What did he say? He said, “My God, I had no idea what the effect of the legislation I passed would have on small business operators until I became a small business operator.” His take-away from that was, “Do not send anybody to Congress that doesn’t have small business experience.” Those are the words of George McGovern.
Matt Gaetz: the last polling I saw showed that the approval rating of Congress was at eleven percent. Muammar Qaddafi had an approval rating of like thirteen percent and his own people dragged him out into the street and killed him. I think that ought to be a reminder of how grave the situation is and the lack of confidence that has occurred. You know, I talked to so many voters who say, “Republicans said if you give us the House in 2010, we’d stop everything,” and they didn’t. Then they said, “Give us the Senate, and we’ll balance the budget,” and they didn’t.
You know I think that one of the experiences that’s important is actually fighting and winning against big government. That’s been my experience in Tallahassee. We cut taxes over fifty times, repealed regulations, returned budget deficits and the budget surpluses, and then we returned those budget surpluses back to the people. I honestly don’t know why a Republican house and a Republican senate cannot get together, work out their differences, and send a balanced budget to the President? If he won’t sign it, let that be on him. Right now there is a bipartisan problem because I think both political parties are working for the same special interests and it’s time we take them on and win.
Mark Wichern: The real problem we have with Congress is this. You know, the way majority leaders are selected has nothing to do with their knowledge. They are selected by how much money they can raise for their respective party. The bottom line is, whoever raises the most money for their party, whether Democrat or Republican, is the majority leader. That’s the bottom line. Those who don’t raise as much in the real world, you have goals put on your walls up in Congress. You have to achieve those goals. If you don’t raise the money for the party, then they will run somebody against you.
The problem we have is the money is so screwed up with the fiat money system, or intrinsic value if we can go there, is the fact that we have a cabal basically built between the Federal Reserve and the parties and the upper candidates. The problem we have is exactly that. The Fed creates the money from thin air. There is no auditing a Fed. They give the money for reelections and just as long as those congressmen write laws to protect the Fed to keep them in existence, that problem is going to continue.
We need to make sure somebody that gets up to Congress understands the real problem and can get to the bottom of this. The only way we can fix this is by putting together a grassroots program and starting it here in our district. We set by example, not by force.
Fraser: Real quickly I’ll say that let’s just remember that the Federal Government doesn’t create legitimate jobs for big business or small business. When it tries it crushes lives and ruins the economy. It’s the federal overreach we need to repeal. Many many things and stop passing things that don’t help. Again, the Federal Government is not the answer to our job’s problem. The Federal Government is our job’s problem. Thank you.
Dosev: Based on those statistics, interestingly enough you know, the thing a young career politician wants to be is an old career politician. I’ve knocked on a lot of doors. You’ve probably knocked about 8,000 doors. One of the resounding messages we’re getting on our campaign trail is “Do not send politicians to Washington.” That is what I am hearing every single day. I suggest we start sending patriots to Washington. I suspect from there those numbers will go up.
Zumwalt: Yeah, I couldn’t agree with Cris Dosev, so instead of just talking about it, let’s actually do it. I tried finding an example of this being done at the federal level, and I can’t. What I’ve done is I’ve signed a legally binding document. It’s not a pledge that I can weasel out of. I’m done. I’ve gotten a lot of flack for it. I didn’t even tell my campaign team because I knew they would try to talk me out of it. Basically, what’s already been done is if I win and I serve a day over eight years I forfeit every dollar I ever earned as a congressman.
Additionally, the other provision to that is something else I saw these congressmen do when I was up in Washington. They would spend the last two years of their tenures angling for a fat paycheck as a lobbyist. I can’t become a lobbyist ever after I am a congressman. It’s time to stop talking about it and let’s see some action. I invite all my opponents to sign the same thing. Because if you guys want to change Washington, we have to change the types of people we’re sending up there. The way we do that is let’s get term limits. Not just term limits but let’s send someone who actually sets the example to instill that organically.
Moderator: Thank you. I know you’re all probably aching to get to the point where we are going to have the candidates each have an opportunity to pose a question to one of their opponents. We are going to final questions here from Rick Outzen and from Mike Bates. Rick?
Rick: Well, I just want to follow-up to that is that Rebecca, they have said farmers, veterans, small business owners and legislatures should be the ones going to Congress. You don’t fit any of those.
Rebecca Bydlak: Well no, but I fit someone who successfully fought Washington and pushed back against big government programs. I’m the only one on stage who has been able to push back against Obamacare. Something called the risk corridors that were a little bailout the insurance company’s wrote themselves in Obamacare. With the coalition to reduce spending, I was able to successfully work against this particularly insidious part of Obamacare. Yeah, you should look at someone’s background and life and accomplishments, but you should also look at what they’ve done and what their capabilities are. Because principals matter and accomplishments matter.
