Interview with Colorado GOP Senate Candidate Bob Schaffer

- September 2008

Interview with Colorado GOP Senate Candidate Bob Schaffer

Bob Schaffer is the Republican candidate for the Colorado U.S. Senate seat being vacated by retiring two-term incumbent Senator Wayne Allard (R). This is Mr. Schaffer’s second campaign for the Senate, his having sought the 2004 Republican nomination for the seat now occupied by Senator John Salazar (D).

Bob is a businessman by profession. He has been a small business owner and his background is deep in two industries critical to Colorado’s citizens and economy – energy and tourism.

Bob has been involved in public service since his mid-20s. For nine years, Mr. Schaffer served in the Colorado State Senate where he distinguished himself as Chairman of the Finance Committee, Chairman of the Veterans and Military Affairs Committee, and Vice-Chairman of the Education Committee. In 1996, Bob was elected to the first of his three two-year terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from Colorado’s Fourth Congressional District. During his six years in the House, Congressman Schaffer served on the Agriculture, Resources and Education and the Workforce (now Education and Labor) committees. Today, Schaffer is a member and vice chairman of the Colorado State Board of Education.

NAW’s Wholesaler-Distributor Political Action Committee (WDPAC) has endorsed Congressman Schaffer’s Senate bid and recently visited with the candidate to discuss the campaign and key issues to Colorado’s wholesaler-distributors and partners.

Q: Mr. Schaffer, you served the people of Colorado in the U.S. Congress for six years and before that in the Colorado Senate for nine. Looking back over those experiences, what stands out as your proudest legislative achievement?

Being part of a Congress (1997-2002) focused on legitimate economic growth, honest hard work and shrinking the federal bureaucracy gave those of us who were elected on a reform platform a great sense of accomplishment. Through tax relief, welfare reform and slowing the rate of growth in federal spending, we really did unleash the productivity of the economy generating more tax revenue for the country through economic growth rather than higher tax rates. We demonstrated that freedom works. We really did get more Americans back into the workforce and off of government dependence programs and we really did balance the budget ahead of schedule. And we kept the country safe. Those were a good six years in Congress.

Q: Many of the tax policies enacted in 2001 and 2003 are temporary. Among those set to expire at the end of this decade include repeal of the death tax, marginal income tax rate reductions, and the reduced tax rates on capital gains and dividends. Should these policies be allowed to expire or should they be made permanent?

They should be made permanent. Raising these tax rates back to their higher levels will drain the economy of desperately needed capital, cost jobs and injure the country in many other ways. Moreover, it will make it even more difficult to trim annual federal spending deficits. Under the antiquated rules of the Congress requiring “static” scoring of tax amendments rather than a dynamic consideration of a particular tax rate’s impact on the economy, it is very difficult for pro-growth tax policy to prevail. Congress must put the needs of the economy and the American people ahead of the needs of the bureaucracy. Changing the scoring rules is a place to start, but the goal must be to find the optimal tax rates to allow the most economic growth and that means making the current rates permanent then improving them further from there.

Q: One tax issue of particular importance to many wholesaler-distributors revolves around the last-in-first-out (LIFO) method of accounting. It appears that LIFO repeal now ranks high on a list of potential revenue raisers. Will you now commit to vote to preserve LIFO?

Yes. LIFO is a useful and well-established, widely accepted inventory-accounting method that has been used since the 1930s. Especially in times of higher inflation, repealing LIFO will crush many large and small business, damage the economy and move enormous amounts of capital from the private sector to the government.

Q: Where do you stand on proposals to increase or eliminate the earnings tax cap as an approach to shoring-up the solvency of Social Security?

Raising Social Security taxes by either raising or eliminating the tax cap is a bad idea. There are other, more positive options the Congress should pursue long before it should consider such a drastic proposition of shifting more wealth out of the economy and into a government program.

The key to rescuing the system over the long term is to allow young workers to save a portion of their Social Security trust-fund payments in new personalized, self-directed retirement accounts that would be contained within the Social Security system. Through safe investments and years of compounding, these accounts are estimated by economists to provide today’s younger workers with meaningful ownership of their retirements, powerful choices and the kind of retirement security the current system cannot provide.

Q: There is no more important issue to wholesaler-distributors than “card check” which is shorthand for eliminating the secret ballot in union organizing elections. If you are elected will you oppose this issue and vote against the card check bill if it comes before the Senate?

Yes. I oppose card check. My opponent, Democrat Congressman Mark Udall is a cosponsor of the card-check legislation considered by the current Congress.

Q: Health insurance costs are a leading concern of large and small employers and health care reform seems likely to be a leading issue for the coming 111th Congress and the new administration. Reformers appear to fall into three broad “camps:” those who favor incremental changes; those who want to reduce the influence of government policy on private health insurance programs; and those who favor a greater federal role. What are your thoughts?

I support the following: Allowing association health plans. 100% deductibility for individual plans. Interstate sales and marketing of insurance products. A fair, equitable, accountable and transparent ERISA. Aggressively attacking lawsuit abuse. Specialized health courts. Refundable health tax credits to enable low-income to purchase private insurance. Federal incentives for state-run insurance pools for hard-to-insure cases. Expanding HSAs. Any federal action that moves healthcare back to a personal responsibility rather than an exclusive function of one’s job or a government entitlement.

Q: What if anything can and should the federal government do to provide immediate relief from skyrocketing gasoline prices? And with a longer view in mind, what is your prescription for enhancing the nation’s energy security and ensuring a sustainable, stable and affordable energy supply?

America must pursue every sensible option to produce more American energy. This is perhaps the most serious long-term economic issue facing the country. Congress should facilitate a race to the consumer among energy producers, scientists and developers of all energy options within ambitious parameters of protecting environmental integrity. We should be lifting ban on on-shore and off-shore production of crude oil and natural gas including under the North Slope tundra of Alaska. We should be more aggressive about renewable energy. For example, the current renewable-energy tax credit is only a practical incentive for large income-producing utilities. Rather than have thousands of wind farms and solar fields owned by a few of the nation’s largest utilities, the credit should encourage thousands of projects to be owned by thousands of small developers. We should build more refineries. We need to facilitate nuclear generation. We should accelerate the deployment of clean-coal technologies. We should invest in smart-grid and battery technology for power distribution. We should find strategies to allow small producers, even homeowners to put power on the grid rather than just consume it. We should make oil-shale an economical and environmentally responsible source of fuel. We should pursue technologies that allow us to consume less while growing the economy more. America’s goal should be low-cost energy independence utilizing all practical solutions.

My opponent, Boulder Congressman Mark Udall has voted 15 times against off-shore drilling, 6 times against new refineries and has established one of the most anti-energy records in the entire U.S. Congress.

Q: Are there any closing thoughts you’d like to offer as to why the voters of Colorado should elect you to a six year term in the U.S. Senate?

My mother is an immigrant. Her peasant family came from Ukraine. They left the poverty, misery and living hell of an otherwise rich land overrun by the tyranny of Soviet communism. The country is still a mess. Millions of Ukrainians who didn’t leave are now dead, killed by a political system that subordinated the dignity of the individual to the whims of the state. I know what my grandparents left. I grew up in a household that constantly drilled me in the lessons of why they came to America. I know the difference. Every day I open a newspaper I become more and more convinced there are too many people in Washington, D.C. who can’t distinguish freedom from bondage. Sometimes I can’t tell which side they’re on.

My wife Maureen knows the difference too. We’ve both run our own businesses. She’s an electrical engineer (PhD). I’ve spent a little time in Congress, served in the Colorado State Senate and on the Colorado State Board of Education. We have five kids who deserve a freer America, better than the one to which my grandparents fled, that my parents helped build and that we ourselves have helped lead. Three of our kids are officers-in-training. Two are still at home. To me, they’re the most important constituents I’ll ever have as a U.S. Senator, but my dreams for my kids are no different than the dreams of every other parent I know when it comes to their kids. I’ll fight for them, too, of course.

We’re serious about free-markets. We love capitalism. We demand freedom. We’ll give everything we have – even our lives – for liberty because we already know what happens when there are not enough who will.

That’s why.

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