News
Transcript of Giffords meeting with GV staff
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords met Thursday (Aug. 13) with reporters and editors from the Green Valley News. Below is a transcript of the meeting.
GIFFORDS: Well, what I was hoping to do was talk about healthcare. Talk about the events that I have been doing so far. Well, why don’t we start off by talking about a little bit about what I’ve been doing on my summer vacation. In less than two weeks’ time I’ve had 32 meetings, community meetings, that deal with a wide range of issues, primarily dealing with the committee work that I’ve been doing and really issues of the day, healthcare included. You weren’t there, unfortunately, but we knew that this was going to be a big, hot topic and we’ve been addressing this since the start of the new session. We’ve been doing lots of outreach, lots of meetings. It really wasn’t until about a week before we adjourned that suddenly the Tea Party people and other people got really organized. And I think the American people also, as well, started to, with the downturn in the economy. Hopefully, we’re at the bottom. The economic numbers show that, knock on wood, we’re reaching the bottom. I saw that Marshall Vaster, chief economist, as well thought that this was the end. We’re starting to come out. But there’s a lot of anger, a lot of frustration, and it’s August, and people as hot and cranky as well. And Congress has never been popular, so we’re not going to be popular now. Fortunately, members of Congress tend to be somewhat popular otherwise no one would ever get re-elected. But I make no excuses, as this is generally not a very popular body. Historically, I’ve always been very frustrated with Congress. So, my approach to the Congressional recess was to obviously keep the agenda that we have, and I would put my Legislative agenda up against any other member of Congress. And the first two years that I represented this district I had over 350 public meetings in the district while working a 4-5 work day in Washington, D.C. I came down 18 times to Green Valley, which averages a couple per month. I’m not shy from very controversial, very difficult issues. And if you’d been here during the checkpoint issues that we’ve had you would have seen a community that was furious and angry. And if there are issues that people get mad about it’s immigration. I mean this pulls on some very profound feelings that we have as Americans. Not only did I organize a working group of people for interior enforcement, and strongly against interior enforcement, but it culminated into a 700-person town hall at a Sahuarita High School meeting. I’m no stranger to taking on very tough issues. When we had the SUV that ran into the house here in Green Valley, I was down here the next day, pulling people together, working with the Border Patrol, and helping to establish a citizens advisory group. When it comes to the war in Iraq, we’ve forgotten about that, we don’t talk about that so much on the public basis anymore, but when I ... remember, going back to the 2006 election cycle, people were angry ... but when I voted to keep troops in Iraq and not have an automatic, immediate withdrawal, again, people, my base primarily, were furious with me. But that didn’t stop me from coming home and having lots and lots of public meetings and engaging in a really meaningful way. Part of the reason I’m here at this very moment is because I was obviously a little hurt, a little disappointed in being called a coward, that’s how I read your editorial, and I really felt that, hopefully, this is just a misunderstanding. The way I have approached this August recess is to keep our agenda on track as much as possible. I think if we hadn’t had all the commotion around healthcare, this community would have never noticed if we decided that because we had the president of the university, the head of the community college, the Wing Commander of the 162nd, and the vice commander of D-M (Davis-Monthan Air Force Base) saying, “You know what, this is a military event, a GI event, for GIs.” It got bigger than we had anticipated and for a really good, quality event we’re going to consolidate it and we’re going to make it convenient for the war fighters. So, I just take exception to saying that I’m running from my constituents. This wasn’t a health-care meeting and the other example that’s being brought forward is every quarter on the campaign side, which we have to keep very separated; on the campaign side we do a volunteer event. So we’ll do food bank, we’ll do a reading program, you know, whatever our charity sort of is that we want involve our volunteers with and this quarter we decided that we were going to sponsor the La Placita summer movie, and if you haven’t had a chance to do that it’s actually very nice. So, I was hoping to be there, my youngest step-daughter was in town, my parents as well, and as I’m sure you saw, that sort of got overtaken and it announced that it was going to be a big healthcare town hall. I just don’t think that’s an appropriate place to put my picnic basket with my 12-year-old step-daughter to see pictures of me killing seniors and killing babies. And seeing swastikas and seeing the president depicted in that way. I just think that’s not appropriate. Just because people are angry out there, and I know they’re angry, doesn’t mean that I’m going to abruptly change my legislative schedule. That being said, despite the fact that I’ve had a lot of opportunities to hear from people, in fact, 17,000 people have contacted our office since our May 26th town hall meeting where we had over a thousand people show up, and I’ve done countless work-place meetings to talk about healthcare, ranging from Golden Eagle Distributors, having all employees, so from the drivers all the way up to the executives, you know, for an hour and a half. What’re the main questions about healthcare? Going out to healthcare providers, meeting with physicians, going to assisted-living facilities to talk about that aspect, because as you know that is a very expensive part of healthcare today after you turn 65 years of age. I was meeting with those folks. So, you know, I’ve been pretty aggressive with my agenda, and I know there’s a lot of talk around having the big town hall. And, you know what? If it means canceling my one-week vacation that I have with my husband this summer? If that’s what is really, you know, so people can come and have another way of expressing themselves? I can do that. I can absolutely do that. I’m pretty in-touch with people. I’ve been elected five times, I’m a native, and I’m pretty in-touch with my community. So, again, just reading your article yesterday, I just felt like there is a tremendous amount of misunderstanding. And, again, I go down to La Posada on a pretty regular basis. It’s an important part of the community, we’ve a really active working relationship with them and, you know, they’re going to give me an earful. People are mad. I get that. But just giving an opportunity for people in an unhealthy, an unproductive way, I don’t know what that achieves. I just don’t. I’ve got a week of vacation, and I’m thinking how I’m going to change that up. But as a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, I feel very proud of what we’re able to do with this healthcare bill. I feel very proud that we’re able to prevent a vote on the House floor before the August recess so we could actually have time to have this discussion and debate. You know, no one even heard of the Blue Dogs until about six weeks ago. And suddenly now everyone knows about this Blue Dog Coalition. But the work that was done on the energy in Congress committee did a couple of things. First, like I said, preventing the vote, but second, reducing the amount of the bill. Third, providing for protections for small businesses. I’m a former small-business owner. I know how tough it is. I’ve met with a lot of small-business owners since I’ve been home, well I do on a regular basis with my business groups and my business councils. It’s very tough for those small businesses, under the best circumstances right now. Also with the downturn in the economy and now we’re asking more from them. So that’s certainly something that we were working to protect as well. And the fourth area, which is absolutely critical, is that we pay for whatever we do. You know, the Medicare Part D prescription drug bill that was passed, and everyone loves, was not paid for. We are continuing to borrow money from the Chinese or the Japanese or the British, to pay for the prescription drugs for our seniors. I think that’s outrageous. So you know, the whole pay as you go, being able to actually put that back into statute, it was taken out during the Bush administration, but to put that back into statute like it was during the Clinton years, is critical because Congress has to act just like every other entity, any business, any household, any individual. And we don’t. We have gotten very spoiled, cheap money and we’re thinking that we’re never going to have to pay it back. And it’s payback time right now. For a final version of a healthcare bill, what must be in there and what do you absolutely not want in there? Well, if the healthcare reform journey is this long, we have gone this far in the process. This bill is not going to pass the week we come back. No way, no-how. Plus, there are a couple of House versions and I know this makes it challenging to talk about because 3200 is not going to be the bill that passes the floor. It’s just not going to happen. And the Senate is taking a completely different approach. The Senate’s not talking public option, they’re not talking exchange, they’re talking like a co-op plan, which I still don’t fully understand which of the models they’re using. I’m not in the Senate, though, granted. As we all know, going back to fifth-grade civics, in order for anything to get to the president’s desk, it’s going to have to come together. And at this point in time it’s going to be a long, difficult road to undertake. So I can tell you what I would vote for, and what’s important to me. I feel very strongly, knowing that we’re the most affluent country on this planet, we’re the only country able to send a man to the moon, we’re the only country to be able to have the medical breakthroughs in a way that we’ve had, we’re the only country that has been able to provide home-ownership opportunities for its people, we’ve done an extraordinary amount of good things for the greater good of the American people. The problem is, we’re the only country on the planet to not offer basic healthcare coverage to its citizens. We’re the only one. We spend about 52 percent more than any other nation on healthcare. So currently one in every five dollars in our economy spending right now goes to healthcare, yet we’re like the 28th healthiest country on the planet. So we spend more, we don’t get full coverage, and we’re not even that healthy. Not great, just generally, big problem here. The other reasons for why the status quo is not sustainable is because, looking at the boomers that are booming through the system right now, don’t have enough young folks that are coming up through, you know, just the basic demographic trends of this country, is that by about 2025, 2030, it’s projected that about one in every three dollars in the economy will go to healthcare. So it’s not sustainable. People love their Medicare. And I get this, you know, at my “Congress at your Corner,” people saying, “Don’t socialize my medicine! Keep the government away from my medicine!” I look at these folks, and most are over the age of 65. And I’ll say, “Oh, so you don’t like your Medicare?” They love their Medicare. Some of these folks are veterans. They love their VA system. There are disconnects that these are programs that are run by the federal government, and are paid for by taxes taken out from the American people. So, you know, the government has done a lot of things that I think are very positive. Our Medicaid program here in the state of Arizona, our access program, are very successful, very lean, very efficient. But the costs that are associated, generally with healthcare, are unsustainable and out of control. So what would be important for me would be to cover all Americans, if we can do it. I mean, we probably won’t be able to ever cover all Americans, but to not try to go through all these changes and only add an additional 11 million people who are currently uninsured. It’s not worth it at that point. So I would like to see the broadest coverage possible. I also know that by bringing in youngsters, kids in their 20s or 30s, it’s also going to drive the costs down because you’re going to spread the pool out for more people and you’re going to have less of a risk for the younger individuals. I would like to make sure that people are not denied healthcare. I have countless stories, and unfortunately, a lot of those stories deal with our friends in the newspaper business, that get laid off when they’re 50, 55 years of age, if they can afford their COBRA, which is not cheap, then they have some protection for a couple of years. But if they can’t, then they start looking at a thousand dollars a month, and most are actually completely denied. It’s totally prohibitive to afford healthcare. I would like to see a system where we don’t have any decline for pre-existing illnesses. So you’re not rejected. You may be more expensive, but you’re not completely denied. So I think that’s really important as well. I’d like to make sure we have tort reform in the legislation, which is not being considered. When you look at how costs start adding up, so much of it ... and I spend a lot of time with doctors, I spend a lot of time with lawyers. I talk with both groups. I tell the lawyers, “Don’t mess with the doctors, you may need them some day.” I also tell the doctors the lawyers as well. So, you know, they’re both necessary parts of our society. But right now we have a pay for performance, right now you’re paid on quantity, not quality. So, a doctor will order a variety of tests, MRIs, procedures because often it’s more money that goes into their practice or their business. That being said, there’s also a real fear out there that they’re going to get sued. So if we do nothing to reduce the preventive medicine aspect, costs will continue to escalate. That’s not being included, and I want to see it included. I think it’s very necessary that it be put in a bill as well. One of the reasons the mail clinic is so highly touted is because those doctors are paid flat salaries. They don’t get bonuses, they don’t get a commission on what they do, they get their flat salaries right across the board, which I think is pretty successful, as well. The other aspect, which is very tough to talk about, and people get upset with me about this but I think it’s really true, is this more of a personal responsibility on behalf of the patient. Sixty percent of Americans right now are obese. We have this growing epidemic of obesity in the country. I remember when I was a kid, we had PE, we had nutrition classes, we had Presidential Fitness, we had all of these things that taught us, we had dentists come in and show us how to brush our teeth. People need to take more personal responsibility. The leading causes of illnesses in our country now are preventable. From diabetes, to heart disease, cancer, a lot of that can be prevented and reduced by personal responsibility. But that comes through education. It also comes through, you know, the farm bill. Historically we had heavily subsidized corn and corn syrup, and making it more profitable for growers to produce products like that rather than fruits and vegetables. So it’s multi-faceted, it’s pretty complex, but for a lot of working families out there it’s a lot easier, cheaper to go to the fast-foot place or buy processed foods, packaged, you know, it tastes good too, but it’s not necessarily good for you. In fact most food isn’t good for you. And that’s where again some personal responsibility has to take place too... We can all talk in theory about how angry we are with health care, but then when we look at an individual basis, when it’s your spouse or your parent or your child that’s dying or has a disease or illness, then all bets are off, all rules change. The challenges that we have is if you have a terminal illness, is it right, is it ethical, to put that person through a million-dollar trial — something that’s not proven — to sustain that life for another two months? Is it worth $500,000? Is it worth $25,000? I mean those are very, very hard questions that become very emotional. You know, you can talk about the third person, but then when it becomes you or someone that you love, you’re going to do anything that you possibly can to keep that person with you. And that is a very large part of the cost of healthcare. We know, I mean, the last two months, the last two weeks of someone’s life, a lot of money gets spent. And it’s very difficult to have these conversations.
DAN SHEARER, GV NEWS EDITOR: Is the focus shifting from health care to looking at health insurance, the insurance companies?
GIFFORDS: Part of the challenge is people love their doctors, they don’t tend to love their insurers. I mean, everyone’s got a story where they go in and they have insurance... Yesterday I as driving, here’s a good example, Ron (Barber, District director for Giffords) and I were driving back from Phoenix and we stopped by the Blue Willow, a local restaurant in Tucson, and a woman stopped me, just to thank me for, you know, all my hard work, and she said, “Thank you for what you’re doing on health care.” And I said, “Oh, you know, thank you.” And she said “I have insurance.” She says, “I work for Pima County,” she said, “I passed out in yoga class a couple months ago and I had to pay $700.” She said she has insurance, she passed out in class, she’s fine, obviously she can’t do hot yoga. But here’s a person with full insurance, you know, that a young person, my age, I should probably say much younger, and you know it’s every single person has some sort of story and the insurance companies also have to take more responsibility. They have very high profits, alot of them do a lot of good work, but you know it’s just the nature of a for-profit industry that you’re going to have them focus on their bottom line rather than on the health of their patients or their clients.
SHEARER: What can be done in a situation like this, particularly because we know they’ve got lobbyists all over the Hill? How can you best deal with them effectively?
GIFFORDS: Well, I mean for me, it’s the same as — you weren’t here in Green Valley last year at this time, but if you were — we were having this conversation about oil prices right? People were outraged, remember? Remember how crazy they were? Five bucks a gallon and the oil companies and “drill, baby, drill,” and all of that. And now we don’t talk about that right? I mean it’s $2.69 a gallon right now when you fuel up. So back then it was this whole thing about, “What are you going to do with all the oil companies and the lobbyists?” I mean I still worked on and passed legislation out of the House to expand drilling opportunities because I’m a big proponent for solar but I’m a bigger proponent for making America’s energy in America. Sixty to 70 percent of the energy we use in the country being brought in by foreign countries, the majority who are not friendly to the United States, is complete insanity. And it’s very dangerous from a security standpoint. So, things like taking leases away from companies that have bought up leases on federal lands to drill for oil but it’s not profitable enough for them to do it. So if you don’t use it, we’re going to take it away from you and give it to a company that’s going to use it. I mean those sorts of things are obviously really good measures to try to reduce oil process and to increase the production. So I mean I think with the health care it should be the same thing. Right now what is not being discussed, what people don’t understand, we are not, quote, unquote, socializing health care. We are not going single payer. That is not on the table. This isn’t a road to single payer, this isn’t a plot, it’s not a back-door approach. It is not on the table. And after leaving our very interesting Douglas “Congress on Your Corner,” which was again planned months and months in advance and executed very well, and I didn’t know the guy had a gun or dropped a gun and wasn’t important until later so that got really spun up in the media and there’s a New York Times article today on it and all of that. But, you know, I didn’t know. The guy was being real rude and obnoxious and yelling, “How long are you going to lie to us?” And I saw him out of the corner of my eye but I was very trained on the person that was right in front of me, there was a big long line. I went directly from there to Bisbee, where I was met by another group of protesters, but they were the single payer protesters. Almost as nasty, almost as personal. They had some pretty unkind things to say. I mean look, you don’t have to be polite, but I try to be polite, I try to be respectful. For me, I just feel very strongly in a representative democracy. If you don’t like someone, you don’t think they’re doing a good job, you vote them out and you get someone else. I feel very strongly that that system works. And you know demonizing the former President (Bush) was not something that I supported. I didn’t go around bashing Republicans, bashing the former administration. That’s just not who I am... (Last election) I had six or seven TV ads run against me personally by my opponent, who I went to kindergarten with, I’ve known him my entire life. Just like in 2006, running against Randy Graf here, and that got personal against my family. You know, I focused on the issues, focused on the measures, and I’m just not into getting into the dirt. I think if we talk about change in Washington and we want things to change, then it has to change with us. So the name-calling, the belittling, the nastiness, if we don’t step above that and demonstrate that we can do this in a productive manner, we can’t expect other people to do it.
DANIEL NEWHAUSER, REPORTER: What do you think is driving all this vitriol and misinformation?
GIFFORDS: I think a couple of things. I think the American people are angry, I think they’re angry for a lot of different reasons — the economy’s not strong right now; Arizona, we had slipped to fourth but we’re back up to third with housing foreclosures. I spent a considerable amount of time trying to mitigate housing foreclosures, worked with the lenders, I mean that’s a whole tough road, very heavy workload we had as well trying to prevent foreclosures in this district, the workshops, but also putting pressure on the lenders to streamline the process. But that’s part of it. I think there’s people that have never liked the government, distrust the government. I think that’s always existed, but I think those numbers are probably growing and I think with less and less, I would say, traditional, reliable news sources, more information is being available on the Internet and it looks like news. Everyone now is a reporter, so everyone runs around with their little video camera and they come up with stories and they come up with information and some of it is pretty appealing, but it’s not balanced, it’s not substantiated, it’s not accountable. I get all those e-mails, I’m pretty tech-savvy. I get the stuff either forwarded to me or we collect all that information. So I think it’s also spinning a lot of fear that, you know, we’re going to euthanize your grandmother. We’re not going to euthanize anyone. That we’re going to take all of your health care away from you. We’re not doing that. You name it, they’re ... I’m not saying lies, it’s just not truthful information. There’s falsehoods. So I think that people are pretty concerned about that as well and I think people are scared. Fourteen thousand people lost their insurance today, they lost it yesterday, 14,000 people in America will lose their insurance tomorrow. And there’s some stats out there which are pretty compelling that shows like 85 percent of American people are satisfied with their healthcare. Well a huge chunk of those folks are on a federal health care program today and that program is going to run out of money in the not-to-distant future. So there are just unfortunately some changes that have to be made there. But I think for a lot of other people, once you start asking that second or third question, for example, “Have your premiums increased in the last couple of years?” Well, yes they have. “Are they affordable?” Well, no, actually they’re not. “Do you know someone that’s lost their insurance?” It’s like the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know. So that’s probably bringing some of the feelings out there.
SHEARER: A couple of months ago, you wrote a letter to the Secretary of Agriculture encouraging him to press the Forest Service for a thumbs down to Rosemont Mine. Any response on that?
GIFFORDS: Rosemont Mine is in my district. I have no direct jurisdiction over it. Congressman (Raul) Grijalva does through his Natural Resources Committee, I don’t. They said they were going to have public meetings through the EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) process. And I thought, OK, we’ll monitor, we’ll stand back and see what happens. The first three were disastrous. The first one they had out at Pima College West, where they bussed in people, promising them jobs and giving them a steak dinner, and that didn’t go over very well. Then they had one at Patagonia/Sonoita where they called the Border Patrol and called the local law enforcement on folks when they said, “Look, we actually have a meeting, we actually want to discus what’s going on.” So they called the cops and shut the meeting down. So at that point we waited very heavily by bringing in the original supervisor from New Mexico and Jeanine Derby, who is the local (Coronado National Forest) supervisor and we forced them to open this process up. And very contentious. We had contentious meetings. We had lots of very contentious meetings about that. Some people were very strongly pro-mining, felt very strongly about that. I get steel workers, a lot of union folks ... jobs for folks that again that were going to be impacted by this so...
SHEARER: Do you think Rosemont’s going to happen?
GIFFORDS: I don’t know, but what I’m going to insist on happening is a 100 percent real appraisal of what will happen if the mine does go into operation. I’m really concerned about water issues, the Central Arizona Project will most likely not get extended down here to Green Valley. I say that not because there are not efforts going on to make that happen, or that there may not be resources to try to purchase that water, but in a drought, when you have already 25 million users on the Colorado River, and record population growth in Nevada and other parts of Arizona, I mean the chances that we’re going to get that extended... I mean I got some legislation in through the San Pedro people because that’s the second most diverse ecological area, you know, keeping that San Pedro area running is critical to Fort Huachuca. I’ve told these people many times, you know, we could study it, but the chances that we’re going to pipe CAP water all the way over to Sierra Vista is just not likely going to happen. Shearer: Who are we to believe?
GIFFORDS: I think that if the Forest Service contracts with through people that they have, and they’ve got some very qualified personnel, and contracts with solid environmental companies that are trained to do this work, we can get some very solid assessments of what the impact would be. Let’s go back: Rosemont can do what it wants to on its land. In order to make their operation viable, they need to use a tremendous amount of forest land, which belongs to us. So water is huge, transportation, traffic is big, noise, I mean living next to a 24-hour open pit copper mine is going to be a change for a lot of these folks and pretty undesirable. I’m pro-mining, I’m not anti-mining, but I just want to make sure, particularly with water issues, if I look at the population here, that our needs are met first, And Rosemont has, unfortunately, done some things in the early part of development that has I think broken down the trust with the community. Some of the well drilling that they did in the Sahuarita area made a lot of people very upset about that. I want to make sure that all the facts are on the table. It’ not necessarily that I’m even working to close the process down. I just want to make sure that we actually have a reasonable process.
SHEARER: Cash for Clunkers. The retail sales are down today. Would you still say this is a successful program and we should have done it?
GIFFORDS: You know, I didn’t vote for it. Twice I didn’t vote for it. For three reasons. One, because it didn’t do what I thought the program should have done, which is really require you to buy a very fuel-efficient vehicle. I mean it want from, I think, 24 miles per gallon to I think 28. We drove down here in a brand new American hybrid that gets 47 miles per gallon, a Ford Fusion. So lets incentivize. There are much more fuel-efficient vehicles out there that we could be promoting which would be better for energy efficiency and reducing our consumption. The second reason is I didn’t vote for the auto bailout either, not because I don’t think we should have a strong U.S. auto manufacturer, I think we should, I think we have to. I thought that the execs from GM and Chrysler had such poor plans, had such poor and unrealistic ideas about the industry and Americans’ perceptions about their cars that it wasn’t going to fly. And I thought, we can’t be putting money into their pockets with no protections or provisions so I voted against it. That being said, we successfully saved Don Mackey’s business. Don Mackey had been profitable for 26 years in a row. Here’s a guy, started from nothing, started from scratch, and was successful building his business. And we said to GM, “OK, you’re going to start closing dealerships? Give us some criteria. How do you decide one dealership stays open and another one closes if that other one that closes not only has been profitable, it has capitalized 2.5 times what you require, has out of the sky customer satisfaction ratings? It’s like, why Don Mackey? So after putting this pressure on them, they sent people out, they analyzed, and they changed their mind and Don Mackey is going to continue with his 80 employees and be in business, so real success story. We talked to Don about this. We’ve got this good relationship now. We went over and did this little celebration with his employees last week. The bill does not require either U.S. owned or even U.S. manufactured cars, right? And then the third is that we’re not even paying for it, again. So we could be borrowing more money from the Chinese to buy a Japanese-made car and, sure we get some sales tax and we get some licensing fees, but where’s the huge gains for us? I’m glad that the dealers are moving cars and I think that’s positive and it’s a great opportunity for a lot of people, but I don’t think it’s responsible. So that’s why I voted against it.
SHEARER: Both sides of the immigration debate keep coming back to a guest-worker program. What are the chances that’s going to become a reality and when and what will it look like?
GIFFORDS: It will have to be included as part of a comprehensive bill. No comprehensive bill will pass without a guest worker program. And then those are hi-tech H1 Vs and also the H2 Vs. Because that is a key part of this. I was one of 24 lawmakers, House and Senate, invited to the White House just a couple of weeks ago. Also from Arizona was Sens. McCain and Kyl, so it was bipartisan. And then heading up this is former Gov. Napolitano, Secretary Napolitano at DHS. And the way that we left it at that point was look, we’ve got energy, we’ve got health care, third, we’re going to move immigration. And it’s something that is really important to the president. It’s important to me. This district continues to be by far the most heavily impacted area when it comes to illegal immigration. We were in the last week with Chief (Robert) Gilbert mustering the 229 new officer coming in. The numbers are down, which is good, but record deaths, not good. And we’re still responsible for 47 percent of the drug and 45 percent of all the apprehensions in the country right here in the Tucson sector. It’s nice to see we made progress, but we still have a long ways to go. So where we are from a Legislative standpoint, the president just announced yesterday (Aug. 12) and again, because of health care it’s like, alright, you know, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, we’re not going to be able to do this in 2009. But don’t forget, in 2010 primaries start in April. We get elected every two years we are not in kind of like constant campaign mode. I represent a challenging district but my primary’s not until September of next year. But that has to be included. Smarter border security measures. We’ve done some things well, we’ve done some things like the Boeing, which has been like totally thumbs-down, not good. But I have a lot of confidence in Chief Gilbert and this area has been really critical. The interior enforcement is another aspect of that. And in the next couple of weeks, they’ll be finally the release of the GAO study that was the result of all of those meetings and our checkpoint workhorses. It was ordered in the summer of 2007. We’re going to have a lot of discussion about that. And we’re the only area to not have permanent checkpoints in the country. We did get the Border Patrol to move it away from Green Valley, which we thought was closer to the border. Away from a major metropolitan area, but I’ve also been pretty hard on the Border Patrol for not beefing up the interim checkpoint like they were supposed to last year. They were supposed to have an awning, they were supposed to have a modular building, they were supposed to have the high-speed Internet, they were supposed to have the sensors, the cameras, a place for the dogs, a third lane so they could do the scanner back detection for drugs and for guns and that sort of thing. So that is where they have really fallen down. That was part of the decision, that they were going to at least beef up the interim. So stay tuned, it’s going to be very hotly contested and we’re going to hear from out friends on both sides of the issue come shortly.
GIFFORDS: Well, what I was hoping to do was talk about healthcare. Talk about the events that I have been doing so far. Well, why don’t we start off by talking about a little bit about what I’ve been doing on my summer vacation. In less than two weeks’ time I’ve had 32 meetings, community meetings, that deal with a wide range of issues, primarily dealing with the committee work that I’ve been doing and really issues of the day, healthcare included. You weren’t there, unfortunately, but we knew that this was going to be a big, hot topic and we’ve been addressing this since the start of the new session. We’ve been doing lots of outreach, lots of meetings. It really wasn’t until about a week before we adjourned that suddenly the Tea Party people and other people got really organized. And I think the American people also, as well, started to, with the downturn in the economy. Hopefully, we’re at the bottom. The economic numbers show that, knock on wood, we’re reaching the bottom. I saw that Marshall Vaster, chief economist, as well thought that this was the end. We’re starting to come out. But there’s a lot of anger, a lot of frustration, and it’s August, and people as hot and cranky as well. And Congress has never been popular, so we’re not going to be popular now. Fortunately, members of Congress tend to be somewhat popular otherwise no one would ever get re-elected. But I make no excuses, as this is generally not a very popular body. Historically, I’ve always been very frustrated with Congress. So, my approach to the Congressional recess was to obviously keep the agenda that we have, and I would put my Legislative agenda up against any other member of Congress. And the first two years that I represented this district I had over 350 public meetings in the district while working a 4-5 work day in Washington, D.C. I came down 18 times to Green Valley, which averages a couple per month. I’m not shy from very controversial, very difficult issues. And if you’d been here during the checkpoint issues that we’ve had you would have seen a community that was furious and angry. And if there are issues that people get mad about it’s immigration. I mean this pulls on some very profound feelings that we have as Americans. Not only did I organize a working group of people for interior enforcement, and strongly against interior enforcement, but it culminated into a 700-person town hall at a Sahuarita High School meeting. I’m no stranger to taking on very tough issues. When we had the SUV that ran into the house here in Green Valley, I was down here the next day, pulling people together, working with the Border Patrol, and helping to establish a citizens advisory group. When it comes to the war in Iraq, we’ve forgotten about that, we don’t talk about that so much on the public basis anymore, but when I ... remember, going back to the 2006 election cycle, people were angry ... but when I voted to keep troops in Iraq and not have an automatic, immediate withdrawal, again, people, my base primarily, were furious with me. But that didn’t stop me from coming home and having lots and lots of public meetings and engaging in a really meaningful way. Part of the reason I’m here at this very moment is because I was obviously a little hurt, a little disappointed in being called a coward, that’s how I read your editorial, and I really felt that, hopefully, this is just a misunderstanding. The way I have approached this August recess is to keep our agenda on track as much as possible. I think if we hadn’t had all the commotion around healthcare, this community would have never noticed if we decided that because we had the president of the university, the head of the community college, the Wing Commander of the 162nd, and the vice commander of D-M (Davis-Monthan Air Force Base) saying, “You know what, this is a military event, a GI event, for GIs.” It got bigger than we had anticipated and for a really good, quality event we’re going to consolidate it and we’re going to make it convenient for the war fighters. So, I just take exception to saying that I’m running from my constituents. This wasn’t a health-care meeting and the other example that’s being brought forward is every quarter on the campaign side, which we have to keep very separated; on the campaign side we do a volunteer event. So we’ll do food bank, we’ll do a reading program, you know, whatever our charity sort of is that we want involve our volunteers with and this quarter we decided that we were going to sponsor the La Placita summer movie, and if you haven’t had a chance to do that it’s actually very nice. So, I was hoping to be there, my youngest step-daughter was in town, my parents as well, and as I’m sure you saw, that sort of got overtaken and it announced that it was going to be a big healthcare town hall. I just don’t think that’s an appropriate place to put my picnic basket with my 12-year-old step-daughter to see pictures of me killing seniors and killing babies. And seeing swastikas and seeing the president depicted in that way. I just think that’s not appropriate. Just because people are angry out there, and I know they’re angry, doesn’t mean that I’m going to abruptly change my legislative schedule. That being said, despite the fact that I’ve had a lot of opportunities to hear from people, in fact, 17,000 people have contacted our office since our May 26th town hall meeting where we had over a thousand people show up, and I’ve done countless work-place meetings to talk about healthcare, ranging from Golden Eagle Distributors, having all employees, so from the drivers all the way up to the executives, you know, for an hour and a half. What’re the main questions about healthcare? Going out to healthcare providers, meeting with physicians, going to assisted-living facilities to talk about that aspect, because as you know that is a very expensive part of healthcare today after you turn 65 years of age. I was meeting with those folks. So, you know, I’ve been pretty aggressive with my agenda, and I know there’s a lot of talk around having the big town hall. And, you know what? If it means canceling my one-week vacation that I have with my husband this summer? If that’s what is really, you know, so people can come and have another way of expressing themselves? I can do that. I can absolutely do that. I’m pretty in-touch with people. I’ve been elected five times, I’m a native, and I’m pretty in-touch with my community. So, again, just reading your article yesterday, I just felt like there is a tremendous amount of misunderstanding. And, again, I go down to La Posada on a pretty regular basis. It’s an important part of the community, we’ve a really active working relationship with them and, you know, they’re going to give me an earful. People are mad. I get that. But just giving an opportunity for people in an unhealthy, an unproductive way, I don’t know what that achieves. I just don’t. I’ve got a week of vacation, and I’m thinking how I’m going to change that up. But as a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, I feel very proud of what we’re able to do with this healthcare bill. I feel very proud that we’re able to prevent a vote on the House floor before the August recess so we could actually have time to have this discussion and debate. You know, no one even heard of the Blue Dogs until about six weeks ago. And suddenly now everyone knows about this Blue Dog Coalition. But the work that was done on the energy in Congress committee did a couple of things. First, like I said, preventing the vote, but second, reducing the amount of the bill. Third, providing for protections for small businesses. I’m a former small-business owner. I know how tough it is. I’ve met with a lot of small-business owners since I’ve been home, well I do on a regular basis with my business groups and my business councils. It’s very tough for those small businesses, under the best circumstances right now. Also with the downturn in the economy and now we’re asking more from them. So that’s certainly something that we were working to protect as well. And the fourth area, which is absolutely critical, is that we pay for whatever we do. You know, the Medicare Part D prescription drug bill that was passed, and everyone loves, was not paid for. We are continuing to borrow money from the Chinese or the Japanese or the British, to pay for the prescription drugs for our seniors. I think that’s outrageous. So you know, the whole pay as you go, being able to actually put that back into statute, it was taken out during the Bush administration, but to put that back into statute like it was during the Clinton years, is critical because Congress has to act just like every other entity, any business, any household, any individual. And we don’t. We have gotten very spoiled, cheap money and we’re thinking that we’re never going to have to pay it back. And it’s payback time right now. For a final version of a healthcare bill, what must be in there and what do you absolutely not want in there? Well, if the healthcare reform journey is this long, we have gone this far in the process. This bill is not going to pass the week we come back. No way, no-how. Plus, there are a couple of House versions and I know this makes it challenging to talk about because 3200 is not going to be the bill that passes the floor. It’s just not going to happen. And the Senate is taking a completely different approach. The Senate’s not talking public option, they’re not talking exchange, they’re talking like a co-op plan, which I still don’t fully understand which of the models they’re using. I’m not in the Senate, though, granted. As we all know, going back to fifth-grade civics, in order for anything to get to the president’s desk, it’s going to have to come together. And at this point in time it’s going to be a long, difficult road to undertake. So I can tell you what I would vote for, and what’s important to me. I feel very strongly, knowing that we’re the most affluent country on this planet, we’re the only country able to send a man to the moon, we’re the only country to be able to have the medical breakthroughs in a way that we’ve had, we’re the only country that has been able to provide home-ownership opportunities for its people, we’ve done an extraordinary amount of good things for the greater good of the American people. The problem is, we’re the only country on the planet to not offer basic healthcare coverage to its citizens. We’re the only one. We spend about 52 percent more than any other nation on healthcare. So currently one in every five dollars in our economy spending right now goes to healthcare, yet we’re like the 28th healthiest country on the planet. So we spend more, we don’t get full coverage, and we’re not even that healthy. Not great, just generally, big problem here. The other reasons for why the status quo is not sustainable is because, looking at the boomers that are booming through the system right now, don’t have enough young folks that are coming up through, you know, just the basic demographic trends of this country, is that by about 2025, 2030, it’s projected that about one in every three dollars in the economy will go to healthcare. So it’s not sustainable. People love their Medicare. And I get this, you know, at my “Congress at your Corner,” people saying, “Don’t socialize my medicine! Keep the government away from my medicine!” I look at these folks, and most are over the age of 65. And I’ll say, “Oh, so you don’t like your Medicare?” They love their Medicare. Some of these folks are veterans. They love their VA system. There are disconnects that these are programs that are run by the federal government, and are paid for by taxes taken out from the American people. So, you know, the government has done a lot of things that I think are very positive. Our Medicaid program here in the state of Arizona, our access program, are very successful, very lean, very efficient. But the costs that are associated, generally with healthcare, are unsustainable and out of control. So what would be important for me would be to cover all Americans, if we can do it. I mean, we probably won’t be able to ever cover all Americans, but to not try to go through all these changes and only add an additional 11 million people who are currently uninsured. It’s not worth it at that point. So I would like to see the broadest coverage possible. I also know that by bringing in youngsters, kids in their 20s or 30s, it’s also going to drive the costs down because you’re going to spread the pool out for more people and you’re going to have less of a risk for the younger individuals. I would like to make sure that people are not denied healthcare. I have countless stories, and unfortunately, a lot of those stories deal with our friends in the newspaper business, that get laid off when they’re 50, 55 years of age, if they can afford their COBRA, which is not cheap, then they have some protection for a couple of years. But if they can’t, then they start looking at a thousand dollars a month, and most are actually completely denied. It’s totally prohibitive to afford healthcare. I would like to see a system where we don’t have any decline for pre-existing illnesses. So you’re not rejected. You may be more expensive, but you’re not completely denied. So I think that’s really important as well. I’d like to make sure we have tort reform in the legislation, which is not being considered. When you look at how costs start adding up, so much of it ... and I spend a lot of time with doctors, I spend a lot of time with lawyers. I talk with both groups. I tell the lawyers, “Don’t mess with the doctors, you may need them some day.” I also tell the doctors the lawyers as well. So, you know, they’re both necessary parts of our society. But right now we have a pay for performance, right now you’re paid on quantity, not quality. So, a doctor will order a variety of tests, MRIs, procedures because often it’s more money that goes into their practice or their business. That being said, there’s also a real fear out there that they’re going to get sued. So if we do nothing to reduce the preventive medicine aspect, costs will continue to escalate. That’s not being included, and I want to see it included. I think it’s very necessary that it be put in a bill as well. One of the reasons the mail clinic is so highly touted is because those doctors are paid flat salaries. They don’t get bonuses, they don’t get a commission on what they do, they get their flat salaries right across the board, which I think is pretty successful, as well. The other aspect, which is very tough to talk about, and people get upset with me about this but I think it’s really true, is this more of a personal responsibility on behalf of the patient. Sixty percent of Americans right now are obese. We have this growing epidemic of obesity in the country. I remember when I was a kid, we had PE, we had nutrition classes, we had Presidential Fitness, we had all of these things that taught us, we had dentists come in and show us how to brush our teeth. People need to take more personal responsibility. The leading causes of illnesses in our country now are preventable. From diabetes, to heart disease, cancer, a lot of that can be prevented and reduced by personal responsibility. But that comes through education. It also comes through, you know, the farm bill. Historically we had heavily subsidized corn and corn syrup, and making it more profitable for growers to produce products like that rather than fruits and vegetables. So it’s multi-faceted, it’s pretty complex, but for a lot of working families out there it’s a lot easier, cheaper to go to the fast-foot place or buy processed foods, packaged, you know, it tastes good too, but it’s not necessarily good for you. In fact most food isn’t good for you. And that’s where again some personal responsibility has to take place too... We can all talk in theory about how angry we are with health care, but then when we look at an individual basis, when it’s your spouse or your parent or your child that’s dying or has a disease or illness, then all bets are off, all rules change. The challenges that we have is if you have a terminal illness, is it right, is it ethical, to put that person through a million-dollar trial — something that’s not proven — to sustain that life for another two months? Is it worth $500,000? Is it worth $25,000? I mean those are very, very hard questions that become very emotional. You know, you can talk about the third person, but then when it becomes you or someone that you love, you’re going to do anything that you possibly can to keep that person with you. And that is a very large part of the cost of healthcare. We know, I mean, the last two months, the last two weeks of someone’s life, a lot of money gets spent. And it’s very difficult to have these conversations.
DAN SHEARER, GV NEWS EDITOR: Is the focus shifting from health care to looking at health insurance, the insurance companies?
GIFFORDS: Part of the challenge is people love their doctors, they don’t tend to love their insurers. I mean, everyone’s got a story where they go in and they have insurance... Yesterday I as driving, here’s a good example, Ron (Barber, District director for Giffords) and I were driving back from Phoenix and we stopped by the Blue Willow, a local restaurant in Tucson, and a woman stopped me, just to thank me for, you know, all my hard work, and she said, “Thank you for what you’re doing on health care.” And I said, “Oh, you know, thank you.” And she said “I have insurance.” She says, “I work for Pima County,” she said, “I passed out in yoga class a couple months ago and I had to pay $700.” She said she has insurance, she passed out in class, she’s fine, obviously she can’t do hot yoga. But here’s a person with full insurance, you know, that a young person, my age, I should probably say much younger, and you know it’s every single person has some sort of story and the insurance companies also have to take more responsibility. They have very high profits, alot of them do a lot of good work, but you know it’s just the nature of a for-profit industry that you’re going to have them focus on their bottom line rather than on the health of their patients or their clients.
SHEARER: What can be done in a situation like this, particularly because we know they’ve got lobbyists all over the Hill? How can you best deal with them effectively?
GIFFORDS: Well, I mean for me, it’s the same as — you weren’t here in Green Valley last year at this time, but if you were — we were having this conversation about oil prices right? People were outraged, remember? Remember how crazy they were? Five bucks a gallon and the oil companies and “drill, baby, drill,” and all of that. And now we don’t talk about that right? I mean it’s $2.69 a gallon right now when you fuel up. So back then it was this whole thing about, “What are you going to do with all the oil companies and the lobbyists?” I mean I still worked on and passed legislation out of the House to expand drilling opportunities because I’m a big proponent for solar but I’m a bigger proponent for making America’s energy in America. Sixty to 70 percent of the energy we use in the country being brought in by foreign countries, the majority who are not friendly to the United States, is complete insanity. And it’s very dangerous from a security standpoint. So, things like taking leases away from companies that have bought up leases on federal lands to drill for oil but it’s not profitable enough for them to do it. So if you don’t use it, we’re going to take it away from you and give it to a company that’s going to use it. I mean those sorts of things are obviously really good measures to try to reduce oil process and to increase the production. So I mean I think with the health care it should be the same thing. Right now what is not being discussed, what people don’t understand, we are not, quote, unquote, socializing health care. We are not going single payer. That is not on the table. This isn’t a road to single payer, this isn’t a plot, it’s not a back-door approach. It is not on the table. And after leaving our very interesting Douglas “Congress on Your Corner,” which was again planned months and months in advance and executed very well, and I didn’t know the guy had a gun or dropped a gun and wasn’t important until later so that got really spun up in the media and there’s a New York Times article today on it and all of that. But, you know, I didn’t know. The guy was being real rude and obnoxious and yelling, “How long are you going to lie to us?” And I saw him out of the corner of my eye but I was very trained on the person that was right in front of me, there was a big long line. I went directly from there to Bisbee, where I was met by another group of protesters, but they were the single payer protesters. Almost as nasty, almost as personal. They had some pretty unkind things to say. I mean look, you don’t have to be polite, but I try to be polite, I try to be respectful. For me, I just feel very strongly in a representative democracy. If you don’t like someone, you don’t think they’re doing a good job, you vote them out and you get someone else. I feel very strongly that that system works. And you know demonizing the former President (Bush) was not something that I supported. I didn’t go around bashing Republicans, bashing the former administration. That’s just not who I am... (Last election) I had six or seven TV ads run against me personally by my opponent, who I went to kindergarten with, I’ve known him my entire life. Just like in 2006, running against Randy Graf here, and that got personal against my family. You know, I focused on the issues, focused on the measures, and I’m just not into getting into the dirt. I think if we talk about change in Washington and we want things to change, then it has to change with us. So the name-calling, the belittling, the nastiness, if we don’t step above that and demonstrate that we can do this in a productive manner, we can’t expect other people to do it.
DANIEL NEWHAUSER, REPORTER: What do you think is driving all this vitriol and misinformation?
GIFFORDS: I think a couple of things. I think the American people are angry, I think they’re angry for a lot of different reasons — the economy’s not strong right now; Arizona, we had slipped to fourth but we’re back up to third with housing foreclosures. I spent a considerable amount of time trying to mitigate housing foreclosures, worked with the lenders, I mean that’s a whole tough road, very heavy workload we had as well trying to prevent foreclosures in this district, the workshops, but also putting pressure on the lenders to streamline the process. But that’s part of it. I think there’s people that have never liked the government, distrust the government. I think that’s always existed, but I think those numbers are probably growing and I think with less and less, I would say, traditional, reliable news sources, more information is being available on the Internet and it looks like news. Everyone now is a reporter, so everyone runs around with their little video camera and they come up with stories and they come up with information and some of it is pretty appealing, but it’s not balanced, it’s not substantiated, it’s not accountable. I get all those e-mails, I’m pretty tech-savvy. I get the stuff either forwarded to me or we collect all that information. So I think it’s also spinning a lot of fear that, you know, we’re going to euthanize your grandmother. We’re not going to euthanize anyone. That we’re going to take all of your health care away from you. We’re not doing that. You name it, they’re ... I’m not saying lies, it’s just not truthful information. There’s falsehoods. So I think that people are pretty concerned about that as well and I think people are scared. Fourteen thousand people lost their insurance today, they lost it yesterday, 14,000 people in America will lose their insurance tomorrow. And there’s some stats out there which are pretty compelling that shows like 85 percent of American people are satisfied with their healthcare. Well a huge chunk of those folks are on a federal health care program today and that program is going to run out of money in the not-to-distant future. So there are just unfortunately some changes that have to be made there. But I think for a lot of other people, once you start asking that second or third question, for example, “Have your premiums increased in the last couple of years?” Well, yes they have. “Are they affordable?” Well, no, actually they’re not. “Do you know someone that’s lost their insurance?” It’s like the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know. So that’s probably bringing some of the feelings out there.
SHEARER: A couple of months ago, you wrote a letter to the Secretary of Agriculture encouraging him to press the Forest Service for a thumbs down to Rosemont Mine. Any response on that?
GIFFORDS: Rosemont Mine is in my district. I have no direct jurisdiction over it. Congressman (Raul) Grijalva does through his Natural Resources Committee, I don’t. They said they were going to have public meetings through the EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) process. And I thought, OK, we’ll monitor, we’ll stand back and see what happens. The first three were disastrous. The first one they had out at Pima College West, where they bussed in people, promising them jobs and giving them a steak dinner, and that didn’t go over very well. Then they had one at Patagonia/Sonoita where they called the Border Patrol and called the local law enforcement on folks when they said, “Look, we actually have a meeting, we actually want to discus what’s going on.” So they called the cops and shut the meeting down. So at that point we waited very heavily by bringing in the original supervisor from New Mexico and Jeanine Derby, who is the local (Coronado National Forest) supervisor and we forced them to open this process up. And very contentious. We had contentious meetings. We had lots of very contentious meetings about that. Some people were very strongly pro-mining, felt very strongly about that. I get steel workers, a lot of union folks ... jobs for folks that again that were going to be impacted by this so...
SHEARER: Do you think Rosemont’s going to happen?
GIFFORDS: I don’t know, but what I’m going to insist on happening is a 100 percent real appraisal of what will happen if the mine does go into operation. I’m really concerned about water issues, the Central Arizona Project will most likely not get extended down here to Green Valley. I say that not because there are not efforts going on to make that happen, or that there may not be resources to try to purchase that water, but in a drought, when you have already 25 million users on the Colorado River, and record population growth in Nevada and other parts of Arizona, I mean the chances that we’re going to get that extended... I mean I got some legislation in through the San Pedro people because that’s the second most diverse ecological area, you know, keeping that San Pedro area running is critical to Fort Huachuca. I’ve told these people many times, you know, we could study it, but the chances that we’re going to pipe CAP water all the way over to Sierra Vista is just not likely going to happen. Shearer: Who are we to believe?
GIFFORDS: I think that if the Forest Service contracts with through people that they have, and they’ve got some very qualified personnel, and contracts with solid environmental companies that are trained to do this work, we can get some very solid assessments of what the impact would be. Let’s go back: Rosemont can do what it wants to on its land. In order to make their operation viable, they need to use a tremendous amount of forest land, which belongs to us. So water is huge, transportation, traffic is big, noise, I mean living next to a 24-hour open pit copper mine is going to be a change for a lot of these folks and pretty undesirable. I’m pro-mining, I’m not anti-mining, but I just want to make sure, particularly with water issues, if I look at the population here, that our needs are met first, And Rosemont has, unfortunately, done some things in the early part of development that has I think broken down the trust with the community. Some of the well drilling that they did in the Sahuarita area made a lot of people very upset about that. I want to make sure that all the facts are on the table. It’ not necessarily that I’m even working to close the process down. I just want to make sure that we actually have a reasonable process.
SHEARER: Cash for Clunkers. The retail sales are down today. Would you still say this is a successful program and we should have done it?
GIFFORDS: You know, I didn’t vote for it. Twice I didn’t vote for it. For three reasons. One, because it didn’t do what I thought the program should have done, which is really require you to buy a very fuel-efficient vehicle. I mean it want from, I think, 24 miles per gallon to I think 28. We drove down here in a brand new American hybrid that gets 47 miles per gallon, a Ford Fusion. So lets incentivize. There are much more fuel-efficient vehicles out there that we could be promoting which would be better for energy efficiency and reducing our consumption. The second reason is I didn’t vote for the auto bailout either, not because I don’t think we should have a strong U.S. auto manufacturer, I think we should, I think we have to. I thought that the execs from GM and Chrysler had such poor plans, had such poor and unrealistic ideas about the industry and Americans’ perceptions about their cars that it wasn’t going to fly. And I thought, we can’t be putting money into their pockets with no protections or provisions so I voted against it. That being said, we successfully saved Don Mackey’s business. Don Mackey had been profitable for 26 years in a row. Here’s a guy, started from nothing, started from scratch, and was successful building his business. And we said to GM, “OK, you’re going to start closing dealerships? Give us some criteria. How do you decide one dealership stays open and another one closes if that other one that closes not only has been profitable, it has capitalized 2.5 times what you require, has out of the sky customer satisfaction ratings? It’s like, why Don Mackey? So after putting this pressure on them, they sent people out, they analyzed, and they changed their mind and Don Mackey is going to continue with his 80 employees and be in business, so real success story. We talked to Don about this. We’ve got this good relationship now. We went over and did this little celebration with his employees last week. The bill does not require either U.S. owned or even U.S. manufactured cars, right? And then the third is that we’re not even paying for it, again. So we could be borrowing more money from the Chinese to buy a Japanese-made car and, sure we get some sales tax and we get some licensing fees, but where’s the huge gains for us? I’m glad that the dealers are moving cars and I think that’s positive and it’s a great opportunity for a lot of people, but I don’t think it’s responsible. So that’s why I voted against it.
SHEARER: Both sides of the immigration debate keep coming back to a guest-worker program. What are the chances that’s going to become a reality and when and what will it look like?
GIFFORDS: It will have to be included as part of a comprehensive bill. No comprehensive bill will pass without a guest worker program. And then those are hi-tech H1 Vs and also the H2 Vs. Because that is a key part of this. I was one of 24 lawmakers, House and Senate, invited to the White House just a couple of weeks ago. Also from Arizona was Sens. McCain and Kyl, so it was bipartisan. And then heading up this is former Gov. Napolitano, Secretary Napolitano at DHS. And the way that we left it at that point was look, we’ve got energy, we’ve got health care, third, we’re going to move immigration. And it’s something that is really important to the president. It’s important to me. This district continues to be by far the most heavily impacted area when it comes to illegal immigration. We were in the last week with Chief (Robert) Gilbert mustering the 229 new officer coming in. The numbers are down, which is good, but record deaths, not good. And we’re still responsible for 47 percent of the drug and 45 percent of all the apprehensions in the country right here in the Tucson sector. It’s nice to see we made progress, but we still have a long ways to go. So where we are from a Legislative standpoint, the president just announced yesterday (Aug. 12) and again, because of health care it’s like, alright, you know, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, we’re not going to be able to do this in 2009. But don’t forget, in 2010 primaries start in April. We get elected every two years we are not in kind of like constant campaign mode. I represent a challenging district but my primary’s not until September of next year. But that has to be included. Smarter border security measures. We’ve done some things well, we’ve done some things like the Boeing, which has been like totally thumbs-down, not good. But I have a lot of confidence in Chief Gilbert and this area has been really critical. The interior enforcement is another aspect of that. And in the next couple of weeks, they’ll be finally the release of the GAO study that was the result of all of those meetings and our checkpoint workhorses. It was ordered in the summer of 2007. We’re going to have a lot of discussion about that. And we’re the only area to not have permanent checkpoints in the country. We did get the Border Patrol to move it away from Green Valley, which we thought was closer to the border. Away from a major metropolitan area, but I’ve also been pretty hard on the Border Patrol for not beefing up the interim checkpoint like they were supposed to last year. They were supposed to have an awning, they were supposed to have a modular building, they were supposed to have the high-speed Internet, they were supposed to have the sensors, the cameras, a place for the dogs, a third lane so they could do the scanner back detection for drugs and for guns and that sort of thing. So that is where they have really fallen down. That was part of the decision, that they were going to at least beef up the interim. So stay tuned, it’s going to be very hotly contested and we’re going to hear from out friends on both sides of the issue come shortly.
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