US Congressional District 24
|
 Michael Arcuri |  Ray Meier |
| Lansing Star Articles |
09/29/06 -- Arcuri Interview
02/03/06 -- Arcuri Speaks to Lansing Democrats
| 08/11/06 -- Meier Visits Village of Lansing Business
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| Jobs |
- Increase federal minimum wage
- Change our current unfair trade agreements
- Foster energy independence
- Middle Class and Small Business Tax Relief
- Health Care Reform
- Rebuild and Improve Infrastructure (roads)
- Create a regionalization strategy
| - Increase federal minimum wage
- Provide permanent death tax
- Extend and renew expiring tax benefits for individuals and businesses
- Supports fair international trade
- Force countries to stop manipulating their currencies to the detriment of American manufacturers
- Common-sense immigration policy that tasks the government and gives them sufficient funding and tools to effectively secure our borders, track the status and location of international visitors and require them to be legal, and help family farmers to meet their workforce demands
- Increased federal funding for energy research and development, for alternative fuels like bio-mass
- Free, fair, and regulated agriculture trade
- Prompt aid for farmers in disasters
- Reform unemployment insurance
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| Energy |
- Support the development of renewable and alternative energy sources
- Make sure that businesses have access to reliable and affordable electrical power
| - Stop playing politics with energy
- Pursue real solutions and reach within my party and across the aisle to work with serious people of good will to find a solution to America’s energy problems
- Establish greater fuel efficiency standards for motor vehicles, and implement and expand tax credits for fuel efficient vehicles, including a tax credit for retiring fuel inefficient cars
- Increase oil supply
- Develop a market in alternative fuels
- Look at energy issues comprehensively
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| Health Care |
- Expand health insurance to cover more Americans by opening up existing programs like Child Health Plus so that more working families can buy affordable healthcare coverage.
- Increase tax credits for small businesses to help cover the cost of providing health coverage for their workers
- Fix the new Medicare prescription drug benefit
- Allow the safe re-importation of low-cost drugs from Canada
- Enact a real patient bill of rights
- Aggressively pursue fraud and abuse in the healthcare industry
- Start work on a long-term, comprehensive plan
| - Emphasize preventive care and early management
- More attention to rural and community based health clinics can target medical care to communities where it is most needed
- Health care policy should center on the principle that the individual patient needs the ability to be involved in and have control over his or her own health care free of the dictates of a distant bureaucracy
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| Fiscal and Taxes |
- Restore the pay-as-you-go rule in Congress. This requires that to enact any new spending or tax cut proposal you need to identify budget cuts or tax increases to pay for it.
- End corporate welfare and tax breaks for giant corporations
- Reform the earmarking progress to make it more difficult for politicians to fund pet projects like the $233 million “Bridge to nowhere” in Alaska or the $50 million "indoor rainforest" in Iowa
- Real ethics and campaign finance reform
- Require Congress to to publish the text of a bill before voting on it so that members can't hide huge pork barrel projects from public scrutiny
- Make sure that emergency spending is for emergencies: things like the war in Iraq and natural disasters are truly emergency items
| The tax code of our country should be fair and understandable, not a collection of baffling loop holes for the favored, or a set of barriers to economic progress for the hard working and creative. - Fight the hidden tax increase known as the "alternative minimum tax"
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| Education |
- More federal funds to expand access to these programs
- Provide tax credits for area businesses that hire local students for internships and for a program modeled on americorps that helps forgive student loans
| - Higher priority on education and research
- Zero interest student lonas especially for math, science, and engineering
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| Iraq War |
- Bring troops home in 2007
- Iraqui sovereignty in 2007
- Congressional oversight of war management ("Bush mismanagement of the war")
- Fund health care for veterans
- Non-partisan approach to supporting troops
| - Support our troops, giving them the funding and supplies they need to finish the job.
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Print 
Lansing voters will get to choose between Republican State Senator Ray Meier and Democrat and Oneida County DA Michael Arcuri for the U.S. Congress seat being vacated by Republican Sherwood Boehlert this year. Both candidates have visited Lansing and the greater Tompkins County area.