Archive: News

When Mike Arcuri was in town for the opening of the Tompkins County Democratic Campaign headquarters, the Lansing Star got to interview him on topics that concern local residents, notably tax relief.  And we wanted to know how much of his ambitious campaign he thinks he will realistically achieve if elected as a freshman congressman.

See the candidate comparison chart on the Elections page.

Lansing Star: What could you do to relieve taxes on a local basis if you are elected to Congress?

Michael Arcuri:  One of the things that I talk about and one of the things I think is important is -- we see it here in the East.  There are so many levels of government.  And we pay for all the levels of government.  There are a couple of stories i'd like to tell you about that.

One is, I met with a lawyer from out west on the Indian land claims here in our district recently.  The first thing out of our mouths was: it's so difficult negotiating here, because we have to negotiate through villages, towns, cities, counties, states, federal government.  Then you have the fire district, the sewer district, the water district, and the school districts.  There are so many levels.  Out west you have at least two levels of government less that we have to fight through.

Not only the difficulty in terms of attracting business, because there are so many levels, but the increase in taxes that we have because of all those different levels.  Anecdotally, in my own county we have a town of about 17 or 18 thousand called Whitestown.  We have five local police departments in one town.  One of the things that we have been doing that i proposed is consolidating the police departments.  We used some drug seizure money to hire a consultant to talk about consolidating.

It's difficult, because the people say, 'yeah we want to talk about consolidation, but consolidate somewhere else.  So finally I have the mayor sitting down, and we finally have everybody sitting down, saying, OK, let's do the study and see what it says, and we can probably do some good things.  We can at least share services, save some money.  We don't need five police departments in a town of 17,000 when we have the State Police and a county sheriff also doing patrols in that area.

That works for all areas.  It's not unique to Oneida County or to Whitestown.  We need to cut down on the levels of government.  One of the things that I've proposed is that we need to focus more on regionalizing our economies.  We need to stop thinking about Tompkins County isolated alone, Oneida County alone, Cortland County alone.  Out west they call it the 'Silicon Valley,' and what's good for one area is good for the other, because everything starts to focus together and you start to attract business as a group, as an area.

Those are the kind of things that I would promote.  That's the kind of thing I think we need to do to not only attract business, but more importantly, cut down our taxes.  We need to promote cutting down on the levels of government.  And obviously we need to promote programs that give funding to communities that are working on trying to consolidate government.

LS: That was going to be my next question, because once an entity exists, and especially a government entity, it's like a monster.  It keeps growing and perpetrating itself.

MA: It's difficult.  What shows how successful you are?  How much more money, how many more jobs you create, how much more you do.  My thing about it is that everyone talks about consolidation, and say they want it, but they want it somewhere else.  You know, we just consolidated our church.  And my Mom didn't talk to me for about a month, because I said, 'It's a good idea.'  And she said, 'What do you mean it's a good idea?'  I said, 'We need to consolidate these churches together.  We have shrinking attendance.  We need to consolidate them and work together.'

It happened, it worked well, and everyone is happy with it.  But it's that first fear that everyone has, you know, change.  Change is difficult.  People resist change, but we really need to look at it.  If we're going to survive not just as a region, but as a state, we really need to start to change the way we do business to compete with other places in the country.

LS: Do you see this kind of fiscal incentive for governments only, or for school districts as well?

MA: School districts are different.  I think there's a great incentive within the state for school districts to consolidate.  I think we see that already.  I think what government does, and this is what I tell the mayors in Whitestown.  I say, 'Our role as elected officials is to bring to table alternatives that are more viable.  Changes that we think will work.  It's not our decision -- we're in a democracy.  It's your people's decision.  But it's our responsibility to present to them what we think will work better.

And if the people tell us they don't want it, then so be it.  We have done our job.  We have tried to make it better.  We have given the people our perspective and our insight.

So I think that's what an elected official does.  We need to bring those proposals to the table and ultimately, how often do we see two school districts vote and they decide not to consolidate?  That's their decision.  They've made it.  But the people that brought it to the table did their job in terms of bringing that to the forefront for debate.

LS: I'm hearing you say that the way to reduce taxes is to reduce government.

MA: Well, property taxes.  It sounds like good government.  And again, our role is to make the proposals and for people to decide.  Do you want more government?  Because if you want more government you have to pay more taxes for it.  But if you don't, if you're really unhappy with it, then we need to look at alternatives.  And the alternative is consolidating.  That's the only way to do it.

LS: Is there anything that the federal government can do to help on a local basis, such as infrastructure like sewer?

MA: Yes, there is money that's given by the administration every year for sewer and clean water.  I think that was cut by $119 million this year.  Especially water -- we need to do everything in our power to keep our water clean.  Every community I go in, there is some issue with the water system.  This is what troubles me the most, and it plays into my whole jobs package.

What is our greatest natural resource?  It's certainly not our weather, although this time of year, where is better to be than upstate New York in the Fall?  But our greatest natural resource, other than our people, is probably our water.  Especially if you go to places out west and you see that they have so little of it and we have so much of it.

We need to make sure that it stays clean and it stays abundant.  And it doesn't belong to anyone.  Philosophically, I believe water belongs to everybody.  We need to make it accessible to communities.  We have some problems in the northern part of the district where the state is not allowing water districts to expand where there's not a lot of water.  My feeling is, who is the state to control where that water is?  That water belongs to the people, it doesn't belong to the state.  And if communities need it because the DEC says you've got to upgrade your water system, then we should be doing that.

So I think it all plays into the same thing, and that is government funding.  You need to fund water and sewer projects.  They can't be cutting back on these things.  You need to be expanding that funding.

LS: That leads to the last part of the question, which is who should pay for mandates?

MA: Yo know, any time you do mandates, whether they're on the state level or the federal level they should be paid by the entity that's creating the responsibility to do it.  We see that in 'No Child Left Behind.'  Great concept!  Who would say no to the concept of 'No Child Left Behind?'  The objection to 'No Child Left Behind' is that it's an unfunded mandate.  The federal government says 'Here's what you need to do.'  They take away the localities's creativity because they say you need to do it in this way.  They take away creativity in terms of how you test and how you teach.  And they say you have to pay for it yourself.

We criticized the State for years and years for doing the same thing.  These unfunded mandates.  We see them in law enforcement all the time.  They have these great ideas that are great ideas.  And they probably will create more efficient law enforcement.  But the problem is they pass it on to the locality and we have to figure out how to fund it, and we have to figure out a way to do it.

So if you create the mandate you should pay for it.

LS: When I looked at your Web site it reminded me of how ambitious what you want to do is.  As a freshman congressman in a highly politicized city, do you have a strategy for actually getting these things done?  Because it's one thing to say what you believe in in a campaign, but it's another thing to get to Washington and say, 'OK, how am I going to do this?'

MA: Well, most of the priorities that I talk about happen to be priorities of the Democratic party.  Not all of them.  If you look at my positions, I differ on a number of positions of the Democratic party and traditional Democrats, because I've always been independent and that's what I believe in.

To answer your question, it's not going to be easy.  And that is one of the problems.  It's not a question of if it's a good idea.  It's a question of whose idea is it?  I don't know what to do other than to get new people in to change the whole ideology.  Now, it's not going to be something that a freshman is going to do alone.  But Sherry Boehlert, he's a republican, but he voted with the Democratic party, depending on what year you look at, anywhere from 30% to 45% of the time.  Because he reached across the aisle.  He wasn't afraid to do the right thing.

And I would like to emulate him.  I mean, you vote the way your constituency wants you to vote.  I think if elected officials voted more the way their constituency wanted and less the way their party wanted, we would be much better off.  This is one of my criticisms of my opponent.  As a Republican State Senator he voted with his own party in the majority 98.9% of the time.  That's not the kind of bipartisan cooperation that I think we need.  

We need a change.  We need people that aren't afraid to say, 'Look...'  Like my position.  I differ with my party on a number of issues.  On the death penalty.  I believe that in certain instances the death penalty is appropriate.  That's not a traditional view of my party.  

Gun control.  We've prosecuted a number of gun cases.  One thing that I realized is that it's not the legal guns that cause the problems.  It's the illegal guns.  We don't need more gun laws.  We have more than enough gun laws.  We need more money for enforcement of the gun laws we have.  It's not a traditional position of Democrats.

So I'm not afraid to talk about where I'm different.  I'm a Democrat because they more closely match my philosophy holistically in terms of my ideology.  We need elected officials who are independent, who aren't afraid to vote.  If we get people like that we'll start to get the real meaningful change that this country so badly wants.

Here is what Michael Arcuri said on some of the issues: On Iraq: I believe that we need a phased withdrawal.  That's how I've been phrasing it.  People say, 'What do you mean by a phased withdrawal?' so let me explain that.  A couple of things.  I start out with the National Guard and the Reserves.  I think first and foremost we need to bring the National Guard and the Reserves home immediately.  Their role was never intended to be fighting a foreign war. If we had our National Guard here they would be in a much better position to do the things a national guard is supposed to do.  If they were here, if we had our full National Guard here during Hurricane Katrina, we would have been in a much better position to react swiftly and effectively. Number two is, I think the president's idea -- I'm saying this as a Democrat -- of using the National Guard to assist in a supportive role, unarmed, along the southern border to help the Border Patrol is a good idea.  If we had them here. And lastly, we talk about homeland security.  I can't think of a better way to secure our homeland than to have our National Guard here.  So first and foremost I believe we need to bring our National Guard and the Reserves home immediately. Secondly, I think we need a plan to get out of Iraq.  The Administration says Democrats want to cut and run.  TO me the whole idea of cut and run and staying the course is another way of saying we have no plan.  They have no plan for getting the troops home.  We need a plan for getting them home.  We need to bring to bring the troops home, in 2006, this year.  And we should have them home by 2007. You know, we went there and we were told there were weapons of mass destruction.  We all know there were not.  We were told that we would be greeted as liberators.  We were not.  Despite that our soldiers have performed admirably.  They have done everything that has been asked of them and more.  They removed Saddam Hussein, they instuted a democratic form of government, they've had free elections.  They've trained a police force of about a quarter of a million.  We should reward them by beginning to bring them home.  We should do that soon. The thing that I always like to talk about in this regard, the thing that is amazing to me is, one of the things that our troops are doing there in putting together this government, is creating a government that will have universal health care.  That is quality and affordable health care for all its citizens. So we have our troops over in Iraq fighting to do, among other things, institute a government that will have universal health care, and we don't have it here in our own country.  And I always segue into another issue that I think is critically important that we're not doing, that this Administration keeps putting on the back burner.  That is quality, affordable health care, available to all Americans.  Not just to the rich who can afford it, but to the working poor as well.  The 46 million people without it.   And I say, look, we pay for it anyway, and we don't pay for it in an efficient way.  Because if someone without insurance goes to the hospital because they need to, they're going to go to the emergency room.  They're going to pay an exorbitant amount of money, because everyone knows that's the most expensive care you can get.  And if they can't afford it they're going to get it anyway.  So we pay for it anyway. Let's do it the right way.  Let's spend that money on preventative medicine.  I mean, you have these health plans that say they won't pay for a woman's mammogram.  That's ridiculous.  Everyone knows that paying for a mammogram is significantly cheaper than the treatment that they would have to go through for a woman who is diagnosed with breast cancer.  Se we need to focus more on preventative medicine.  If we have a form of universal health care available to all Americans, we'll have that. Here's the thing I'm very careful of, and constantly groups try to pin me down.  They ask me why aren't you for this system, why aren't you for that system.  I'm going to tell you flat out, I'm going to be a first term congressman, and if I stand up and say I want this and I want that the first thing out of everybody's mouth will be, 'That won't happen.  You can't do this.' I believe you need congressmen and congresswomen who will fight for quality, affordable health care for all Americans.  That's my top domestic priority.  I will do that.  The way we do it -- I'm open to discussion.  I have some ideas about ways.  I think a mixed way so that we preserve the type of insurance that is available, and yet create insurance for people who don't have it will be a good place to start.  But obviously, it's a place to start.  We need to give and take.  We should be hearing from people who aren't afraid to reach across the aisle and say, 'That's a good idea.  I don't care if you're in my party or not.  Maybe that's what we need to implement.' On our region's economy: You are so fortunate here.  When I first came down and started talking about jobs, this is the only place where jobs isn't the number one issue, although obviously everyone is still very concerned about jobs. One of the problems is that we still tend to think of the genie in the bottle for our job situation.  Where is the big factory that's going to come in and employ 2,500 people in the district?  We all love that.  But there are fewer and fewer of those opportunities available.  Secondarily, the only problem with those is that very often they leave when they find greener pastures.  Then you have an economy that we have seen devastated over and over, in Syracuse when Carrier left, and when the textile mills left earlier on, we saw real devastation.  And in Cortland, you've seen it.  Smith Corona.  So many places like that. That's why I think the way to grow business is small, local business.  And Sherry Boehlert always says this, and I'm always fascinated.  I always listen to him when he talks about this.  He would say, 'What the role of an elected official is, is to create an environment that is conducive for jobs developing in that area.' And that's what my whole plan is about.  Doing things like developing infrastructure and roads.  You can's get to any part of the district from Utica.  And we're the largest city in the district.  To get to Binghamton it takes two hours.  I mean Utica and Binghamton are so much alike they could be sister cities.  They could be doing so many things, but it is so hard to get from one to the other.  The infrastructure is poor.  We need to do a much better job in terms oif developing our infrastructure within the district.  That's our physical infrastructure. We need to develop a technological infrastructure as well.  We need to make sure that we have fiber optics available throughout the district, wireless Internet and broadband accessibility.  That's what companies want before they even think about coming into an area.  It's conditional.   I talked about regionalization.  I think that's critical to our development.   One of the things that is top on the list is the education system that we have here.  We have an inordinate number of colleges in our district, much more than the national average.  We have a huge number of highly talented students that pass right through our fingertips that we could use as a real base for development.   But we have this massive brain drain.  What do we export here in central New York?  We know it.  We export our talent more than anything else.  Our young people.  I'm amazed.  I travel around the country in this race, and I meet people who say, 'I'm from Utica.'  'I'm from Cortland.'  'I'm from Rome.'  'I grew up in Ithaca.'  We export some of our best people.  We should be keeping them here. I think one of the things that is critical that we should be looking at is making central New York an alternative fuel center.  There are so many different reasons.  If you do any study of ethanol or biodiesel, especially with ethanol -- it is much cheaper to ship corn to where the ethanol is produced and used than it is vice versa.  Most of the ethanol is either used on the east coast or the west coast. Well, think about our region, how geographically uniquely we are situated.  We are about 200, 250 miles from New York City, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Buffalo, Montreal, Boston, all major population centers.  That means we could use the ethanol production plans to buy up corn to help our local farmers.  To import corn from the mid-west on our rail system, which also needs to be improved.  And then we can ship it out to these places where they need it. Each ethanol plant employs, I think an average of about 35 people.  Biodiesel plants -- we can be an alternative fuel center here in central New York. And not just that, but it burns so much cleaner.  So we're helping our children in terms of helping our environment.  And most importantly, we are making ourselves energy-independent.  The high cost of energy -- people I talk to in plants all the time... They say, 'Our plant is so productive, but we're always a stone's throw away from being closed, because energy is so expensive in the northeast.'  We can change that whole thing. We think about our parents' generation and our grandparents' generation as being the greatest generation.  They ended World War II.  The Marshall plan.  They fought communism.  We could be the greatest generation if we do for our kids what hasn't been done yet: making America energy independent and taking away our reliance on foreign oil from the Persian Gulf, South America and all over the world. Everyone was crowing about finding this enormous pool of new oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico.  That's wonderful, but the problem is that it's still a finite resource.  So we get an extra ten years -- it's still finite.  We need to develop an alternative plan.  In the short term we need to raise the cafe standards so our cars are more efficient. In central New York we need to be creative.  We need to think outside the box.  We need to stop thinking of ourselves as an area that has small, traditional economies.  We need to think of ourselves as an area that can be in the forefront, especially based on the technology we have from our colleges and institutions and universities. On the tone of the race: I have never run a negative campaign, and obviously this is totally different.  All of our commercials have stayed positive. If you know anything about the election law, and I don't know a lot about it, but the one thing you can't do is have any contact or discussion as to what the ads are.  So ads are ads. But I can say this: on the other side, when I look at some of the attacks they are making it's obvious to me.  They don't want to talk about the issues.  I mean, they can't talk about health care, because they have no plan.  They can't talk about high energy, because he's taken money from oil companies.  He can't talk about the war in Iraq, because his position is, and he said it in the New york Times, 'History will prove that this president was right to bring us into Iraq.' So he can't talk about the issues that most Americans in our district are concerned with.  So he has to talk negative and bring up things that, you know... I get money from trial lawyers?  Duh!  I'm a trial lawyer.  And so is he.  And I get money from labor unions?  Yeah, because I care about what happens to working people.  And if the difference is that I take money from labor, from working people, and he takes money from large businesses and tobacco and oil and pharmaceutical, well, I'll stay with the working people every single time. (Laughs) I just tell my kids, 'Don't watch TV!  You want a video, I'll rent you a video.  Talk to Ma, she'll get you a new computer game.  Just don't watch TV for the next 45 days!'

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