Warner says nation needs new ideas
9:57 PM
By Dolly A. Butz, Journal staff writer | Posted: Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, a Democrat considering a 2008 presidential bid, said on Monday the United States is headed in the wrong direction and called for "bold ideas" and a "common purpose" to get the country back on track.
"I really do believe getting our country back on the right track starts right here in Iowa with the state House, with our congressional races and making sure that we give Chet Culver a Democratic majority in the House and the Senate," he said.
Warner was in Sioux City to support local Democratic candidates. He spoke to members of the Woodbury County Democrats' Truman Club at the home of former state senator and Sioux City Museum director Steve Hansen.
Warner, a multimillionaire who co-founded the telecommunications company Nextel, served as governor of Virginia, a predominately Republican state, from 2002 to January of this year. Warner now serves as the chairman of the Forward Together PAC. Virginia's laws prevent him from running for a second consecutive term in office.
When he left office, Warner garnered an 80 percent approval rating. While in office he turned a $6 billion state budget deficit into a surplus, passed a tax reform bill and allowed the largest single investment in K-12 education in state history.
"I think the most important thing you can judge somebody who might want to be an elected official again is not what they say they're going to do, but have actually done," he said.
The American people, Warner said, are waiting to hear his Party's alternative to the president and Republican controlled Congress that "have us headed in the wrong direction."
"There's a lot of talk in politics today about values and I think values are important, but I think the most quintessential American value and what makes our country different from any place in the world is that everyone in this country ought to have a far shot," he said. "Increasingly a lot of Americans think that fair shot is disappearing."
On the issues of Iraq, health care and energy, Warner said everyone's ideas and commitment are needed.
Warner said the country needs to "make clear" that it has no intention of permanently staying in Iraq. When troops are being redeployed, he said the United States needs to engage Iraq's neighbors and "encourage a regional diplomatic initiative around Iraq," which he said would create stability and security.
"It has been made worse over the last six months with a unilateral focus on Iraq," he said. "We need to get out of there, but I believe getting out without a plan is as bad as going in without one."
On the issue of health care, Warner called for a system of universal coverage, electronic medical records, the separation of health care and long-term care and a pricing approach for prescription drugs.
"I think there's a wonderful opportunity right now to make a collaboration between government, labor and business, but it's going to take bolder thinking than we've seen out of Washington," he said.
A solution to the nation's energy crisis, Warner said could not be reached with the production of ethanol alone. He said ethanol along with other biofuels, wind energy, solar energy, clean coal, battery power and nuclear power were "pieces of the solution."
"Right now the federal government spends in total about $2 billion a year on energy research," he said. "We spend about $7.5 billion a month on Iraq. Two weeks of Iraq spending, if we had poured that into energy, I believe it would actually help make our country securer because it wouldn't have us continuing to rely on fuels from that region, and by the way, it might just save the planet and create jobs."
"I really do believe getting our country back on the right track starts right here in Iowa with the state House, with our congressional races and making sure that we give Chet Culver a Democratic majority in the House and the Senate," he said.
Warner was in Sioux City to support local Democratic candidates. He spoke to members of the Woodbury County Democrats' Truman Club at the home of former state senator and Sioux City Museum director Steve Hansen.
Warner, a multimillionaire who co-founded the telecommunications company Nextel, served as governor of Virginia, a predominately Republican state, from 2002 to January of this year. Warner now serves as the chairman of the Forward Together PAC. Virginia's laws prevent him from running for a second consecutive term in office.
When he left office, Warner garnered an 80 percent approval rating. While in office he turned a $6 billion state budget deficit into a surplus, passed a tax reform bill and allowed the largest single investment in K-12 education in state history.
"I think the most important thing you can judge somebody who might want to be an elected official again is not what they say they're going to do, but have actually done," he said.
The American people, Warner said, are waiting to hear his Party's alternative to the president and Republican controlled Congress that "have us headed in the wrong direction."
"There's a lot of talk in politics today about values and I think values are important, but I think the most quintessential American value and what makes our country different from any place in the world is that everyone in this country ought to have a far shot," he said. "Increasingly a lot of Americans think that fair shot is disappearing."
On the issues of Iraq, health care and energy, Warner said everyone's ideas and commitment are needed.
Warner said the country needs to "make clear" that it has no intention of permanently staying in Iraq. When troops are being redeployed, he said the United States needs to engage Iraq's neighbors and "encourage a regional diplomatic initiative around Iraq," which he said would create stability and security.
"It has been made worse over the last six months with a unilateral focus on Iraq," he said. "We need to get out of there, but I believe getting out without a plan is as bad as going in without one."
On the issue of health care, Warner called for a system of universal coverage, electronic medical records, the separation of health care and long-term care and a pricing approach for prescription drugs.
"I think there's a wonderful opportunity right now to make a collaboration between government, labor and business, but it's going to take bolder thinking than we've seen out of Washington," he said.
A solution to the nation's energy crisis, Warner said could not be reached with the production of ethanol alone. He said ethanol along with other biofuels, wind energy, solar energy, clean coal, battery power and nuclear power were "pieces of the solution."
"Right now the federal government spends in total about $2 billion a year on energy research," he said. "We spend about $7.5 billion a month on Iraq. Two weeks of Iraq spending, if we had poured that into energy, I believe it would actually help make our country securer because it wouldn't have us continuing to rely on fuels from that region, and by the way, it might just save the planet and create jobs."
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Peggy wrote on Sep 1, 2006 8:04 PM:
Troy wrote on Aug 30, 2006 3:58 PM:
Porter McNeil wrote on Aug 28, 2006 11:55 PM: