Slashdot Log In
Talk to This Year's Quirkiest Senatorial Candidate
Posted by
Roblimo
on Tue Mar 18, 2008 11:04 AM
from the plenty-of-substance-behind-the-laughs dept.
from the plenty-of-substance-behind-the-laughs dept.
Not many candidates for the U.S. Senate are 4'9" tall and only have one hand. But Oregon Democrat Steve Novick qualifies on both counts -- and uses them as pluses in his TV ads. Like this one, where he shows why he's the best beer-drinking partner among all the candidates. Or this one, where it's obvious why he's for "the little guy." Also, as far as we know, he's the only candidate this year for any major office who has his own brand of beer. And his online campaign manager is a major Slashdot junkie, too, which is certainly in his favor. But will humor and oddness get Steve into the Senate? We don't know. So ask him. In fact, ask him anything else you'd like about campaigning and politics. He's promised to respond, and seems like the kind of guy who will give interesting answers, at that. (Please follow Slashdot interview rules, as always.)
Related Stories
[+]
Oregon Senate Candidate Steve Novick Answers Your Questions 393 comments
Wow. More politicians (of all parties) need to be as open and thorough as Steve Novick is here. We selected 10 of the questions you submitted and sent them to him by email, and his responses... let's just say that if every candidate spoke out like Steve, we'd have a much clearer view of our choices and would be able to cast our votes a lot more rationally.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Slashdot's Hive's Net Neutrality View (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean, you say yourself that the companies with money are going to want this, how do you plan to fight the opposition? If your opponent Gordon Smith opposes net neutrality, you're going to face a lot more of that in the senate. Voting to ensure it in bills is one thing but what makes you unique to any other Senator trying to keep the net neutral? What are the best things we can do to help this? I tried explaining it to my friends and family but often find I've at best confused them.
Allow me to play the devil's advocate, argue against this point:
Environment & Fiscal Responsibility (Score:5, Interesting)
On Slashdot, we often get stories where great new ideas come but require extra cash to go green. They are under heavy fire from fiscally responsible people. Where do you stand on this? I can think of many things if you'd care to address them. Like the investment to move to a wind powered infrastructure, compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulb usage being enforced by the government, tighter emissions on all transportation, electronic circuitry recycling costs, etc.
If you care to further elaborate, I'm also interested in how fiscal responsibility can be maintained in addition to your pledge to reform healthcare.
Re:Environment & Fiscal Responsibility (Score:4, Insightful)
Your question does raise a challenge of transitioning to sustainable practices. In some instances, like Superfund cleanup, there are steps we could take right now to reduce the burden on average taxpayers by restoring the polluter pays principles that originally paid for toxic waste cleanup. [novickforsenate.com]
But in other instances, like making the investment in renewable energy or expanding mass transit and other conservation initiatives, it will cost some money. That is why in this campaign I have been advocating several moves towards better fairness in our tax code like requiring people who make their money buying and selling stock to pay the same rate as what people pay on regular income. Or that people making a million dollars pay Social Security tax on all of their income, not just the first $100,000. In the long run, reducing our energy consumption, using it more efficiently and reducing the massive cost of global warming and pollution to our economy, health care system and communities will save money. But you are absolutely right that it will take some money up front. I'm committed to telling folks the truth about that and how we are going to pay for it.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Thanks for the feedback--I was starting to feel like I was drinking from a firehose anyway.
Funny...we have one of those [slashdot.org] here too! :)
Pork... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Pork... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Excellent question. I would love to hear a Democrat actually answer this question and see if they care about fiscal responsibility. And yes, I know the Republicans have been spending like drunken idiots, but at least that is in contradiction to what they *say* they believe in. Democrats traditionally believe in large government transfers of wealth from one group to another. It would be interesting to hear what they say now that we simply can't continue as we're going.
Prediction: If this is asked, he'll do
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Pork... (Score:5, Informative)
The 2008 budget calls for total spending of $2.9 trillion (on tax revenues of $2.66 trillion). Of that, $481.4 billion goes to the Department of Defense. That's 16.6% of the entire budget. If you count other defense related areas, such as the "Global War on Terror" ($145.2 billion) and the Department of Homeland Security ($34.3 billion), we're up to $660.9 billion, which is 22.79% of the total budget.
All of this, of course, doesn't even include the cost of the Iraq war, which is financed through separate appropriations. Bush has requested an additional $105 billion for 2008 war costs, which would bring total defense-related spending in 2008 to $765.9 billion, or 26.4% of the total budget.
That's right, more than one quarter of the entire national budget is dedicated to defense spending, including the war in Iraq. By comparison, the next largest budget item, Social Security, comes in at $608 billion, or 20.97% of the total budget. And I'm not even including any military-related spending that may be assigned to other Cabinet departments or other programs.
Sure, people like to throw around meaningless numbers like defense spending is only around 4 or 5% of total GDP. But guess what: we don't pay for it with total GDP, we pay for it with tax dollars. It's absurd to compare budget items to the total GDP, because it implies that spending a giant percentage of our total production on the federal government (around 20.27% assuming a projected $14.31 trillion total GDP in 2008) is somehow okay.
Sources:
GDP Estimate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_future_GDP_estimates_(nominal) [wikipedia.org]
2008 Budget: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget%2C_2008 [wikipedia.org]
2008 Iraq war appropriations: http://middleeast.about.com/od/iraq/f/me080225b.htm [about.com]
Parent
Re:Pork... (Score:5, Interesting)
The combined total of which results in closer to 45% of the total budget.
The last time I checked, SSA, Medicare/Medicaid and HUD were not explicitly mentioned as a role of our government in the Constitution, while Defense most certainly is. Unlike so many wrong-headed individuals, I believe that unless the Constitution actually grants a power to the Federal government, then it DOES NOT have it, regardless of what others may wish to be the case.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Specifically, you are referring to the "general Welfare of the United States" NOT "the People", which is a distinctly separate class within the Constitution that DOES refer to individuals.
see http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3aa699b23882.htm [freerepublic.com] if you're further confused on the specific meaning of this c
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Isn't most of that money being recycled into the hands of people? When it's "spent", it "goes somewhere".
Raw materials, labor, R&D? Doesn't it serve to increase the value of almost every corporation and many, many small businesses?
I don't think so. It would seem that most of this money is going directly to 3-4 giant companies that are designed to handle this sort of thing. Maybe some of it trickles down (if the contractors live, and are still being paid the higher wages they used to rather than the r
As an Oregon voter, let me amplify that: (Score:3, Insightful)
About 20 years back, Josephine County (Grants Pass, et al) got a massive infusion of cash in repayment for gov't-enforced restricted logging rights in their area. During this period of time, IIRC they spent it like drunken Sailors on Leave (e.g., they pretty much poured it into programs which has nothing to do with stimulating industries that didn't involve cutting down trees).
The payments timed out last year, and now the county governmen
Re:Pork... (Score:4, Informative)
Part of what I would propose are moves towards tax fairness, like repealing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, or the capital gains and Social Security tax reforms I mentioned in a previous reply. But we also need to spend our taxes more wisely. I do think there are some programs - like the V-22 Osprey or the International Space Station - that are not a great investment of our tax dollars. I also think we can give federal agencies more of an incentive to save by rewarding them if they come in under budget.
You can read a bunch more about this and my record of working to educate the public on budget and tax policy, as well as fighting waste in the Oregon State Lottery. [novickforsenate.com]
Parent
Why Democrat? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why Democrat? (Score:4, Informative)
I will continue to stand up for my principles, even when I disagree with my fellow Democrats. But I truly believe that by expressing the progressive values, we will strengthen the Democratic Party. It is that willingness to tell the truth, regardless the consequences that I see as my biggest contrast with the D.C. Democratic establishment.
Parent
Nucular... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Interesting turn by greenies on Nuke power (Score:3, Informative)
As far as what to do with the nuke waste - we do have a state called Nevada It's almost the size of California, but with only 2.6 million residents, with 85% of them living in Reno or Vegas. It's dry, so little worry about run off. I've driven thru it many times - there really isn't much out there at all, so even a 100 square mi
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Oddly enough, it's the people who understand the most about both in which nuclear energy and guns find the safest hands.
Mending the "Unchecked President" (Score:4, Insightful)
Universal Health Care (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Universal Health Care (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I, for one, do not welcome our new Big Government overlords.
Re:Universal Health Care (Score:5, Insightful)
An abuse? Oh really? Are you aware that city water supplies are an example of universal health care? Fluorine is added to reduce tooth decay. It works, and it's pretty cost effective. Benefits everyone except possibly dentists. Lots of other things are done to the water supply. So we dodge the thrills of cholera epidemics that happen all too often in places that don't have good water supplies. But maybe you'd prefer to dig your own wells and buy your own filters and softeners, giving up the cost savings to be had from doing this on a massive scale, and do all the maintenance and monitoring yourself and worry about whether your neighbors' wells will dry out yours, stuff like that? And wonder when your young one will end up in a class seated next to the child of someone too poor to afford such niceties? That's why we have very low cost vaccinations, and will even give them away to the desperately poor. They're so worth it.
Likewise there's a lot of savings to be had if we'd just put up a little money up front for checkups and preventative care. Sadly, you can't just get a blood test, no you've got to fill out a ton of paperwork about all the details of your health insurance, questions about your health history, and read and sign many pages worth of disclaimers, permissions to disclose info, permissions to substitute generic drugs, acknowledgments that you owe what your health provider fails to pay, and maybe an arbitration agreement, and, always, always pay some kind of fee. Often, poor people are poor because they have no financial sense. They find it very difficult to budget such things. The fee alone is enough to keep them away. Even if it's free of fees, it's not really free if you have to spend an hour or more on paperwork, sit on your butt in a doctor's waiting room for more hours (don't you just love being told that you can put your wait to good use by filling out forms?), and perhaps drive 20 plus miles just to reach the place. Our health care system is full of those kinds of inefficiencies. So if one such poor person works as a janitor at a school, and comes down with tuberculosis or the flu perhaps and feels very ill but does not see a doctor and instead keeps on working because he needs the money, and consequently gets half the student body infected, that's going to cost a whole lot of money. A few free tests and doctor visits for everyone once every 2 years or upon reaching certain ages, or some such, could save us all money. You may have noticed that often employers will spend a day or two to host some kind of health checkup for all their employees. Once had my cholesterol levels checked that way. Pretty haphazard and spotty checking, doing it like that. If you're away on a business trip or sick that day, guess you just miss out.
Forcing people to pay for basic health care is like forcing people to pay to use toilets. Some airports used to do that. If you make it cheaper to crap on the floor, then some will. Those persons might care that it's unhealthy, and understand that it will cost society more in the long run, but feel they need that quarter more right now, and find their act to be the most pungently appropriate way of expressing their displeasure over such a system.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I guess this Mr Novick must have the Republicunts running scared if they're having to silence any opposing views.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
My only assumption is something everyone agrees with: that it will cost a lot of money. Therefore, how that money will be raised is a perfectly reasonable question.
Universal Health Care is cheaper than the current system due to economies of scale, less bureaucracy, more preventative care accessibility, and more, as it is everywhere else in the world. It will thus cost less than what we pay now.
Unfortunately, that is false, on several counts. The first is that it is a false dichotomy to say we should do Universal Health Care because it is better than "the current system," because there are other options to improve the current system.
I never set up a dichotomy. I think it's the best system of many alternatives.
For example: deregulating who can provide basic preventative care would make it far more accessible than the current system, and perhaps moreso than a universal system. Deregulation (along with other reforms) can also reduce the COST of health care, thus reducing the need for insurance to cover many things, thus reducing bureaucracy. And don't say it won't work, because this is how it used to be, and it still works for many people today.
Single-payer health care does not regulate the decisions of the AMA and other medical agencies composed of practitioners who would be delegated the role of making policy, just as it is done in many other western nations.
Are you clumping one proposal with another? Clear your mind, first.
Another way that you're wrong is that you assume that bureaucracy will be smaller, or that we will necessarily pay less due to economies of scale. I see no reason to accept either of these assumptions.
I don't actually assume it. Insurance company overhead is around 25%, but medicare is less than 5%. Insurance companies consistently pay mor
Most quirky? I dunno... (Score:3, Funny)
Just picture him at a Senate costume party with deelybobbers on - instant Andorean.
Beer (Score:5, Interesting)
But seriously, you state that The manipulation of scientific data and government reports by political appointees must end. And we must stop the revolving door that has put industry lobbyists in charge of protecting our natural resources. How would attempt to improve the reliability of the EPA's research and encourage transparency within its ranks as to thwart its recent politicization and "bullying" of its scientists who don't produce data to support a political agenda?
Are you going to interview on Comedy Central? (Score:5, Funny)
Have you considered gracing their shows with your presence? If not, why not?
Internet's Effect on Campaign Finances (Score:4, Interesting)
Left hook (Score:5, Funny)
Effect on Party Platform (Score:4, Informative)
I'm a fan (Score:4, Interesting)
Is there a way I can support you without getting you in trouble with your constituents? I know even a donation opens you up to the story of "funded by San Francisco Democrats" which would probably play pretty poorly in some parts of Oregon... Should we just stay on the side-lines or is there something folks outside your state can do to help you get your message out?
And one more related question: In this increasingly interconnected world, how do you see interstate involvement in local campaigns as changing the United States as a whole? The DSCC seems to be a pretty critical source of extra-state funding for instance...
Interrogation... (Score:4, Interesting)
Building the team? (Score:5, Interesting)
Fiscal Responsibility (Score:3, Insightful)
Medical Marijuana (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If you answered yes to the first, and no to the second, how do you reconcile those answers? Be sure to note the fact that marijuana is less toxic, less addictive, less likely to cause violence, and less harmful in every other way than alcohol.
If you answered no to both questions, tha
Iraq Pullout (Score:4, Interesting)
You want to pull out of Iraq within 6 months.
How to you propose to do that? What efforts are you going to put into rebuilding.
Just leaving would be a horrible mistake that would cause even more strife to the Iraqis.
Wouldn't it be better to ahve a rebuild plan that is shared with the rest of the world? remove more of out troops as specific goals are met?
Flat Tax, Fair Tax (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you considered hook alternatives? (Score:5, Funny)
1. Fighting claws as seen in Enter the Dragon
2. Hydraulically actuated pincer
3. Chainsaw
4. Rocket fist
Senatorial candidates with national ambition? (Score:3, Insightful)
When Senator Hillary Clinton ran for the open Senate seat in New York everyone knew it was but a springboard to the US President campaign trail. When Senator Obama left the State Senate for the US Senate, many people dreamed -- and more, probably, feared -- it was but a springboard for the top national office.
What is your opinion on candidates who use a limited election to project a national campaign? Who, while denying the charge, are seen as using an office for personal gain rather than determinedly seeking to serve in the very office they fight to obtain?
Lastly...what makes your beyond-the-borders campaign different than those (named and not named) others whose State-representing Senatorial campaign have reached national (and international) attention?
Not like other politicians? (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, how do your political motivations differ from those that have become the norm in politics? Politicians, acting as the "supply", have increasingly manipulated the economy to service the demand of corrupt companies offering to fund their campaigns - such as by contrived monopolies or selective tax breaks. How do your influences differ from the standard fare?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Come on. You may oppose taxes or want a lazzie-faire system, but to put those concerns as the same level as human rights is pretty insulting.
There are valid disagreements about the optimum role of taxation and government regulation (there cannot be none of either, even at the minimal contractual enforcement level of uber-libertarians). Whereas, I would say that human rights are
Will you uphold the Law? (Score:5, Interesting)
The Forest Grove School District is currently attempting to intercept conversations between students on it's school buses, in flagrant violation of ORS 165.540(1)(c) and Federal Statute 2511(1)(b). What will you do make sure all governmental entities comply with existing law?
Health care (Score:3, Interesting)
Bringing high-tech employers to non-Portland areas (Score:3, Interesting)
First, I work for a large software company that has a significant operation some distance away from Portland. But, they are one of the only high-tech companies in the area. With the thinly veiled threat of outsourcing and off shoring, what are you going to do to bring more high-tech jobs to areas in the state that are not the Portland metro area? The economic benefits of bringing highly-skilled and highly-paid workers to the rest of Oregon should be obvious.
Second, did you know that on the eastern side of the Cascades there is actually more of Oregon besides ski resorts and their associated towns? It always seems that people (and politicians) who live in the western portion of the state think that Idaho begins just on the eastern side of Bend and Sunriver - I was wondering if you knew about the rest of it, unlike the governor and most of the other state Democrats.
Finally, can you do something about all of the Californians moving here?