Talk to This Year's Quirkiest Senatorial Candidate

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.)

Effect on Party Platform

[explosivejared]

You seem to be pretty frank about your policy on the war. How much effect do think you could have on the Democratic platform regarding Iraq? The party has equivocated (eg pulling funding) on whether or not it will go full force at ending the current deployment of troops and on just how it would plan to work with regional players. How do you think you can work to providing a consistent and working policy for Iraq? Your site says that you are amazed at the war can still be sold. What are you going to change about that?

Re:Pork...

[polar red]

Of course, the defense budget is a relatively small part of the budget, but he won't mention that,

err ... I'll give you my source : http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm [warresisters.org] and you'll give yours ?

Re:Pork...

[eln]

Defense is a "relatively small" part of the budget? Are you sure we're talking about the same country here?

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]

Interesting turn by greenies on Nuke power

[spineboy]

Many Greepeace activists are now in FAVOR of nuclear power - because it's less polluting than coal or oil. Doesn't screw up the environment like giant hydro-electric dams either.

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 miles is easily spared. Heck - Nevada could even make money off it, by charging for it.
Am I "dumping" on Nevada? No...Every state has some resource that other states don't. Some have prairies/plains that are good for crops, some have coasts good for fishing. Nevada has wide open desolate space, and that's a resource for holding/containing things.

nothing out there?

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize what is directly underneath and adjacent to the proposed nuke waste storage facility? The largest aquifer in the west.

Re:Slashdot's Hive's Net Neutrality View

[Mr. Slippery]

The government controls too much of our lives right now, why let them control the internet with a facade of "net neutrality?" It's just another form of restricting the market to evolve naturally, why would we want that?

(Recogizing that you've playing devil's advocate, you may already agree with the following.)

The nation's telecommunications infrastructure is in no way a "free market". Telecom companies were granted rights-of-way and extensive subsidies to lay cable; it's not like an mom-and-pop shop can start stringing copper from the telephone poles and start competing.

Re:Pork...

[SteveNovick]

The first step on the path to fiscal responsibility is help the American public understand where their tax dollars go. In terms of federal spending, roughly 20 percent goes to defense, 20 percent to Medicare & Medicaid, 20 percent to Social Security, 8 percent to interest on the debt, and everything else is a relatively small portion for things like transportation, education and the environment. Even the earmarks that have been recently decried are only about 1 percent of the budget. Of course those earmarks include obvious pork like the "Bridge to Nowhere," but getting our fiscal house in order is going to take more than cracking down on appropriations.

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]

Re:Why Democrat?

[SteveNovick]

I have been willing to buck the establishment in this campaign and I think voters will appreciate that. But let me make clear that I am a Democrat through and through and will stay in the party no matter what. As Paul Wellstone said about himself, "I represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party."

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.

Re:Universal Health Care

[SteveNovick]

I would suggest that Oregon's attempt at universal health care never got off the ground because major portions of it were blocked by the Republican-controlled legislature. I think that experience underscores the need for us to address health care reform at a national level. The path our health care system is on is clearly unsustainable, with exploding costs and declining coverage. I think there are several comprehensive plans out there to ensure everyone has affordable health care, while tackling the cost of care. Here's a fuller explanation of what I think that will take and several measures we need to take to control costs. [novickforsenate.com]

With the current path we are on, we will need to raise taxes or slash benefits to cover the cost of Medicare when baby boomers retire. Neither of those are good options. That is why we must reform our system now, before it is too late and we are faced with unacceptable options.

Re:What Committees Interest You?

[SteveNovick]

I will take every opportunity to make environmental issues a focus of my service in the Senate. Whenever anyone asks which committees I want to serve on, I list the Environment and Public Works Committee, and explain that I would list the Energy and Natural Resources Committee if Oregon Senator Ron Wyden's presence there did not make such an appointment extremely unlikely. I hope that given my background at the Justice Department and my decade of service on the Oregon Environmental Council Board [novickforsenate.org], Senate leaders will grant my request to serve on EPW.

Re:Will the real Steve Novick please stand up?

[SteveNovick]

Yes, this is the real Steve Novick. Thanks for the feedback--I was starting to feel like I was drinking from a firehose anyway. We're back in contact with the moderator and he is going to run things properly from here on out.

Re:Pork...

[Watson Ladd]

How else do you interpret the words ``general welfare''? What about ``necessary and proper''? The government is created to advance certain goals, and it is enabled to do anything necessary and proper to achieve those goals. Also, social security and medicare/medicade are not part of the general budget: If abolished those taxes would also be abolished, so general incomes would not rise.

Re:Pork...

[rifter]

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 relatively low wages people talk about now, they might be able to spend some), but most of it seems to be going into profits. For those companies that have stock (IIRC Blackwater is still privately owned) that could mean a bump in stock price, so theoretically others could ride the gravy train. But it's usually a few big contractors that make the best money off of wars. The rest of us are paying the big contractors the big bucks out of our paycheck. I am not sure we are getting a very good deal there.

Re:Pork...

[paitre]

I believe, at this point, that we are quibbling on the definition of 'general Welfare', of which I do NOT believe Social Security, Medicare and the specific granting of public monies to individuals is a part.

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 clause. In particular, read Mr Madison's comments specifically regarding the 'general Welfare' clause in which he eviscerates any attempt at misreading the clause such that it applies to individuals.

It absolutely does not, and this is a very specific example of why the 'living, breathing Constitution' 'idea' is so abhorrent, and further, why political litmus tests have so thoroughly permitted the judiciary to, themselves, permit the entirety of the Federal government to ignore the document under which our Republic was founded.