ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 29, 1996 TAG: 9609300094
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BEDFORD
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER AND TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITERS
On a recent Thursday night, James Jones dropped his two sons off at soccer practice, then sat down to try to make up his mind about which candidate will get his vote for Congress.
Unlike a lot of people, though, he didn't pull out newspaper clippings, turn on the television, or read through a stack of campaign literature to find answers to his questions.
He just asked the candidates.
One of a pool of undecided voters selected by Roanoke College's Center for Community Research, Jones participated in a three-way conversation with 5th District congressional candidates Virgil Goode and George Landrith. The talk was sponsored by The Roanoke Times - part of an exercise to make citizens, and their concerns, the driving force in this year's campaign coverage.
The format that night was simple: Jones got to ask whatever question was on his mind, and the candidates answered them.
"It was a unique opportunity," Jones said later. "How many people get to sit down with both candidates and do it individually? I felt a little selfish."
Jones, a 50-year-old self-employed musical instrument maker from Bedford County, came to the conversation armed with a list of things that concern him.
His questions ranged from health care costs to taxes to education and responsible land use.
At times, the tone of the conversation turned humorous.
After Jones asked the candidates if they consider tobacco a drug, Goode, a non-smoker, shook his head, grinned and said: "Now, tomatoes contain nicotine. I like tomatoes."
But the conversation was also no-nonsense. Landrith described his real-life struggles to make ends meet with five children and said he supports cutting taxes. Jones, whose wife home-schools their sons, also heard Landrith say that he supports giving parents more choice in how to spend their taxes on their children's education.
"I'm a strong supporter of our public schools, but I'm also a strong supporter of the idea that parents know what's best for their kids," Landrith said.
Goode talked about his experience in the General Assembly, and emphasized his support for the state's balanced-budget law. He said he would like to see a similar proposal made into an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. "My father used to say, 'You can't borrow your way to prosperity,' and he was right."
Afterward, Jones said the biggest impression the candidates made on him is how alike Goode and Landrith's philosophies are. "To me, it was interesting how similar the two candidates are. Here one of them is a Republican and one's a Democrat, and they're very similar in their views. It seems to me they kind of made an effort not to stick out from the other.''
Jones said he's still not sure how he'll vote.
"I got a good start," he said. "I'd like to see some other material on them from some other kind of context, either a speech, or some reporting [from the media], since we didn't cover all the issues, just to see what else they might have."
HEALTH CARE
JONES: "I don't work for anybody but myself, so obviously one of my big questions is health care and health care reform. Health care is extremely expensive, especially when you have to pay for it out of your own pocket. It's just far and above normal inflation. Why should that be? And are there ways you can suggest to control this? Do you feel there should be any government involvement in the health care system?"
GOODE told Jones that he likes recent federal legislation that makes it possible for people with pre-existing conditions to keep their health insurance when they move from one job to another. He also favors tax-exempt medical savings accounts. "That's where you have a high deductible, you set aside a certain amount of money to pay [health costs], and if you don't use it, you get to keep it, and it's tax-exempted."
He also supports federal laws similar to legislation already passed by the Virginia General Assembly that limits how much juries can award in medical malpractice cases, which in turn lowers the cost of malpractice insurance for doctors.
LANDRITH also wants Congress to establish tax-free medical savings accounts. "I've got five little ones, so the idea of my not meeting my deductible in insurance is very unlikely." One cause of rising health costs, he said, is the insurance system doesn't offer incentives to look for cheaper services.
"Our TV we've had since we got married, it broke down, so we went out and bought another one. We shopped around for that. We don't shop around for health care, and one reason we don't is because it's already been bought.
"The medical savings account would change that because the savings we make, we keep. Right now, the savings we make, the insurance companies keep, and if we could change that, I think you would see lots better results."
Landrith said he would much rather see the government involved in health care than running it. As an example, he said, one of his sons had an asthma attack as an infant. Landrith and his wife took the baby to a doctor who told them the boy would outgrow it by the time he was 14.
"Here's an 18-month-old child, and you're telling me in 12 1/2 years he might outgrow this," Landrith recalled, "That was an unacceptable answer, but I had a solution, see, I could go to another doctor, and we did, and that doctor did try to prevent the problem, not just administer some drugs so it didn't occur. My son has had no serious asthma attacks since, and he's 8 years old. I don't ever want to be in a position where that couldn't happen.
"Bill Clinton proposes that if a government doctor tells you, 'No, tough luck,' and if I went out and hired my own doctor I and the doctor are subject to a fine under the health care bill [proposed by President Clinton in 1993], and that would be my primary objection to that program. You cannot take away from individuals the ability to meet the needs of their children when it comes to health care."
WHAT JONES THOUGHT ABOUT THEIR ANSWERS: "I felt they answered that one. Obviously, I have some other opinions, and it didn't necessarily fulfill all my desires for a response, but I felt like they gave me an adequate response from their perspective."
Jones said that he thinks medical savings accounts are OK, but "it still doesn't address the exorbitant inflationary rate in the health care industry." He wanted to hear the candidates say they supported making health insurance premiums fully tax-deductible for self-employed people like himself.
Still, he agreed with Landrith's concerns over government control of health care, because "I am for choice and there are obviously drawbacks to HMOs and government-controlled access to health care." And he thought Goode's proposal to put caps on malpractice awards "would not hurt at all Not that you want people to practice bad medicine, and there should be some protections, but I think these awards are ridiculous."
TOBACCO
JONES: "Do you consider smoking a problem in terms of health and also an environmental problem? It's definitely a health hazard, and it is one of the reasons why health care costs [are] growing considerably. I'd be interested to hear your rationale in support of [tobacco]."
GOODE: "Well, other persons [beside smokers] have bad habits. Some lay out in the sun too much and get melanoma, some drink too much, some have [bad] eating habits. Some other habits cause health care problems and a lot of things have got to excess, eating, imbibing or what have you, and they have costs by insurance and tax dollars shared by everyone. I'm very much opposed to the Food and Drug Administration regulating tobacco."
Goode went on to say that there are prescription drugs available in other countries that the FDA hasn't worked hard enough to get to the market in the United States.
"The FDA hasn't done what it should be doing getting treatment and drugs available for the public quick enough. Now we want them to regulate smoking and tobacco and advertising, and I just don't think they should be doing it."
JONES: "But you don't feel that tobacco is a drug?"
GOODE: "No, I don't feel tobacco is a drug."
LANDRITH: "Well, I also am a non-smoker. I've never even puffed a single puff in my entire life. I've been a Scoutmaster and worked with youth groups, and I think it's important that the issue here is what we're hearing now is preventing youngsters from smoking. The objective I don't think anybody disagrees with. The problem is what [Bill Clinton] is trying to do. I have to be honest with you. I don't think Bill Clinton gives two hoots whether kids smoke or not."
Landrith said Clinton has publicly stated that he tried marijuana and would probably do the same thing if he had a chance to go back and face the choice again.
"When the President says that and he cuts the drug budget by 83 percent and then in an election year says `I want to stop kids from smoking,' I think we all have the right to say `Wait a minute. Where's the track record here?'''
Landrith said he doesn't know if tobacco is addictive, but he does think it's habit-forming.
Landrith sees education - starting with parents - as the solution to prevent kids from smoking.
"If we're going to start having the FDA regulate everything we think kids ought not to be doing, they're going to be raking in a whole lot of stuff. I'm not quite ready to see them take that role in our lives. Too often I think we turn things over to the government and say `You solve the problem.' In my neighborhood and with my kids, I solve that problem."
WHAT JONES THOUGHT ABOUT THEIR ANSWERS: "I felt like they're in the tobacco lobbyists' back pocket in that regard. Smokers' rights, that's nice, but basically, I think they're trying to protect tobacco interests in Virginia. Obviously, there's a substantial interest in this state in protecting that as an industry and an agricultural product. But personally, I don't think it needs protecting. We need to search out agricultural alternatives. It's a very lucrative cash crop, and that's why people continue to grow it, and that's why both of them obviously are still for smoking and the consumption of tobacco products.
"I came at it from the health aspect of it. Certainly, states have been filing lawsuits to recoup their increased costs as a result of the tobacco issue, their health care costs, and as just an individual, the cost of my premiums is affected by all these thingsThere's all kinds of things that affect our health, but there are some that are worse than others. And obviously tobacco is one of those things where there's a pretty clear-cut connection between tobacco and lung cancer, even though the industry continues to deny it. And the fact that it's addictive puts it in the area of addictive drugs."
EDUCATION
JONES: "One of the other concerns I have is educational, and both of you, I'm sure, have some opinions on what you consider the government's role in education to be."
GOODE: "Education is primarily local and state, at least that's Virginia's position. I think the way of the federal government should be to assist but not to dictate."
Goode said the amount of federal education money doled out to the states has been declining in recent years.
JONES: "So would you work to increase that amount of money that's going to the states?"
GOODE: "I don't want to see it decreased. My chief concern with the budget is balancing it. If we don't get the budget balanced and the deficit done away with, the children who we want to provide a good education for and the children we want to have best possible worlds will be saddled with a tremendous amount of debt.''
If elected to Congress, Goode said he would weigh spending increases vs. their effect on the overall budget.
LANDRITH drew on his experience as a school board member in Albemarle County. He said one size doesn't fit all when it comes to education.
"I'm a strong supporter of our public schools, but I'm also a strong supporter of the idea that parents know what's best for their kids."
Landrith supports some form of a tax credit system for parents who choose to educate their kids by some other mean than public schooling.
On his overall philosophy, Landrith said:
"What I can do is be part of a system where we help provide resources but then don't tie hands. Too often, that's what they do. You have a Congress that thinks things can easily be done: `Look, here's the money, here's what you do with it.' It may not help [the schools], and we need to put them in a position where they can set their priorities because every classroom, every teacher, every student may need something a little different."
Landrith sends his kids to public schools, but, as a school board member, he voted for extending public classroom access and other support to families who teach their children at home.
WHAT JONES THOUGHT ABOUT THEIR ANSWERS: Jones said he thought the candidates gave "as much as they were able to give me [because] they were going into a federal office and not a state office. I felt it could have been more detailed as to what they could have proposed to do at the federal level to [fix] inequities in education."
LAND USE
JONES: "We live in a very beautiful town in Bedford County, and you've experienced a very similar kind of living, I'm sure, but it's disappearing. All you have to do is go further north to see what we will become." What would the candidates do to preserve farm land and open land?
GOODE: "I really have to say I don't think the federal government should be in land use. That's local, within the states." Goode said he supports local option use programs in Virginia such as the forest district designations that provide tax breaks to land owners.
LANDRITH: "I agree a lot with what was just said, but I think one of the problems we have is the estate tax." More family farms would remain intact - out of developers' hands - if the tax was reformed to provide a greater incentive to property owners, he said.
JONES: "It's a real dilemma because the market forces are such that it's very difficult to change the flow."
LANDRITH: "We put [the landowner] in that position though, and we ought to stop putting them in that position. You force the issue."
WHAT JONES THOUGHT ABOUT THEIR ANSWERS: "They backed out of that. I don't feel like they gave me an idea of what could be done at the federal level."
PRIORITIES?
JONES: "What would you do, what would be a priority for you, if you got elected?"
GOODE: "I would like to be a co-signer of the constitutional amendment to balance the [federal] budget. I had the privilege of co-signing that constitutional amendment in Virginia, and if I would have the honor of going to the U.S. Congress, I would like to be a co-signer of that."
LANDRITH: "I, too, would have one of my top priorities be a balanced budget. I agree with you, we need to have a balanced budget amendment, but in the meantime, if the president continues to frustrate that process, then [Congress should] just balance the budget without him."
GOODE: "I'd like, regardless of who's elected president, to let the president submit a balanced budget. The government of Virginia has to submit a balanced budget, and they have... I'd like to see whoever wins [the presidential race] submit a balanced budget. They both said they're for it."
LANDRITH: "I agree. By the way, both [presidential candidates] are not for the amendment. Mr. Clinton isn't."
GOODE: "I thought he was for it."
LANDRITH: "I think he claimed he was for balancing the budget, but not for the amendment."
GOODE: "I think George is right, but anyway, if [Clinton] favors balancing the budget, then put it up there."
WHAT JONES THOUGHT ABOUT THEIR ANSWERS: "That's a safe one to hide behind in terms of action. I think most people would rather the government have some fiscal responsibility and balance the budget. I would kind of liked to have heard some other issues that they might work on just besides the balanced budget, and I didn't hear that."
TAXES
JONES: "Do you want to talk about taxes at all?"
GOODE: Favors a cut in the capital gains tax - either a 50 percent exclusion or a reduction in the present rate from 28 to 14 percent. Goode favors no tax increases, but doesn't know how many taxes can actually be lowered.
"I'd like to give everybody a tax cut, but you've got to balance the budget, and I remember what daddy said, and I'll say it again, you can't borrow your way to prosperity. I remember when the deficits were going up and you had a 16 percent [inflation], and then you had 17 percent, and it topped out about 22, and those were not the best of times. I don't want us to do something foolish unless we know what's going to work."
LANDRITH: Favors tax reductions. "I want to put in perspective that the 22 percent inflation wasn't caused by tax cuts. That occurred in the early '70s and early '80s. When taxes were cut, that all came down. I think that's what we have to remember. It's real easy to blame that on tax cuts, but there is no evidence of that. In fact, it's quite the opposite."
GOODE: "Inflation, that was increased when interest rates increased. That was my point."
LANDRITH: "Interest rates were actually higher in the '70s. They're lower now; it happened throughout the '80s."
GOODE: "But the deficit has come down in the last couple of years."
LANDRITH: "And interest rates came down in the '80s. There is no question that the deficit is critically important, but people who say the deficit was caused by cutting taxes are people who think the money belongs to the government in the first place. We don't have a deficit because you and I pay too little taxes. We have a deficit because Congress spends too much, and they have been getting more and more of our money."
WHAT JONES THOUGHT ABOUT THEIR ANSWERS: "They both had fairly similar views, but I did certainly get a more Republican view from both of them. The notion that lower taxation will somehow increase revenues and create more wealth, and in response to that there is more tax revenue available through economic growth, that's a classic Republican idea.
"Reducing capital gains [and making spending cuts]. They both seemed to want to do that, too. Goode took a more measured approach. He wants to look at the whole approach, but he wouldn't talk about specific cuts. What would Goode cut? He didn't say."
DIFFERENCES?
JONES: "Both you guys sound pretty similar. How would you characterize your differences?"
LANDRITH: "One difference is I support school choice and I support tax cuts. I think that's a significant difference."
GOODE: "To say that I don't support tax cuts is not correct." Goode said he supports cutting the capital gains tax and increasing personal tax exemptions. "I want to see the taxes decreased. I won't oppose a tax decrease if I agree with what's being cut."
What Goode sees as the big difference between Landrith and himself is job qualification. Where Landrith has served one term as an appointed member of the Albemarle County School Board, Goode has spent more than 20 years in the state Senate.
"Me and George - we do agree on a number of issues, there's no question about that, [but] I have experience working in the legislative process and working with the budget part of the process," Goode said. "I think if you ask most of the Republican members [of the General Assembly], they'll say I work pretty well with them, and I work with the Democrats. I think that past experience would be a little help."
LANDRITH: "I think my experience with the School Board is helpful because I understand where the rubber hits the road, how things work, getting more for your money. People in government don't understand that, that's why you get people saying, 'Oh, that's only a $200 tax increase, that's not much.'
"They can afford that, [but] I know better. I know what it's like to get my kids signed up for soccer, and it costs $35 a head, and you've got four you're trying to get signed up, and all of a sudden you have Little League baseball, Little League basketball and soccer, and you're trying to figure out how to pay for piano lessons.
"I understand the pressures and the stress that families are under. I think that's who we need in Congress, somebody who is going to be a champion for America's families and for the average American people. I think I can do that very well based on my own life's experience. I mow my own lawn. I've never bought a new car in my life. I always buy used. If I put a deck on the house, I build it. That's part of reality. You have to do those things. You can't always afford to hire some fancy builder to come in and put a fancy deck on your house."
JONES: "We know about that. We're putting an addition on our house right now. All right. Well, thanks a lot."
WHAT JONES THOUGHT ABOUT THEIR ANSWERS: "To me, it was interesting how similar the two candidates are. Here one of them is a Republican and one's a Democrat and they're very similar in their views. It seems to me, they kind of made an effort not to stick out from the other."
"You would like to think they have more differences. They didn't obviously feel like expressing those differences and kind of stuck to the [same] approach - balancing the budget, taxation. It was kind of funny because Goode made it a point to say he also might consider cutting taxes, notably the capital gains tax, which made him more like Landrith."
LENGTH: Long : 361 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Eric Brady. (headshots) Landrith, Goode, Jones. color. 2by CNBB&W headshots of Jones. Graphic: Map. color. KEYWORDS: POLITICS CONGRESS PROFILE