by Mark Matassa
Seattle Times staff reporter
"Do either of you gentlemen know where Pe Ell, Washington, is?"
It wasn't the typical opening question for a political debate, but then this wasn't a typical debate.
When Sen. Slade Gorton and his Democratic challenger, Ron Sims, met in a Front Porch Forum panel discussion yesterday, the familiar geography of the U.S. Senate campaign disappeared. For an hour, the race left the domain of consultants, pollsters and advertising agents, where bickering over meeting attendance can fill three weeks of television commercials.
Instead, the candidates found themselves directed by the unpredictable interests of five Western Washington residents who hadn't yet decided how to vote in this election. They included a retired police officer from Lewis County, a University of Washington graduate student, two federal employees and an unemployed former Marine now attending Green River Community College.
The panelists, registered voters unaffiliated with a political party, agreed to take part in the Front Porch Forum discussion because they've been disappointed in the tenor of the Senate campaign. The session was part of a joint reporting project among The Seattle Times and National Public Radio affiliates KUOW-FM and KPLU-FM.
Some of the issues the group raised - crime, health care and taxes - were topics that all politicians are ready for this year.
But the panelists also posed questions that haven't been raised much, if at all, by the journalists who usually query the candidates. They wanted to know about the laws and philosophy dictating how bank deposits are invested; why businesses but not individuals can deduct entertainment expenses from their taxes, and what can be done about government over-regulation of small businesses, among other topics.
Often, their questions were preceded or supplanted entirely by a mini-lecture.
Joanne Shea, a Ballard resident who works for the Environmental Protection Agency, told the candidates she's turned off by their negative campaigning.
John Penberth, the retired policeman, wasn't pleased that neither Gorton nor Sims has appeared in his hometown: Pe Ell, Lewis County.
Whitney Thompson, the UW graduate student, let them know that money "doesn't grow on trees."
Mike Moore, the former Marine, said he no longer sees much meaningful difference between Republicans and Democrats.
Afterward, the panelists said their questions weren't always answered completely. But they were generally struck by the willingness of the candidates to talk with them directly, without the filter of a panel of journalists or political handlers.
"It is very seldom we as citizens get the opportunity to ask the types of questions we think ought to be asked," Moore said.
Maybe because Gorton and Sims were face to face with real people instead of reporters or cameras, neither relied on the mudslinging that has characterized most of their advertising. There were no accusations about committee attendance or fat-cat contributions, no smug retorts, and relatively few boasts about their own records.
"I got a better feeling for what type of person they were," said the fifth panelist, chemist and single mother Patricia Finch.
"That's what's so great about living in America," Penberth added. "This was America at its finest, right here today. You saw it."
FIVE UNDECIDED VOTERS sat down yesterday and got to ask whatever they wanted of the candidates for U.S. Senate. The session, a project of The Seattle Times, two local National Public Radio affiliates and the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, will be broadcast tonight at 7 on KPLU (88.5 FM) and KUOW (94.9 FM). Here is a transcript of the conversation.
Bill Radke: Good evening, and welcome to the Front Porch Forum. Tonight's meeting is with a group of Washington voters and the candidates for the U.S. Senate. The Front Porch Forum is a project sponsored by The Seattle Times, KUOW and KPLU to help reconnect citizens, politicians and the media.
Over the summer, KUOW, KPLU and The Seattle Times surveyed hundreds of Washington state residents and asked you what's on your mind. Since then, we have been reporting stories and providing forums where people have been talking about their concerns, their hopes for the future, and how the political process can better help them.
Today, we're joined in the studio - on the metaphorical "Front Porch" - by U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton, his challenger, King County Council member Ron Sims, and a panel of five independent Washington voters who have participated in the Front Porch Forum but have not made up their minds yet about this U.S. Senate choice.
I'm Bill, news director at KUOW. As your moderator, I'll make sure everyone gets an equal chance to talk. This is not a debate. There are no formal rules, or time limits; no questions from reporters, no opening and closing statements. Just an hour-long conversation with voters talking about what's on their minds and asking the candidates to respond.
Council member Sims, Sen. Gorton, thanks for joining us.
Ron Sims: Thank you, good to join you.
Slade Gorton: We're glad to be here.
Bill Radke: Now let's meet our panel of voters. Why don't you introduce yourselves, starting on my left, and we'll go around the circle.
John Penberth: My name is John Penberth, I live in Lewis County in a small town called Pe Ell, Washington. I'm a retired policeman, served 17 years with the Chehalis police force and also a retired volunteer fireman, and right now I'm on Social Security due to a whole bunch of back operations.
Bill Radke: Thanks, John. Joanne.
Joanne Shea: I'm Joanne, and I live in Ballard, which I've been in the Seattle area for the last 18 years. I work for the Environmental Protection Agency and I have a daughter, Emily.
Bill Radke: Thanks, Joanne. Mike.
Mike Moore: My name is Mike Moore. I live in Kent, I came up here from California, where I was in the Marine Corps. I am currently unemployed. I'm going to college, Green River Community College, put in a plug for them, by the good graces of my wife, who is working two jobs so I can be here now.
Bill Radke: Whitney.
Whitney Thompson: My name is Whitney Thompson, and I work for the University of Washington Medical Center in their organizational development department. I live in Seattle, also a part-time graduate student here at the university. I've been in the Seattle area for seven years, and I really enjoy it up here.
Bill Radke: Pat.
Patricia Finch: I'm Patricia Finch. I'm a chemist working as a spec writer for the federal government. I'm a single parent with two daughters; one is 19, goes to community college in Oregon, and one is a ninth-grader attending school in Federal Way. I was born in Seattle and graduated from the University of Washington here, and I moved to Oregon where I worked as a secondary teacher. And now I have returned to Washington and have lived here since 1989.
Bill Radke: We have met the panelists and you have met the candidates. Let's meet them now with your questions. Panelists, you are asking the questions.
John, since I started with you, you want to fire away?
John Penberth: Do either of you gentlemen know where Pe Ell, Washington, is?
Ron Sims: Yes.
Slade Gorton: Yes, I do.
John Penberth: Seems like you have forgotten part of your country. None of your representatives have come down there. I know the general feeling in the small rural parts of Lewis County I go to feel like we're a forgotten part of this campaign. No one comes to see us. And it appears like you're just serving the metropolitan areas and just trying to reach all the folks by TV and radio and by these forums here. Is there any way we can get you to come to our areas, or your representatives, so we can meet you?
Ron Sims: I came down to Pe Ell this summer. There was a log parade.
John Penberth: It was a homecoming probably.
Ron Sims: I came down. We have tried to travel all over the state, you know, to visit. I am from Eastern Washington, and we used to feel very ignored when I was in Eastern Washington. And we have tried to see as many communities as we can. Get in the car and go and campaign. I didn't know that we didn't have any signs up in Pe Ell, because we have a person that tells me he blanketed Lewis County with my signs.
John Penberth: Not only Ron Sims. Slade Gorton's guy isn't doing his job, either.
Slade Gorton: We'll have to call our county organization on that score.
I've been in Centralia and Chehalis on two or three occasions during the campaign and next week we have a major rally in Morton. Now, I recognize that's the opposite direction from I-5 in Lewis County than Pe Ell is.
But that county, halfway between Oregon and Washington and on the I-5 corridor, is very, very important. It's been hit especially hard, of course, by all of the changes relating to logging and forest products. And my views, during the course of this whole term in the United States Senate, has been one that we should pay a great deal of attention to what I considered to be the people generally speaking without a voice in the major metropolitan press, and, as a matter of fact, it was I think earlier this year we had an open town meeting in Chehalis for the people of Lewis County.
John Penberth: That seems to be part of the issue, you always come close. Maybe I'm trying to put too much burden on yourself, or Sims, should he be elected, or any politicians. You come close to our communities. But I think rural America would like to see you stop in our town, drive through our town or come down through the election and say they did drive through and wave, whistle stop. One day in Lewis County, you could just about hit all the towns. That's a concern from our community.
Slade Gorton: I think that's a valid and legitimate concern.
John Penberth: Like you say, the logging industry, we're really taking it hard. Pe Ell is a logging community, and that's the only industry there right now. If you drive through Pe Ell, you would have the opportunity to see how many stores are closed.
Bill Radke: Let's let somebody from another community talk. It won't be a formal order, but any other questions?
Patricia Finch: I could ask one. Federal Way just came out of a teacher strike and so did Bremerton, and I would like to hear, from both candidates, what they would propose to do at the federal level, what they would do to decrease violence in the schools.
Slade Gorton: Last January I met with 175 or 180 educators - but not just professional educators, it included students and parents - in Fife. They came from all over the state. And it is interesting that you should raise that question. That was the primary question they raised. In the past, people who have come to talk about schools almost always have emphasized money, which of course is very, very important.
But at this meeting their No. 1 goal was to be able to have the authority to bring order back into our schools.
And we debated two bills on education in Congress this year. The first was Goals 2000, and the second was the renewal of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. On both of those occasions I used what I had learned there in Fife to persuade the Senate to pass an amendment that would restore, most, not all, most authority to the school districts to deal with violence in school. Particularly with students who bring weapons to school or engage in life-threatening behavior.
Twice the Senate passed those amendments. The second time after a day-long debate and an actual vote. And twice a conference committee when it met behind closed doors took those proposals out of the bills. They made the determination that we can't trust local school-board members with that kind of authority, and that much of it has to be lodged in the federal government.
I think that's wrong, and I intend to keep at that cause until we have allowed our teachers and administrators and our school-board members to deal with violence and disorder in schools. It's awfully hard to teach, it's awfully hard to learn, if you're there in fear.
Patricia Finch: How does the federal government right now make it hard for the local district to not keep order in their school?
Slade Gorton: Because the federal government has passed a law dealing with disabled students, and more and more people find themselves in that definition, which simply says that you can't, even if one would come to school and shoot off a gun, suspend them for longer than 10 days, without getting the permission of their parents or of a federal court.
And so there are two separate sets of rules, one for regular students and one for students who fall into that category.
In California right now there is a lawsuit in which the claim - which is being taken seriously by the courts - is that the very fact that you bring a gun to the school shows you are disturbed enough to be disabled and therefore can't be disciplined.
Bill Radke: Let Ron Sims jump in, too.
Ron Sims: I think there's two approaches. I tutored in schools three times a week for the last three years. It is interesting when one talks about violence, it is not just students that are disabled. There is a range of violence in the school, and so I will talk about what I believe is important.
One is that teachers lack general authority. I had a kid walk out of my class. The teacher asked him to come back in. He would not return. And so I went in the hall as a volunteer, asked him to come back to class. He took a bag of Skittles and poured them on the floor. And I told him to pick up the Skittles. He said, "I don't have to, and you can't put your hands on me." He turned his back to me. And I grabbed him by a shoulder and said, "I'm a volunteer and the rules don't apply to me." And he picked up the Skittles.
There is a general lack of authority. The teachers are being denied control of the classroom and there is a variety of behavior that is violent and very difficult, and that upsets the learning process.
I believe that communities need to be much more active. You can't pass laws, you can't have programs, communities are going to have to be very active with a variety of youth in a variety of settings. I have been able to work with kids that came with very poor reading skills. You tutor them long enough, and the behavior changed. And the disruptive behavior was a way of masking the deficiency. So I am a big fan of being a volunteer. I think it is what made this country great. We have tended to rely on government too much and not our own abilities and community resources.
Secondly, I want to see schools have more authority to control the learning environment. I had seventh-graders, and they have got to be the most hormonal group in the United States. They are incredible. If you get three kids out of 30 disrupting a classroom and 27 kids lose out.
There needs to be a process where you can say to students and you have an opportunity to take the students and not expel them. The last thing I want to see them is on the street disrupting the community in general. But put them in a separate educational environment which is much more intensive and can control their behavior. I think that's absolutely critical. I want to see more, not expulsions as much as I want to see alternatives to schools. It can be a school within a school, separate classroom or separate school entirely. That's the approach I would like to see happen.
When a kid uses a gun - the school I was in, we had two incidents of gun use. And I think you should be able to remove them. And you can remove them. In the bill that passed Congress, you can expel a kid for that purpose.
Slade Gorton: But the fundamental authority ought to be local, not in the federal government.
Ron Sims: I don't think I disagree with that. I said in the school I was in the teachers didn't have authority. The authority has to be restored. But it has to be a process by which administrators support it. If you had a kid - where I had a situation where a parent asked for a young lady to be removed from the school, who, on the perception of - it was perception only, among everyone - that she was engaged in aggressive behavior, I like due process because it gives us a balance. But I want to see kids who are violent out of a classroom. They are incredibly disruptive.
Bill Radke: Who else has a question? Mike?
Mike Moore: I have a question. I wanted to make sure it got asked. And that is that right now voter turnout is low, pretty much. Not only throughout the state but throughout the nation, and one of the reasons it's been mentioned voter turnout is low is because a lot of people just don't believe the government works for them. And I looked back over the history of America, and I'm not going to go all the way back to the Constitution, but recent histories we have seen Democrat administrations, Republican administrations and Democratic majorities and Republican majorities. And however you slice it, the cost of living goes up, taxes go up, deficit goes up, we see a marked increase in concern over crime now as compared to 20, 30 years ago. Statistics may speak to a different picture.
But the bottom line is we have a lot of people out there, we don't think whether it's Republican or Democrat that is up in the other Washington, it's going to make a difference to the course of this country. And for a lot of people out there right now who aren't planning on going to the voting ballot for Nov. 8 because they don't think it's going to make a difference whether they elect you, Gorton, or you, Sims. What do you say to convince them otherwise?
Ron Sims: I think it does make a difference. The cynicism is there, I'm not going to deny that. I think a number of us have been trying all kinds of tools. I have said government needed to be a partner, not the answer. And I still fundamentally believe the government gets oversold at times. Too often what we have to rely on and political parties often focus on the role of government in our lives. That's why I focus on another life, kind of volunteering to do things, to show the community what we can do if the government is a good partner.
I wish I knew what the answer is. I think it's really important. There are changes in this country that need to occur.
I have three sons and I want to make sure that they have the best educational system in the world, and I believe the federal government has a role to play and support of their, you know, becoming well-educated and being very productive and who you elect will play a big role in whether or not we have a strong educational system.
I volunteered in a hospital when I was thinking about leaving politics and going to seminary. My father told me that politics would be easier than being a parish minister, so I remained in politics. But I think it's important because I had experiences involving people's health care or lack of health care and what the consequences were. So I think who you elect will make a difference in terms of being able to have some sort of health care in the country and being meaningful in people's lives. A lot of the problems that frustrate people, I really believe in there, (government) is not going to help people unless it learns to be a partner and unless we have elected officials that inspire us.
When I was in Zambia, Africa, people were told they could only vote in places of their birth. I was election monitor. People walked back to their place of birth for four days in 106-degree heat and the turnout was 90 percent. But they for years were denied the vote, for 17 years, and they saw their vote as the birth of freedom.
I wish I could capture that, bottle it, and make it available in the country. I feel people's votes are important, and I'm firmly of that belief.
Bill Radke: Jump in, Gorton.
Slade Gorton: There are a few encouraging signs. The turnout in our primary election this year was 3 or 4 percent greater than it had been in the comparable one four years earlier. And on a larger base of registered voters. But it was still very small by comparison with other countries, especially countries which have newly acquired their freedom. And sometimes we find that the people who have been unfree through most of their lives are more eager to participate than those of us who have inherited it, as you say, over a period of 200 years and tend to take a great deal for granted.
And Washington, D.C., is a long way off. And I believe that one of the conditions from which we suffer is that one central government, 2,500 miles away, has taken over too many of the functions of our society. We mentioned briefly education, two of us may have tended to agree on that. But there isn't any reason in the world why so much in the way of education policy should come from so far away when we elect our own school-board members and ought to trust them with the authority to determine what is best, you know, for your friends' children in Kent, Mike, or anyone else's here.
And I do believe there is a big difference in the direction in which this country can and should be led. And I have dissented from most of that direction during the course of the last two years because it seems to me it was directed as having a more centralized control over our education, at nationalizing our health care and removing it from any influence of our own, of over-regulating those who provide jobs and opportunities in our country, and past all of the rhetoric and all of the talk and all of the advertisements is a difference in opinion as to the direction in which this country ought to go.
Should we trust people in their communities more, delegate more responsibility to them, or should we continue to go as this administration and as for most Congresses for the last 20 or 30 years? Remember, one party has been in charge of the House of Representatives for 45 years, wants to go to greater centralization of authority in Washington, D.C. The more we do that, the more people at home feel they don't have influence over their lives.
Ron Sims: Example I use, though, I'll give you an example. My son just started working this summer. He earns $5.25 an hour. He worked for 40 hours and came home and told me he got cheated because he got less than it multiplied out to. And I said, "That's taxes." And he said, "Well, I don't like paying taxes." I said, "I don't like paying taxes, either, but you have to pay them." His American government class is now studying the national debt. It's $4 trillion. You don't know how difficult it is at dinnertime when he sits there and looks up, "I have to pay $4 trillion of national debt." He just goes on and on. His grandchildren will still be paying off that debt.
So government, we had decisions to make in the 1980s, and we didn't make them. As a result, we quadrupled our national debt, and it will have a profound consequence. What you do with the debt is reduce the capacity for future generations to compete. We are taking away their resources in which they could compete with.
I'm really worried about that. The next three generations will face the most competitive world we have ever had. And we should never have hamstrung them. And who you vote for does make a difference. Because some people voted for that debt and others of us wouldn't have.
Slade Gorton: And some of us back the line-item veto for the president and the balanced-budget constitutional amendment which will discipline Congress and some don't.
Bill Radke: John has been itching to jump in.
John Penberth: One of the things I see that causes the citizens to lose faith in the government, I went into the Marines in 1957 and I served my country. It is unfortunate there were no wars at that time.
Slade Gorton: It is fortunate there were no wars at that time!
John Penberth: It was the beginning of French Indochina at that time, and a lot of people didn't know where that was. I served four years, and I got out with an honorable discharge. One of the benefits I earned, or thought I earned, by serving my country was I was entitled to Veterans Hospital. And that benefit has been taken away.
I mentioned when I started this, I'm on Social Security and on Medicare; there is talk of these benefits being cut. Now, I haven't been unemployed; I've worked all my life trying to serve my government and my country, and I love the American flag. But I can't stand any more cuts. And I don't know the exact things, I'm just going to quote the campaign ads. Senator, I understand you got a $35,000 raise last year, not only yourself but all the senators. And you're talking about cuts. I can't stand any more cuts. You know, I've served my country, done my time, I'm a proud American, and I can't stand any more cuts.
Slade Gorton: Well, you and I had some similar experiences in life. I had the dubious distinction of serving almost a year in the Army back in the late 1940s right after World War II and then going back into the Air Force in the mid-1950s. I got out just about the time you were getting in, and stayed in the Reserves for more than 20 years after that, because I felt it was important service.
And I can tell you I am deeply concerned about people who have that military service, as you did, and as I did, and that the promises that their government made to them, that those promises be kept. And I can assure you that I have not voted to cut Medicare. I made a pledge six years ago I would not cut our Social Security, and I have kept that pledge and I intend to keep that pledge the next time around. It is, of course, this administration that just last week came out with its laundry list of items it's going to consider this next year, and they do include cuts in both those programs.
Bill Radke: That was a question for Sen. Gorton. There is a couple people who haven't gotten the chance to speak. Joanne.
Joanne Shea: It's sort of related to taxes, I'm interested in a specific proposal, legislative proposal that's up for modification. It's called the Community Reinvestment Act and my understanding of this act is that they are going to, the federal government is going to take money out of people's personal IRAs and mutual funds, you know, for federal programs, that sort of thing. And I'm just sort of curious to see which or how you both feel on or what your understanding is of that act.
Ron Sims: I'm not familiar with the ability - is it borrowing against the amounts in the IRAs and mutual funds?
Slade Gorton: It is.
Ron Sims: It's the government using your money for the guarantee for its own issuance of debt?
Slade Gorton: No, it's not quite that. I believe this is what you're driving at. And I think it's an extremely serious problem that you have a right to be concerned about.
The government, through various of its entities, Housing and Urban Development and some of the banking entities, is demanding that the banks and the financial institutions that you put your money in, your savings accounts or your IRAs, invest them in a way that they would not necessarily invest them to get the best possible return, invest them in certain center city areas, open branches where they might not otherwise open branches. And, in short, use considerations other than the soundness and the safety of the money that you have put in those banks as a consideration of the way in which they invest.
And, of course, the government agency doesn't lose anything if the bank or the other financial institution ends up going broke or ends up losing money on that, but you could. And I really feel that, while community reinvestment, investment across the board is an important social goal, that if the government wants to do it probably ought to be doing it with its own money and not telling the places where you have put your savings that they have got to use those savings in an inefficient and perhaps a very risky fashion.
Ron Sims: I think your question was whether the government was going to do it with IRAs and mutual funds. And the answer is, no, it doesn't. The Community Reinvestment Act as it now applies to banks, banks get discounted money from the federal government, as a condition of receiving money at a rate you and I would love to have and never see.
They are asked to make a certain number of investments throughout the community they lend in. And communities have to show, for instance, that they are not making that investment.
I live in a neighborhood, Mount Baker in Seattle. And when I first moved into Mount Baker, it was a redlined neighborhood. It was because of the Community Reinvestment Act that individuals like me were allowed to secure mortgages and insurance. The neighborhood, right now, I couldn't move into it right now. We had a bunch of very, very beautiful old homes. And for whatever reasons, lending institutions made a decision good people didn't move up there.
I was young, starting a family, I always dreamed about buying a house, just dreamed about it, dreamed night and day about buying the house. And it was because of the Community Reinvestment Act that I was allowed the opportunity to have an area of the city that was being ignored, and I was allowed to buy the house. And now it's a neighborhood that you live in, Mount Baker, it's a different name now, been a 20-year change. So the Community Reinvestment Act has been a very, very good act at spreading around the ability of banks.
I would disagree with Gorton. It is not endangering your money because your money is going to be insured. What it does, though, is encourage the institutions to make investments, whether they be charitable investments in the arts - and we all really want to see the arts funded well here - and youth organizations. It's been used a lot now to provide funds for small businesses, who often we call small businesses are the back bone of America. They employ more than anyone else and yet they had incredible difficulty obtaining the loans.
Through the Community Reinvestment Act, more and more small businesses have been able to get the loans and they are stable today. So, it's an act that has worked well and we have prospered as a country because of it. Certainly we have prospered in this state because of it.
Slade Gorton: There is two different questions. Of course, if the federal government is going to deposit money in a financial institution and give it favorable rates, it has every right to have - to set guidelines as to where it's going to be invested.
When it's your IRA, I believe that you have the right to go to an institution that is only going to be beholden to you, and going to do the best job it possibly can with your money. And I don't think the government has the right to tell any institution how to invest your money. Its own money, yes. Your money, no.
Ron Sims: We agree there, but her money is not affected when it is an IRA or mutual fund separate from a banking institution. I have a mutual fund not affected by the Community Reinvestment Act, nor is there any legislation to do that.
Bill Radke: We have lots of ground to cover. Slade Gorton Whitney, would you like to chime in?
Slade Gorton: Whitney hasn't had a chance to say anything yet.
Whitney Thompson: I would love to.
Bill Radke: What's on your mind?
Whitney Thompson: You are just talking about small businesses, and I would like to know how we attract business to Washington and how we prevent from happening in Washington exactly what's happening in California, where it's so difficult for a small business owner to make it, because all the rules and restrictions they are up against. They are leaving California, not just small companies, big companies are leaving California. How do you attract business here and how do you reconcile some of the issues that come up, say the environment, health care and the rules that are dumped on small businesses?
Ron Sims: Gorton, go ahead.
Slade Gorton: First, the differences between states, from the point of view of rules that apply to small businesses and large are set by state legislatures and the local governments. The regulations imposed by the federal government apply equally around the country. But there is a balance that has got to be reached among states, and there is I believe a balance that has been overreached by the federal government.
For example, to take a big business rather than the small one. We have The Boeing Co. saying it will never start a new major facility in the state of Washington because of the restrictions on its ability to do business here, the amount of money it has to pay. Kansas, where Boeing also has major plants, does not have those restrictions and, therefore, I hope Boeing doesn't keep that threat. I hope we make the changes in this state that allow it to stay here. It's at the level it can say that and get some attention, where the person wanting to start the new small business cannot.
You're absolutely right. Businesses have been fleeing from California, not by the dozens but by the hundreds and thousands, and going to Utah and Idaho and Colorado, rather than coming to Washington, because we are following California on the kind of restrictions we have.
Beyond the restrictions that differ from state to state are the innumerable rules and regulations that come from the United States government that impose themselves on small businesses and large. One of the most difficult, with respect to the health care, (goes) under the title of employer mandate. It sounds good - someone else pays for your health care. But when it means the business goes out of business or moves from one place to another where it can avoid that kind of activity or doesn't hire new people because they can't afford the mandate, then you're getting one gain, a gain at one level and you're losing a tremendous amount at another.
And I can tell you across the board, small business people are just up to their necks in regulation. Last Friday I met with the local chapters of the National Federation of Independent Business in Tacoma, which endorsed me, and endorsed me on exactly that ground. They just can't stand the regulations to which they are being subjected. Labor regulations, environmental regulations, all kinds of regulations. They are terribly frustrated by them. They really want less government.
Whitney Thompson: What can senators do, then?
Slade Gorton: They can vote to cut back on the regulations at the federal level and vote not to impose any more without an overwhelming justification for them.
Ron Sims: Vice President Gore I think articulated well the need to have a comprehensive review of federal regulations, and they are undertaking that right now. And I think it's important that be sustained.
I want to back up a little bit. My wife is a consultant and she will say to me that we don't encourage people to succeed in this country. There isn't support for risk. This state has a B&O (business and occupation) tax, taxes you whether you are successful or not. That's discouraging when you're paying out a tax on your gross and you're not making any money. So, what kind of tax system can you design that's fair and encourages people to go out and try to start up a business and succeed? I don't know what the answer is, but I know we have to get there.
Yes, sir, John?
John Penberth: Talking about small businesses, I know in Lewis County, Lewis County is growing because of the economic-development committees down there.
Ron Sims: That's true.
John Penberth: They are doing a fabulous job of recruiting people and companies to come in down in that area. Maybe up here in the populated area there is a little problem. I see a lot of growth coming to the Northwest with the Pacific Rim opening up.
Ron Sims: They are doing that with federal assistance. Most of the economic-development committees are a joint federal and state financing, and they are designed to encourage businesses to locate in areas where there has been an economic loss. That is a role the federal government can play in trying to encourage businesses to locate throughout a state and in particular areas that need it.
Another is enterprise zones. The federal government has enterprise zones which again are designed to provide tax incentives for businesses to locate. It comes down to the creating a climate that encourages risk. That's got to be a national goal. And that is a process by which government has to work with people in small business and saying this is what we want to create. We want this environment.
Other countries have done that. Most of the other major economies that have moved well past ours in terms of economic growth have created a climate (where) businesses flourish. We have to create that, and it's not just the employee has a right to go to work and not be injured. So the regulations to protect safety must be, you know, you don't want to compromise that. But at the same time you want to make sure those are not so burdensome and so demanding that it's discouraging you from hiring the person in the first place.
Slade Gorton: What the small businesses want, Sims mentioned Vice President Gore and reinventing government. But that change in regulations are only internal government regulations. I think in some respects he's doing, you know, a very good job. But that whole review is just how one government entity or agency relates to another one. It doesn't have anything to do with removing the burdens on people who want to start small businesses.
Western Europe has a wonderful panoply of social services and for 20 years has had no net increase in private-sector employment. What our small businesses want is less regulation and recognition of this risk. For example, they want their investments, their capital gains to have some kind of favorable treatment. They want to be able to invest, and if they are successful, be able to make some money and not be taxed on inflation, which they are now, when they sell their businesses or sell their stock in businesses. But even more than changes in the tax laws, they want to get this myriad of regulations off of them. No small businessman can possibly do business today without breaking the law, inadvertently, because the regulations are so immense in their scope.
Bill Radke: Mike was raising his hand?
Mike Moore: I have a couple of related issues. Regulations, I think I agree with you, senator, that probably to deregulate is a good idea. But I also in recent memory remember that what caused the savings-and-loan scandal was deregulation. More importantly than deregulation it was deregulation without oversight and without consequence, which allowed the savings- and-loan scandal to happen. It was the fact that we - not we, but at the federal level, that they took and they decided to put the meat inspection system on the honor system. They said we're going to rely on you to do your own inspections. They took the money and freed that up and didn't have oversight. That was to some extent responsible for the E. coli outbreak we had here in the Northwest. So I agree it's a good idea to deregulate. What I'm concerned about is deregulation without oversight.
Bill Radke: Keep the questions short and the answers long.
Slade Gorton: You covered two subjects. You're right on E. coli, and we had an administration which came in that was going to do something about that and the secretary of Agriculture got all involved with the chicken people in Arkansas and the regulations have not been changed rapidly enough.
The inspectors ought to be there at all times, not on the honor system, but they need to be technologically better, as well. The kind of inspections in which inspections they were engaged very often would not find anything wrong in any event, even if they did them in a straight-out basis.
And you're right or partly right about savings and loans. But the federal deregulation of savings and loans is in effect today. That has not been changed at all, because without that deregulation - remember when they could only give 4 1/4 percent interest - they would all be out of business.
Ninety percent of the savings-and-loan failures took place in the three states of Florida, Texas and California. Due to state deregulation and the fact that the federal government was insuring state savings-and-loan associations that were deregulated by those three states far beyond what they were here in the state of Washington. We would have survived the whole S & L crisis. Here we had one or two go bankrupt, but they would have easily been paid off by the insurance provisions. In California, Texas and Florida, state legislatures just went hog wild and allowed them to do anything. And we ended up with the federal insurance system that had to pay them off.
Ron Sims: I think this is where Gorton and I disagree. The report to the president which is a blue-ribbon commission, had no agenda, put it right at the foot of Congress. There was a series of deregulatory measures passed by Congress that raised the risk of a system that was ailing already, to fail. And in fact, what they went on to point out, it was so lobbyist-oriented, so pushed by interests, that no one listened to the regulators when the regulators were saying, hey, these proposals are really putting a system of home loans, imperiling them, at real risk. There was impassioned testimony, and everybody turned a blind ear, deregulated, and it failed. It's not the initial pointing out the California and Florida. In fact the report to the president says you have to blame Congress for the failure, deregulation for the failure. There needs to be that balance. I would agree that you need oversight. You need to maintain the integrity of any system that you create. You need the oversight. You have to strike the balance.
In regard to meat inspection, they say "Don't over-regulate us." But some of the new technologies that you need to make sure that meat is safe in fact would require a little bit more regulation. So that's why I keep talking about creating the climate but going through and hammering out a process that's fair.
Patricia Finch: Beginning on a related topic, you were talking about incentives for small businesses. But every time I do my tax returns, I'm kind of looking at how few deductions I have left. And I look at the business tax returns and I see that they are allowed entertainment expenses, and I don't understand how that is, especially the amount they might be able to take as a legitimate business expense. And I wonder how both of you feel about eliminating entertainment expenses as a deductible item on a business tax return.
Ron Sims: I want them reduced significantly. There is a difference between having a business lunch and where you are conducting business - and sales people do that a lot where they are making the sale - vs. having highfalutin entertainment. I would like to see it reduced. There has been effort to reduce it over the years but everybody seems to try to get around it. But it's important we reduce the three-martini to two-martini lunch.
Patricia Finch: You are implying people can't sell their business on its own merits? They have to buy their customers?
Ron Sims: No. I think there are - for instance, I would not allow business deductions for club expenses. I don't understand that. People charge those off. I don't know why being a member of a club should allow you a deduction. That's why - for a person to buy a lunch for two people to work over lunch to execute a contract, sign a contract, if that's a business necessity, fine. But I want it written so tightly that it becomes a business necessity, not entertainment. And there is a big difference in my mind between what is business necessity, and I don't know how we get there, but we have to. I'm like you, I don't get to write that off. Some of my friends do.
Patricia Finch: That's right.
Ron Sims: Their interpretation of business expense certainly would be much broader and expansive than anything I could imagine.
Slade Gorton: You know, the federal government, unlike the state government, taxes businesses on profits. They have to make profits in order to be taxed. So every expenditure they have, at least some portion of it is going to come out of the pocket of the business itself. And I must say that I have a lot of trouble with the concept essentially that everything we earn belongs to the government and the government will let us keep part of it. In my opinion, we should have a high degree of trust in a business, and I say this particularly with small business, to manage its own business wisely and in its own best interest. I can agree that we should not allow frivolous expenditures. And I think when they are used as business expenses, club dues are that.
Business meals? No. As a matter of fact, now, when you look at the next tax return, you see for a small business, I believe they are only allowed to deduct 50 percent of the cost of the most legitimate business meal that can take place under any circumstances. That is the way America does business, it's always been the way America does business.
These are deductions from the income taxes in every other free enterprise nation that I know. And of course sometimes they are misused, but to say that we have to hire another legion of tax inspectors to go in and demand of each business person absolute justification for precisely what business was done when he took a customer out to lunch, that's why people are so frustrated with the government. If you're going to be paying a significant portion out of the business's own pocket, my general disposition will be to trust them to do it right. They don't want to spend their own money frivolously.
Ron Sims: I don't think Pat was suggesting there was going to be a legion of inspectors. And I certainly wasn't. I think we're saying . . .
Slade Gorton: When you say you have to have the tight regulations, someone has to enforce the tight regulations.
Ron Sims: There is business expenses and then there is some I have seen and heard. And I think, you know, I am paying taxes to that same government, and sometimes I have often felt I was subsidizing behavior that I didn't feel I should have to. And the government looks at how much it needs; it creates a tax system to accommodate that. There are times when I look and say how can that possibly be a legitimate business expense? How can you tell me you can fly to a resort and say you're getting continued education for something, and write off the vacation? I can't write off my vacation; why can they get to write off their vacation?
Bill Radke: OK, we've had an exchange on that. And John, I see you sitting on the porch with a question to ask.
John Penberth: Gentlemen, this is for both of you.
Nationwide, the campaign fund raising has gotten completely out of hand. It's so astronomical. Gorton, I believe you're in the $4 million range in fund raising and I heard you on the air stating a very true fact I didn't really understand until you stated it, that it's absolutely legal, and if people are going to contribute to your funds and Sims, legally, you're going to take whatever it is to try to win the election. Same for Sims.
Sims had the president fly out here. I don't know how much that is costing the taxpayers. When that guy flew the helicopter to the golf course, he had to pay back $14,000. I don't know how much it took to fly the jet out here. That stuff is getting out of hand. Ollie North has $18 million raised for campaign moneys.
The question I would like to ask both of you gentlemen: Will either of you commit to propose and to support legislation to limit campaign spending, to put both of you on a more fair level? Would you gentlemen commit to proposing and supporting legislation to limit the campaign spending so we don't get to the astronomical millions of dollars to get a person elected when your salaries aren't in that range? That's what I think the American public is so irate with. I know that's a thing that bothers me.
Bill Radke: John, we have the question. With just a few minutes left we would like to keep the answer short enough so we can get through a few more questions.
Ron Sims: I would support campaign financial reform. As a King County Council member, we put on the ballot a charter (amendment) the voters approved to limit campaign contributions, the amount you could spend for office. We also had a public-financing component that we took out of the budget to try to level the field. If we have a system where on the income tax you can check off and say this is how much money I would spend, that is important. The amount of money you have to raise will leave the Senate to the extremely wealthy, leave Congress to the extremely wealthy, or incumbents who are going to be able to leverage and get tremendous sums of money.
John Penberth: Gorton said he's not going to take any more PAC dollars. Is that true, sir?
Slade Gorton: No, that's not. Let him finish and then I'll answer the question.
Ron Sims: I believe that if we don't change campaign-finance reform, that Congress will not reflect - will not look like America. It will look much different. It will be left for those literally who can afford it. I raise money for Little League, it's hard for me, you're begging to get money for Little League, and all of a sudden you have to raise a million dollars to run for U.S. Senate or $5 million, it's unsettling, and I would like to see a cap on it. Senate seat should have this much and that's it and no more.
Slade Gorton: I think there are two evils, and I think from the point of view who serve in the United States Senate, perhaps the greater of the two evils comes from the people who write out their own unlimited checks to run for office. The man doing that in California probably will have written out $18 or $20 million in checks of his own money that the other side can't match. Now, he's a Republican.
Sen. Rockefeller from West Virginia, a tiny state, he wrote out $12 million in checks when he first ran for office. Yet we have federal limitations on how much money the other candidate running against that person can take from an individual or even from the party, you know, to which he claims allegiance.
I have already sponsored and voted for, and will sponsor and vote for again, a system which says there are only two sources or money for campaigns, individual contributions, no associations or political-action committees at all. And the political party, each of us obviously picks a political party and sign up with them. That all the money should come from them.
The Supreme Court has said that you can't put a limit on the amount of money that someone can spend. That's why the people can spend all the money they have been doing and be consistent with the constitution. But you can put a limit on how much money you can give to a political campaign, and you can say it's only from those individuals and the party that you accept money.
I am very happy twice as many people in this state have been willing to write out checks, average $70 each, to my campaign. I think that shows support. I sure as heck wish we could get rid of the person that can just walk in with no support at all and write out his or her own checks. That is a very bad part of the present system.
Bill Radke: The sun is setting, it's chilly on the Front Porch. Before we go back inside we have time for a few more. Joanne.
Joanne Shea: When the campaigning starts and we get the commercials on the TV, I personally get real discouraged with the commercials that are on. It's real negative. And I think that - I would listen more if you guys were to talk more about just the issues instead of talking about each other. You know, as far as getting people to come in to vote more, to get people more interested in what you guys are doing in the government and that sort of thing, I think that would help.
Bill Radke: Short answers.
Ron Sims: I agree. We're trying that this weekend and we'll see how it works. All the media people tell you negative works. You get to a point where, no, maybe people should know who I am and what I stand for. And we'll find out whether that in fact does work.
Slade Gorton: Let me respond. I'm not at all sure that maybe the campaign election rule we ought to adopt should say no 30-second or 60-second television advertising at all, just do Front Porch Forums and that sort of thing. I don't know if you can do that consistently with the Constitution but it would elevate the discourse.
Whitney Thompson: We are talking like we have money in the country. But with the deficit the size it is, we don't have a whole lot of money. Where do you get money? It doesn't grow on trees. It is not as though we could tax the rich, because the numbers aren't growing. The fact of the matter is that the lower economic groups are actually the ones that are growing, and 30 years from now there is not going to be anybody to get money from and we're going to be in a whole world of hurt. What do you do about it? We give money to other countries and we send people to other countries and we send food to other countries. We have people here who could really use a little help. What are we doing about that?
Ron Sims: I think several things, even with all those needs we are going to have to ratchet down the federal debt because it's going to be so crippling in the future. The next generation, on average their income will be less than the parents. And that's scary. They have to support the largest retirement generation ever, and also the needs of their own children. And we have a limited resource.
To me, the most important thing to do is to expand the economy, see that boom, see people earn more income. And at the same time, try to reduce as quickly as we can the federal debt. Especially in this state, we doubled the number of people in poverty that are working, and that means we have to look at new kinds of jobs. We were so preoccupied with service-industry jobs that we forgot they only pay 60 percent of what trade jobs pay. So we need to look at being a country that produces and manufactures more. That requires both changes in the antitrust laws, also requires changes in our tax laws. I hope that does happen. I'm going to fight for that.
It also requires us to make a decision when we engage in treaties whether or not that treaty or the trade agreement is going to result in job generation here that are manufacturing jobs or are those going to be exported.
I am the kind of person that wants to see domestic job growth, which is why I look at trade treaties in terms of what is our rather selfish interest of having increased higher pay and newer kinds of jobs that pay better.
Slade Gorton: One of the problems with our political system is that short-term gain is often taken at long-term detriment to our society as a whole, and we had - a few years ago, Congress passed a statute to try to balance the budget called Graham-Rudman and for two or three years it worked pretty well and then the shoe began to pinch. A Democratic Congress and Republican president began to repeal it. That tells me we need a discipline outside the annual or biennial elections. And I believe we need to give the president, any president, Democrat or Republican, the right to line item veto spending that is pork barrel or put on the bill as a rider, hidden someplace or another. But more important, change the Constitution so that it provides a discipline to make it much, much more difficult to spend today and pass those bills on to future generations. I think that's the wrong thing to do.
I don't think that Congress is going to reform itself, it certainly hasn't in 50 years or so. It seems to me at this point it is time to make that difference. Of course, we want to encourage businesses the best way to work your way into more money for federal government with social programs is to have more businesses that are making profits, more people who are making good livings and are paying taxes out of their surplus. In order to do that, in order to encourage people to invest, in order to encourage people to save, you can't take all their profits away from them. You have got to do something with it. In the short run, that may very well cut down on what we have for the federal government and drive up the deficit, unless we say their spending promise right now we cut back on even though we rather like them.
Bill Radke: One more.
Mike Moore: Health care. There is enough statistically to justify there is room for improvement in the health-care system. Either of you may not agree on how to improve the health-care system, but you may agree there is room for improvement. Given that contention, if either of you goes to Washington will you commit to spending more time on trying to find ways to fix what's wrong with our health-care system than on telling us why health-care reform can't be done?
Bill Radke: Short answers on health care. Sounds impossible but we need it.
Slade Gorton: Health-care reform can be done and must be done. We have got to see to it people who have good health-care insurance and lose their jobs temporarily or transfer from one job to another are able to keep it. We have to cut down on the arbitrary exclusions the insurance companies foist off on people. I think we have to reform the lawyers and cut back on medical malpractice. And I think we have got to do a job to see to it we get better health care for those that are poor. I don't believe we can take everything in this huge health-care system and change it all in one bill, the way it was attempted to do this year. I think the damage to people is simply too great.
Ron Sims: We must have universal coverage. You know, I dealt with a woman who had two kids, no family here, terminally ill, and it took us months in order to place those two kids.
If she had entered the system three years earlier, if she had the money to pay for care, she would not have been in the ward I was in. I am absolutely committed. I will never forget her. I will never forget the two kids.
We tend to make all these digits, you know, 5 percent won't have coverage. Well, you know, you don't know what it is like to be a digit. Those are human beings and they are entitled to be significant. That's why I'm going to the Senate, because I really think it's important that people be treated as people and human beings and not digits any more. So I'm committed to universal coverage. Health-care reform without universal coverage is not acceptable to me. We have to have a system - you don't want to be in the hospital where I was and dealing with those families. No digit any more. I want human beings dealt with. I want the government to care about people.
Bill Radke: First we want to thank our candidates, Slade Gorton and Ron Sims.
Ron Sims: Thank you, I enjoyed it very, very much.
Slade Gorton: Thanks.
Bill Radke: Good luck on Election Day. The screen door will slam now. We'll go back inside, get off the front porch. It's getting chilly. And thanks, gentlemen.
Slade Gorton: Thank you all, a very capacious, nice, front porch.
John Penberth: I'll be looking for your signs in Pe Ell.
Transcribed by Larsen & Smith Inc., court reporters.
Front Porch Forum Debate Panelists
John Penberth
Residence: Pe Ell, Lewis County.
Occupation: Retired police officer.
Age: 55.
Family: Married, grown children.
Joanne Shea
Residence: Ballard.
Occupation: Purchasing agent, Environmental Protection Agency.
Age: 36.
Family: Single, one daughter.
Mike Moore
Residence: Kent.
Occupation: Unemployed; former U.S. Marine; Green River Community College student.
Age: 39.
Family: Married.
Whitney Thompson
Residence: Lake City area, Seattle.
Occupation: Program assistant, University of Washington Medical Center; graduate student in UW School of Education.
Age: 31.
Family: Single.
Patricia Finch
Residence: Federal Way.
Occupation: Writes specifications for materials purchased by federal government; former teacher.
Age: 52.
Family: Single, two children.