Challenger takes debate request to Goodlatte public
Sixth District Republican congressional-nomination candidate Karen Kwiatkowski has repeatedly asked GOP incumbent Bob Goodlatte to agree to a debate in advance of the June 2012 party nomination.
Not having heard from Goodlatte yet, Kwiatkowski has gone public with her request to try to put pressure on the congressman.
“Now that George Allen has finally agreed to debate his Republican primary challengers, I believe that it is time for you (or your office) to answer the mail,” Kwiatkowski wrote Goodlatte in a letter dated Nov. 16.
“When I personally spoke to you about this on Oct. 18, you were aware of my formal requests, but told me that you thought it was ‘too soon’ for you to commit. After three months and multiple requests, it is certainly not too soon for you to respond to a fellow Republican and Sixth District constituent. I encourage you emulate former Sen. Allen, and engage in a public debate with your political critics on the right,” Kwiatkowski wrote in the letter.
Kwiatkowski: Goodlatte’s days are ‘numbered’
Karen Kwiatkowski voted – twice – to re-elect Sixth District Congressman Bob Goodlatte. She did so for the same reason that she thinks a lot of fellow Republicans in the heavily GOP Sixth support Goodlatte election cycle after election cycle.
“They’ve known him for years, and because they’ve known him for years, they think he’s safe,” said Kwiatkowski, a retired Air Force officer and Shenandoah County farmer who is challenging Goodlatte for the Republican nomination.
The problem with Goodlatte to Kwiatkowski is that it seems to her that the congressman takes the same “I’m safe” approach with voters.
“When you’re in office as long as he’s been, 20 years, it’s as much about survival as it is about getting anything done. That’s the problem with the system across the board,” said Kwiatkowski, whose disaffection with Goodlatte dates to her communications with his office over an issue involving a controversial animal-identification program that the libertarian-leaning Kwiatkowski views as a clear intrusion on the private-property rights of farmers.
“Here’s one more way for me to give away my property rights,” Kwiatkowski said of the program, and she raised the issue with Goodlatte, the former chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, only to get what she felt were “form letters” from staffers who clearly didn’t understand her objections to how the program was to impact the ag community.
“My assessment was that Goodlatte didn’t understand the problem, and didn’t take the time to educate himself,” said Kwiatkowski, who would “forgive him” for his lack of knowledge on agricultural issues, “but I can’t forgive him for not wanting to understand something affecting so many of his constituents.”
Kwiatkowski, to those who know her, is not one to shy away from a fight – be it an animal-identification program or the drumbeat to war. She says she had a “happy” military career until her final year in the Air Force, when what she saw being done from her job at the Pentagon in the Near East and South Asia directorate made her come to the conclusion that the Bush administration was cherry-picking intelligence to provide a false pretext for going to war in Iraq.
Kwiatkowski, a publisher author who wrote books on U.S. foreign policy during her time in the Air Force, and has written extensively since on topics ranging from the military to neoconservatism, became an outspoken public critic of the war – and as such was a frequent target of prowar supporters. She felt somewhat “vindicated” by the way things turned out in Iraq, but at the same time left the Pentagon disillusioned about what she had seen happen in front of her eyes.
“I got to see a different side of how decisions are made in Washington, D.C., and that has informed my thinking. I can speak to anyone about that. I saw a segment of how we do business, and I can share that with anyone,” said Kwiatkowski, whose thoughts and writing have turned in retirement to include critiques of other areas of government life.
“I don’t think we can afford any of this social-welfare state that we have created for ourselves. We can either just say no, to borrow from Nancy Reagan, or we can go on being fat, dumb and happy and spending ourselves into oblivion. And I think that’s where we’re heading. I believe that we’re headed toward a disaster, but I’m hoping there’s something I can do to get us back on a constitutional path,” Kwiatkowski said.
She admits to not being entirely comfortable with politics. “I’m not a politician,” Kwiatkowski said, and she harbors no illusions about her chances to unseat a 10-term congressman in a party primary.
“He cannot be beaten in the two-party system. He can only be beaten if we articulate real conservatism. And the only way to do that is to have a nomination race. And that’s what we’re doing,” said Kwiatkowski, who takes the long view in thinking that Goodlatte’s days “are numbered.”
“If it’s not this cycle, it’s the next cycle, and if it’s not that one, it’s the one after that,” said Kwiatkowski, who sees Goodlatte’s consistent votes in favor of deficit budgets and increases in the federal debt ceiling as his Achilles heel.
“This last (debt-ceiling vote) was a tradeoff to get a vote on his balanced-budget amendment, which is nothing but kicking the can down the road with the end goal being to make the excuse that, Well, you guys didn’t modify the Constitution, so sorry, but we couldn’t stop ourselves from spending. Sorry, but we don’t get that option in our own households,” Kwiatkowski said.
It doesn’t bother Kwiatkowski at all that she is getting nothing in terms of support from GOP leaders in the Sixth.
“My message is resonating with true conservatives who are upset with the party. That’s more important to me,” Kwiatkowski said.
More on the Kwiatkowski campaign online at www.KarenKForCongress.com.
Karen Kwiatkowski: Yes, Virginia, congressmen lie
Word is, the congressional supercommittee may fail in its quest for $1.5 trillion dollars in federal spending cuts. I don’t know why we are so pessimistic. After all, the task before the Committee of Twelve is actually miniscule. By statute, it must reduce $1.5 trillion in existing and projected deficits over the next 10 years. Accounting for inflation, this means the supercommittee is looking to save $150 billion per year. With inflation, it’s more like $130 billion per year – and the “savings” are non-binding projected savings based on non-binding projected spending!
Twelve esteemed congressmen and women hard at work. Twelve 8-year-olds would be more efficient, more successful, and more honest.
The underperforming supercommittee was made possible in part by Virginia’s Sixth District Republican incumbent, who voted for several trillions more in federal borrowing last July. So-called conservative Bob Goodlatte not only voted for every debt ceiling increase George W. Bush wanted, he did the same when Obama asked! This time, Goodlatte traded his vote to gain the Speaker’s support for Goodlatte’s version of a balanced budget amendment. I guess that makes it all right.
Assuming Congress ever passed such an amendment, expecting three-fourths of state legislatures to support a law that will increase taxation on state citizens while eliminating billions of dollars federal outlays and lending to state treasuries is sheer insanity. Let me rephrase that. It’s just nuts!
But I’m ahead of myself, in calling it a no-go for ratification. The House and Senate still have to accept Goodlatte’s watered-down amendment. And why shouldn’t they? It’s patently easy to violate, will launch a plethora of nice new taxes, offers extremely timid spending reductions and has no federal spending cap. Even if it passed and was ratified, this toothless, tax-hungry proposal simply won’t balance anything. Ever.
Which may be the plan after all. Goodlatte and his cronies would like nothing better than for the whole country to watch the congressional shell game, and forget theirworries. Be happy, America! We promise, really we do! If only we had a ratified constitutional amendment in, say, 2017 – we’ll all grow backbones, gain character, practice ethics, become moral statesmen, stop deficit spending, not bankrupt you, and make serfs of your children, and expatriots of your grandchildren.
The federal government grows under Republicans and Democrats alike because congressmen lie to their constituents, and to themselves. Incidentally, Goodlatte, like many other incumbents, pledged never to vote for increased taxes, courtesy of Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform pledge.
Now, he proudly stands for bold borrowing, bold spending and bold taxation – something he himself acknowledges will not only be possible, but unavoidable.
Yes, Virginia, Congress has been lying for a long, longtime. The Sixth District incumbent in the spotlight today is pushing bad legislation that will force him to publicly break past pledges as a conservative, as a statesman and as a tax-opposer. But don’t be too upset. It’s just politics as usual.
Karen Kwiatkowski is a farmer in Shenandoah County and is challenging Bob Goodlatte in the GOP primary for the Virginia Sixth District congressional seat. More about her campaign online at www.karenkforcongress.com.
Wolf speaks out on deficit-spending deal
Staff Report
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10th District Congressman Frank Wolf today spoke three times on the House floor in opposition to a backroom deal between the Obama administration and Democratic Party leadership in Congress to create by executive order a commission to address out-of-control federal spending.
Wolf, who has been advocating for what he calls the SAFE Commission – short for Securing America’s Future Economy – since the spring of 2006 to get our nation’s fiscal house in order, believes any commission dealing with federal spending must be created by Congress and have a requirement the panel’s recommendations be voted up or down. The deal cut by the president and the Democrat leadership would not require Congress to act. Continue reading “Wolf speaks out on deficit-spending deal” »
