Name: Dino LaVerghetta
Age: 28
Party Affiliation: Republican. Endorsed by the Republican, Independence, and Libertarian Parties.
Occupation: Attorney at the prominent law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton, focusing on securities litigation and pro bono work.
Decision To Run: Our politicians have forgotten what makes America great, increasingly putting their trust in government, rather than the individual. I want to restore the government’s respect for individual liberty, individual responsibility and the entrepreneurial spirit. I come from humble beginnings. My father is an Italian immigrant who came here with nothing and built a successful small-business. My single working mother struggled to provide for her children. I believe in the American Dream because I have lived it. I want to ensure that the same opportunities remain available to future generations. An ever-expanding Federal Government has interfered with those opportunities, burdening Americans with high taxes, crushing debt, and unwieldy regulations. The result is a stagnant economy, high unemployment and a dampened entrepreneurial spirit. When elected, I will reduce the size and scope of the Federal Government, restoring respect for the individual and the free-market.
Major Issues: We need to create jobs and foster economic recovery. Wasteful stimulus packages do nothing but expand the Federal Government. Recovery will only come by reducing taxes. We pay the highest taxes in the country. Each dollar that goes into Uncle Sam’s pocket is one less dollar that is available for hiring employees, opening a business, or developing the next great invention.
Top Priorities: In order to jumpstart the economy and create jobs, I will preserve the Bush tax cuts and reduce taxes on businesses. Carolyn Maloney intends to let the tax cuts expire. This disastrous idea would operate as an effective tax increase, further burdening American families and businesses as they struggle toward economic recovery.
Name: Ryan Brumberg
Age: 28
Party Affiliation: Republican Occupation: Management consultant. I spent the last three years with McKinsey & Company helping America’s leading companies fix their most pressing problems. I advised companies on how to expand their operations, merge with strategic partners, and analyze the effects of government policy.
Decision To Run: I believe our country is at a crossroads. With my strong background in business and economics, I can lead our country away from the financial ruin facing countries like Greece, Portugal and Spain. We need to restore the principles that brought our country to greatness in the first place: fiscal sanity, individual responsibility and the entrepreneurial spirit. If you look at the unemployment figures, the projected deficits, the pending tax increases, there is a real threat to the unique prosperity that we Americans have enjoyed for the past 60 years. We cannot afford to put off addressing these problems. History shows that a smaller government allows for a bigger and more prosperous private sector – and private ingenuity has always been the key engine of growth.
Major Issues: The economy and taxes. We need to unchain America’s economic potential – create jobs and pay down the debt by leveraging the power of the free market. This means addressing excessive regulation, entitlements, public union benefits and runaway government spending.
Carolyn Maloney is planning to impose the largest tax increase in the country on our district – an average of $10,000 per household. This will stifle job creation and economic recovery. Instead, we should cut taxes to stimulate investment and create sustainable industry. The best way to get New Yorkers back to work is to keep more money in New York in the first place.
Top Priorities: Repeal the healthcare bill and roll back the unprecedented wave of government expansion.
Name: Roger S. Blank
Age: 48
Party Affiliation: Republican
Occupation: Attorney in private practice.
Decision To Run: I decided to run because I believe that our elected officials have mismanaged the economy, health care and financial reform. Our elected officials have forgotten that they work for us. I believe that government must have respect for, and be answerable to, the people. I am running for Congress because I believe that prosperity is possible.
Prosperity is possible, but bailouts, “stimulus,” tax hikes, industry takeovers, trillion-dollar deficits and a dollar manipulated by an unaccountable and incomprehensible Federal Reserve will not get us there. What will get us to prosperity is to make free-market capitalism work – and working in conjunction with sane, sensible regulation – we can make it work for everyone. I will fight for policies that will empower businesses to create jobs and economic growth.
What are two major issues affecting the constituents you want to represent? Taxes and the economy. Congress is out of touch and spends our hard earned tax dollars as if our money grows on trees. We need to cut taxes on work, savings, investment, and job creation. I will propose pro-growth economic policies that put more of our hard earned dollars back in our pockets and less in the tax man’s pocket.
What’s the first thing you would focus on if elected? I did not support TARP, the wasteful bailouts, the stimulus bill, the health-care bill or the increase in our national debt. We need to stop the Federal Reserve’s paying interest on bank reserves (paying the banks to sit on money) that has strangled small business and the economy by locking up the money supply, thereby limiting credit available to small businesses. This in turn limits their ability to expand, boost sales and hire workers, thus reducing unemployment.
