USA Today and Washington Post Spotlight 2nd District
May 13, 2010
There are two kinds of economic stimulus. There's my 6-point stimulus plan, which includes cutting taxes across the board, revitalizing our national defense, and controlling wasteful federal spending.
Then there is Barack Obama’s expensive government-centered, anti-free market stimulus programs like Cash for Clunkers, which our Democratic Congressman Glenn Nye voted for in Congress.
USA Today and the Washington Post reported on the Second District and a significant difference in the philosophies between me and one of my opponents. I can go to Washington and fight the Obama agenda with no contradiction and no hypocrisy. Obama is working an agenda to turn the private sector into the public sector with regulations, controls and policies that are destroying the American Dream and controlling our future. Together, we can turn our economy around through proven economic policies of lower taxes, a constitutional government based on needs not wants, and freeing the private sector from government.
I wanted to share the story with you in case you missed it. Issues will decide this election, and in race after race across the country, politics-as-usual is losing.
Dealers-turned-candidates run into trouble
By John Fritze, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — For a small group of car dealers running for Congress this year, the federal “Cash for Clunkers” program has become a political lemon.
Four dealers-turned-candidates, all Republican, are under attack by opponents from both parties for railing against taxpayer bailouts less than a year after benefiting from the $3 billion program created in 2009 to boost car sales.
Cash for Clunkers was popular with buyers, who bought 677,842 cars through the program last summer, according to the Department of Transportation. Budget deficits and government spending have since become explosive political issues in competitive races across the country.
Scott Rigell, who is running in a House district that includes Virginia Beach, criticized Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a January speech for “reckless bailouts and an out-of-control federal debt.” But records show he sold 138 cars under Cash for Clunkers last year.
“It’s the hypocrisy of it,” said Ben Loyola, a Republican challenging Rigell in the primary. “You can’t say you’re against these programs, bailouts, and yet benefit wholeheartedly from them.”
Loyola is a Department of Defense contractor.
Rigell and other candidates taking part in Cash for Clunkers note it was buyers, not dealers, who received taxpayer subsidies up to $4,500 to offset the price of fuel-efficient cars if they traded in their clunkers. Rigell would have voted against the measure had he been in Congress, but once it was approved he had little choice but to take part, a spokesman said.
“He thought it was a bad idea. It was an administrative nightmare,” said Jason Miyares, Rigell’s campaign manager. “But he also has an obligation to the people who work for him, and his customers.”
James Slepian, a spokesman for Ohio car dealer and House candidate Jim Renacci, agreed. Renacci, who sold 39 cars, “did not support the Cash for Clunkers program but he did participate in order to meet the expectations of his customers," Slepian said. “He felt obligated.”
The House passed the Cash for Clunkers legislation with bipartisan support in June. The Senate later attached the measure to another bill used to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Dealers such as Tom Ganley, running for a House seat in northeastern Ohio, make another argument against the program: It wasn’t all that beneficial. Ganley’s dealerships sold 876 cars through Cash for Clunkers, but sales fell sharply after the effort ended, he said.
Cash for Clunkers encouraged people who might have purchased cars later in 2009 to buy early, Ganley said. An April audit by the Government Accountability Office lends some credence to the argument, saying it is “uncertain” how many cars would have been sold without the initiative.
“Ultimately, for the year, we didn’t sell any more cars,” said Ganley, who attacks “taxpayer funded bailouts” on his website. “Look at it from a businessman’s standpoint: If I say, ‘No, I’m not doing that,’ that’s horrible for long-term customers.”
A fourth candidate, Mike Kelly, who is running for a House seat in Pennsylvania, could not be reached for comment.
Julie Sweet, campaign manager for Ganley’s Democratic opponent, Rep. Betty Sutton, argued that Ganley’s position on the program had changed. She pointed to an August Cleveland Plain Dealer article in which Ganley complained about delays but said Cash for Clunkers had “certainly primed the pump and accelerated auto sales.”
Sutton was the lead sponsor of the House version of the bill.
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Ben Loyola is a candidate for the Republican nomination in Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District. He’s a 25-year resident of Virginia Beach, US Naval Academy graduate, 30-year Navy veteran with combat experience, successful award winning businessman, and a true Conservative Reagan Republican.
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