The Campaign Heats Up

We have been busy over the last few days. Check out my latest spot on the differences between me and Chellie Pingree:




The debates have also highlighted where Chellie and I disagree on policy.



In our Tuesday debate at the University of Southern Maine in Portland, I answered questions submitted by other Mainers. Check out a video of the debate here.

OpEd in the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram

The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram published an OpEd yesterday that lays out the reasons I'm running for Congress:


Summers: I'll stand up for small business and low taxes

People shouldn't have to look outside the 1st District to find someone who votes with them.

October 26, 2008

As I have traveled across Maine's 1st Congressional District campaigning, I have met with dozens of people daily.

Whether working one of my Thirty Jobs throughout the district, picking corn in Nobleboro, working construction in Portland, delivering home heating oil in York – or hosting Town Hall Meetings for undecided voters to discuss the issues that are important to them – Mainers have been very direct in letting me know exactly how they feel.

And they have a simple message for their next member of Congress: "We're mad, and we've had it!"

Mainers have every right to be angry. They pay taxes to a government in Washington in which they have little confidence.

They just watched Congress give Wall Street a $700 billion bailout, and the Senate dole out $150 billion in pork, while they work hard, play by the rules and struggle just to make ends meet. They hear politicians who too often say one thing and then do another.

I firmly believe that things must change in Washington. We need a return to a government "for the people" – a government that doesn't overtax us and then spend our money irresponsibly.

With all due respect to the editors of this newspaper, I don't think they did their homework on Chellie Pingree's record – into what she says versus what she has done – when they made their endorsement last Sunday.

And nowhere is the choice between my opponent and me clearer than when it comes to support of jobs and Maine small businesses, as well as taxes.

During her time in Augusta, Chellie Pingree voted for nearly every tax increase that came up for a vote. She was one of only eight senators to oppose a proposal to eliminate the meals and lodging tax on private-pay nursing home residents.

And she voted against exempting pensions and retirement benefits, as well as military retiree benefits, from the income tax.

But by far most shocking of all, my opponent voted in the Maine Senate to tax the Social Security benefits of senior citizens making only $25,000 a year. This plan would have given the revenue from this new tax to union employees who already had pensions.

That is unconscionable, and I will never vote that way in Congress.

In this uncertain economy, a tax increase is the last thing anyone needs. Yet that is exactly what Chellie Pingree has promised she will support in Congress.

By following her advice and repealing the tax cuts that the Congress has passed over the last eight years, we would be exacting a heavy tax increase on the people who can afford it least.

While she attempts to dress up what she wants to do in class-warfare terminology – "repealing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans" – her actions would be detrimental to every single Mainer.

My opponent and I also have starkly different records on helping small businesses. Small businesses are the real creators of jobs. I know the needs of small-business owners because I've been one and because I've helped dozens of them start or expand their firms.

I know that to encourage small businesses to grow and create jobs, we need to keep taxes low and reduce unfair and burdensome regulations.

And my record speaks for itself – I always voted with those principles in mind in the state Senate. For my efforts, the National Federation of Independent Business, a leading small-business group, gave me a 100 percent rating. They gave my opponent a lifetime rating of 11 percent.

Mainers want leaders in Washington who are going to look out for them, their families and their jobs, not shovel money to their special-interest friends.

They're fed up with the partisanship and polarization that has paralyzed our political process.

But most of all, they just want someone in Congress who represents them.

At a Town Hall Meeting the other day, someone in the audience asked me, "Why do we have to go to the 2nd District to thank someone for voting for our best interests?" They were referring to Rep. Mike Michaud's opposition to the bailout.

My response to that is when I'm in Congress, you won't have to. You'll have someone who will fight for you and your interests every step of the way.

But it will take your vote on Nov. 4, and I'd be honored to have it.

— Special to the Telegram