By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
Democrat Alan LaPolice said he his focusing his campaign for Congress on the four former pillars of the Republican Party — fair trade, fiscal responsibility, family values and defense.
LaPolice, who is a farmer, educator and veteran, made a campaign stop in Hays Thursday night at the Ellis County Democratic headquarters.
He has run previously for office as a Republican, but said he is unhappy with the direction the party is going. LaPolice is from Clyde and faces Republican incumbent Roger Marshall, Great Bend, in the Nov. 6 general election for the First Congressional District.
LaPolice expressed frustration at the Congress’ failure to pass a Farm Bill. The former Farm Bill expired on Oct. 1.
“We are in right now what could arguably be defined as the biggest ag crisis in three decades,” he said. “My district is an ag-producing district. Everyone wants to know about these tariffs and this trade war, about the collapse of the Farm Bill and how farmers are going to be able to survive.”
The Senate and House have both passed versions of the Farm Bill, but the legislation is hung up on cuts to nutrition programs and lack of conservation measures in the House version.
“Is it a family value to starve women and children in the nutrition program?” LaPolice asked. “Is it family values to take away the lunch program from school kids or homeless veterans? Is that a family values?”
He said Congress should pass the Senate Bill and “stop playing with farmers’ lives.”
LaPolice was also critical of the Republican tax cut as being fiscally irresponsible.
“In a boom economy, we have $1.2 trillion in new deficit, new debt,” he said. “In the past two years, they have laid on almost $2 trillion in new debt.”
He compared the national plan to the Brownback tax plan, which was eventually reversed by the Kansas Legislature after significant revenue shortfalls
“I applaud the Republicans’ efforts to cut taxes,” he said, “because Americans need some incentive to consuming. You can consume more if you have more money in your pockets. I agree with my Republican colleagues 100 percent.”
However, he said stipulations should have been placed on the tax breaks that required corporations to reinvest at least a portion of their savings in their employees, their benefits and/or their educations.
He also has heard much concern from voters about health care. Mercy Hospital in Fort Scott announced this week it will close by the end of the year.
Of about 80 Critical Care Hospitals in the state, 60 of those are in the First District.
“When you see communities that have this one urgent care, critical care center, people are scared that if their hospital closes, that community dies,” he said.
LaPolice said Congress needs to address the rising cost of health care by allowing Medicaid and Medicare to negotiate service and prescription prices. This would be similar to what the government already does for the Department of Defense under Tricare.
The issue of immigration has touched LaPolice’s family personally. Had the current immigration policy been in place during the 1980s, his family would not exist today. His mother-in-law brought his wife to the U.S. when she was 2 shortly after civil war broke out in El Salvador. The family sought and was granted asylum.
“To not address the human rights crisis like the one we faced on the border, like the one with Syrian refuges, like the one from any of these nations that we have intervened in and sometimes destabilized — to not address that is inhumane,” he said. …
“When you see Ronald Reagan talk about immigration, he is a kind president. He is a real president. Today to see the Republicans talk about immigration as if all these people crossing the border are MS-13, they’re impostors, they’re gang members, they’re terrorists … The incumbent calls them terrorists. That is not very Christian. That is not what I consider family values to look at a woman with a 2-year-old daughter and say, ‘Oh yeah, you’re terrorists.'”
In addition to reforms to the system for those seeking asylum, LaPolice said immigration reform needs to take into account the need for immigrant workers in agriculture.
“We have produce rotting in the field right now because we don’t have the workers,” he said, “and the reason we don’t is because politicians use immigration as a political football. They use it against their opponents, and both sides do it.”
Finally on defense, LaPolice who served as an infantry gunner during the First Gulf War, said it is time to pull troops from Afghanistan.
“Seventeen years in the Middle East and no resolution and no way out,” he said. “I fought over there, but when I fought, we had an objective. When we achieved it, we left. Now Republicans want to stay there forever. That is not defense.”