Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

By MICHAEL C. BAILEY

By his own admission, Adam G. Chaprales of Marstons Mills is a reluctant candidate for US Representative of the Ninth Congressional District.

Adam Chaprales of Marstons Mills

“I don’t think anyone wants to be a politician. I don’t think anyone wants to run a political campaign and go through the hardships you have to go through,” Mr. Chaprales said, “but people like myself, that don’t necessarily want to go through what we’re going through, has a passion inside to want to change the community, and that’s why I want to run, because I want to change the direction of where our community’s going.”

“I’m not going to sit on the sidelines and swear at the TV every night because I’m so fed up with what’s going on, I want to be the person that’s actually going down to Washington and championing the issues,” he said.

Mr. Chaprales is emphasizing the fact he is a lifelong Cape Cod resident and says his deep Cape Cod roots make him better suited to represent the region than his immediate Republican rival Christopher Sheldon or his potential general election opponent, Congressman William R. Keating (D).

“I’m not a carpetbagger like most of the people running in this race…I didn’t just move into this district to run,” he said. “I’m in tune with this community. I’ve been in this community my entire life and I know what people want here in this district.”

He also pointed to his experience in local government. At 21 years old Mr. Chaprales became the youngest ever member of the Sandwich Board of Selectmen, defeating a long-term incumbent in the process. He served one term, from 2005 to 2008, and did not seek re-election.

“I have a track record,” he said of his time on the board. “When I ran for selectman, I told the residents of Sandwich what I was going to do when I got elected, and I did everything I said I was going to do.”

Mr. Chaprales criticized not only Mr. Sheldon’s lack of similar credentials in public service but his lack of a solid work history. “Unlike my opponent, who’s had job after job after job,” he said, “I’ve held the same job (at New York Life) since 2006, worked my way up as a partner.”

“Chris is a nice guy. He’s a good kid, he’s smart, but he’s not ready for this,” Mr. Chaprales said. “I am far more experienced than he is, on every level.”

Conversely, he criticized both Rep. Keating and C. Samuel Sutter — Bristol County’s district attorney and Rep. Keating’s primary opponent — as out of touch with voters due to their lengthy careers in public service.

“What we need in that office is one of us. We don’t need another politician,” he said. “We don’t need someone to move into this district that can talk slick, that has years of political experience, we need a representative who is one of us, accountable to the people.”

Local Job Creation

Mr. Chaprales said his top priorities in the campaign are “jobs and the economy, number one,” and said he has become more keenly aware of how economic issues affect him and his growing family; Mr. Chaprales and his wife Aynaz are expecting their first child in early 2013.

“I feel the pinch, the economic pinch. I know what it’s like to put gas in my car and see the gas prices go up,” he said. “I know what it’s like to see the electricity bill going up. I know what it’s like to say gee, should I pay this bill or that bill and wonder if I’m going to get to this bill because I don’t have the money for it.”

During his time with the Sandwich Board of Selectmen, Mr. Chaprales served as the board’s liaison to the Sandwich Economic Development Initiative Corporation (EDIC), and he said community EDICs are underutilized in local job creation.

“We need to start working in collaboration with them, and start getting federal funds over to them and state funds over to them, and help them so that way they can stimulate the economy locally, in all part of our district,” he said.

Similarly, programs like Coastal Community Capital, a program of the non-profit Cape & Islands Community Development, are not realizing their fullest potential due to the lack of funding – for which he faulted Rep. Keating. “Why isn’t Bill Keating working on getting more federal grant money over to [the program]?”

Another part of the formula is stability and predictability in the tax codes, which he said scare businesses away from investing in themselves. “A lot of these businesses are afraid to hire more employees and to invest in the infrastructure of their businesses, because if taxes go up, they’re in big trouble,” Mr. Chaprales said. “People feel victimized to our taxes…there is no predictability right now with our current tax code. Our tax code needs to be reformed and simplified.”

Part of that simplification would involve maintaining the Bush tax cuts for all taxpayers, he said.

Mr. Chaprales said he would prioritize helping the small business community over large corporations, noting that on Cape Cod “we are comprised of small businesses, and if you think that we’re comprised of large corporations where were are, you’re wrong…we’re comprised of mostly mom-and-pop-type businesses, and that’s what we need to stimulate the economy.”

However, the candidate drew the line at getting the government directly involved in job creation through investing in particular companies or industries. “The government should always step aside and let the free market do what it needs to do. The federal government should be an assistant and not a big brother,” Mr. Chaprales said.

“If you want a big loser, get the federal government involved,” he said, citing as an example the “biggest loser in history,” the California-based Solyndra, which received a $535 million loan from the US Department of Energy before filing for bankruptcy in 2011. “The government is terrible at investing.”

Smaller Government

This ties into Mr. Chaprales’s desire to see the size of the federal government shrink and shed itself of costly bureaucracy, duplicated services, and wasteful programs.

Mr. Chaprales said his basic strategy would be to keep government spending focused on public safety, the military, and infrastructure needs, with additional consideration for necessary safety net programs “to help people get back on their feet and get back to work.”

Within that latter goal Mr. Chaprales said it would become necessary to review Social Security and consider raising the retirement age, but he stressed that any changes to benefits should affect only future beneficiaries, not anyone currently collecting Social Security.

He did not outline a specific game plan for accomplishing his goal of shrinking government, and said only he would “stand up and fight for the best interests of my district…I yell, I scream, I kick, and I make noise, and I think my colleagues down in Washington, if I’m lucky enough to get voted in, will understand and back me up, because people are fed up.”

The candidate did not express a desire to reduce military spending. “We’re the number one nation in the world, and that doesn’t come without cost,” he said. “You can’t have both, you can’t have a weak military and be the strongest nation…if you want to be the strongest country, you have to have a big military.”

Mr. Chaprales, like many Republicans, advocates a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act, often called “ObamaCare.” “It shouldn’t have been approved the way it was approved. It shouldn’t have gone through reconciliation,” a process that allows bills to pass with only 51 votes n the Senate rather than the usual 60, he said. “That’s just another way of our President bullying Congress and bullying the American people.”

He said many elements of the plan are undesirable and unaffordable, and would prove burdensome to businesses. Mr. Chaprales agreed health care reform was necessary, but said it should focus on promoting competition by allowing taxpayers to purchase insurance across state lines, increasing transparency by making costs clear and understandable, and addressing tort reform for malpractice insurance.

He added that the government should not force anyone to purchase health insurance. “That’s unacceptable. I wasn’t a fan of the Massachusetts health care law” championed by former governor and current Republican presidential candidate W. Mitt Romney, which includes an individual mandate provision, “and I’m certainly not a fan of ObamaCare.”

When asked how he would avoid the divisive and often inaccuracy-laden public debates preceding the passage of the Affordable Care Act, Mr. Chaprales did not offer a specific strategy. “I think that’s an unfair question to answer” because of its hypothetical nature, Mr. Chaprales said, but said he did not anticipate such a recurrence.

“I think that the Republicans agree that we need to do something with our health care. I think the Democrats agree that we need to do something with our health care. I think that we can all agree that we need to work across the aisle and get something done,” he said, “and I think that the people who are going to get elected for 2013 are going to wake up, smell the coffee on both sides, and say ‘We got to start getting the job done’…and I will be shocked if our American people vote in a Congressional body again with people that are going to be divisive and not want to work for the better part of Americans.”

To learn more about the candidate, visit Mr. Chaprales’s official campaign website at www.adamforcongress.com.

Other Issues At A Glance

Education

Wants states, not the federal government, to determine educational requirements; promoted strengthening community colleges to increase access to higher education.

The Middle East

Mr. Chaprales said he “trusts the military” to do its job properly and should respond appropriately to threats against the United States. He added, “I am not someone who wants to go to war.”

Social Issues

The federal government should not get involved in social issues such as women’s reproductive rights and same-sex marriage, and should allow state governments to enact their own laws; Mr. Chaprales called most current political discussions on such issues “a smokescreen” to distract voters.

By MICHAEL C. BAILEY

When it came time to start thinking about the 2012 elections, Christopher Sheldon decided to look around and check out the potential field of Republican candidates.

Christopher Sheldon of Plymouth

What he quickly learned was that the prospects were few and far between. “I started looking at this race about 12 months ago, trying to find a great candidate,” he said, and in meeting with potential candidates, “time and time again, the response was exactly the same: ‘I’m not interested in running, haven’t heard of anyone who is, if you find someone, let me know’.”

After six months of dead-ends, Mr. Sheldon said people started to suggest that he run for Congress, so in March he formally launched his campaign, and he’s betting his professional background will strike a chord with voters.

“I think [voters] are going to look at me and say, ‘This is a guy who’s really different and perhaps even more qualified than anyone we’ve seen in this area in a long time’,” he said, “and I think that’s something that’s going to excite them, and that that’s really where I differentiate and distinguish myself from my potential opponents.”

Mr. Sheldon is running in the Republican primary against Adam G. Chaprales of Marstons Mills. The winner of that race will face the winner of the Democratic primary between C. Samuel Sutter and the de facto incumbent, Congressman William R. Keating (D).

Rep. Keating currently represents the 10^th District, which is being eliminated as part of the decennial redistricting process. Portions of the 10^th District, including the Cape and Islands, will be rolled into a new Ninth District that also includes the New Bedford area, which is currently part of the Fourth District.

Mr. Sheldon said he viewed the Ninth as a “50 – 50 district, one that could go either way” in terms of whether voters chose a Democrat or a Republican, and he hoped voters will choose to break up the Democratic lock on the state’s Congressional delegation (all 10 Massachusetts Congressman are Democrats).

The Springfield native and current South Plymouth resident touted his extensive and varied private sector experience as a key component of his candidacy. Following his graduation from Syracuse University, he joined the New York-based Worldco Financial Services as a logistics coordinator, and later spent several years with the company as an equities and derivatives trader. The company dissolved in 2003 and he joined the Florida-based iHealth and led the consumer goods company’s sales and marketing department.

After obtaining his Master of Business Administrations from the University of Florida, Mr. Sheldon became a consultant for — and still works with — AlixPartners in New York and Bridge Strategy Group in Chicago, as well as for businesses in the health care, utility, and manufacturing sectors.

Mr. Sheldon believed that voters will find his résumé an appealing change of pace from the professional politician environment that dominates Congress. “Folks are tired of business as usual, they’re tired of professional politicians, they’re tired of people – by people I mean politicians – not taking on the tough challenges, the tough decisions,” he said. “They want somebody with a business background…I think that is unique to my candidacy.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, Mr. Sheldon is emphasizing the economy in his platform, with an eye toward improving the business climate locally and nationally. “I would like to see this country move in a more business-friendly direction,” he said, explaining that increasing government regulations, operational costs, and a corporate tax rate that is not competitive in the global market are conspiring to drive businesses overseas.

In 2012 the United States’ combined corporate tax rate (which includes federal, regional, and local taxes) stood at 39.2 percent, and until March was the second-highest combined rate in the world behind Japan (which dropped to 38.01 percent). The top federal corporate tax rate is 35 percent.

“We’re simply not competitive,” he said, and what the nation is experiencing now in the “flight of capital or the non-return of capital” to other countries is reminiscent of what happened in the 1950s, when businesses began to leave urban areas for outlying suburbs.

“If you go back into the fifties, you see cities believing, ‘We can make these decisions about our local city property tax rates and income tax rates and nobody will ever leave the city. This is the economic hub of our state’,” he said, but those high costs drive capitalists out, and businesses followed soon thereafter.

To reverse this trend, Mr. Sheldon said he would push for a corporate tax rate of 25 percent for large corporations, “and we need consider and at least have a healthy debate on eliminating corporate taxes for small and medium-sized businesses…and we need to consider eliminating corporate income taxes for new businesses, to try to encourage investors and new businesses.”

Mr. Sheldon also wants to greatly simplify the federal tax code, which he described as “convoluted” and “completely unwieldy,” to get rid of special interest-driven deductions and exemptions; and sustain the Bush Tax Cuts for all income levels.

“I don’t think our economy is in a position to really absorb any major shocks right now,” he said. “We’ve created an economy that’s fragile enough that we shouldn’t be messing with it right now.”

While the Ninth District would benefit from such actions in the form of increased tourism spurred by greater economic prosperity, Mr. Sheldon said the district needs industry-specific relief, namely from federal regulations that dampen the fishing industry.

“That is our greatest asset, our coastline,” he said, “so we need to make sure we protect the coastline environmentally…and we need to allow for the continued development of coastal businesses like fishing.”

Through these economic stimuli strategies, he said, the nation can recoup some of the revenue lost through cuts and tax reduction in the form of income and payroll taxes paid by employees and employers as the job market expands. “It’s a lot more powerful to have a growing economy, to have people working, than it is to sit around complaining companies aren’t paying enough in taxes,” he said.

However, Mr. Sheldon said spending cuts must also be part of the equation, and politicians on both sides must be prepared to make sacrifices. “We need to take a step back to try to figure out what out priorities are, try to figure out the things that have to be done versus the things we’d really like to be done, and make some tough decisions,” he said. “I don’t think that any organization at the government level is off the table.”

He included Social Security, and he faulted Rep. Keating for failing to address the issue. “He absolutely refuses to acknowledge that there’s any issue,” Mr. Sheldon said, stating that the Congressional Budget Office has projected bankruptcy for the program by 2031.

(The CBO predicted in 2011 that Social Security will exhaust a $2.5 trillion surplus by 2037. It expects to begin tapping into the surplus in 2018, and once the surplus is drained, assuming the system has not been reformed by then, the program’s annual revenue will be sufficient to cover 75 to 80 percent of its obligations. Rep. Keating has opposed raising the retirement age and privatizing the program.)

A middle ground solution for reducing government expenditures Mr. Sheldon hopes to play a role in implementing is in the elimination of fraud and wasteful government spending, although he admitted that might be a considerable challenge. “It’s weird. Everybody agrees we should get rid of fraud, waste, and abuse,” he said, “but for whatever reason, when you point to wherever you think that there’s fraud, waste, and abuse, then all of a sudden you get an outcry, even though everybody internally and externally agree it exists.”

Mr. Sheldon also expected to realize savings through the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, also known as “ObamaCare,” and maintained the a full repeal would be necessary before the government made a new attempt at meaningful health care reform.

“What we have there is a giant bill with a ton of uncertainty, but one that didn’t really address the issues that they said it was going to address, which is lowering our overall health care costs and making sure that everybody gets covered and making sure people get to keep their plans,” he said. “It doesn’t address the two major issues that we have with health care in the country today, which is a lack of transparency and a lack of competition…the ACA did not accomplish that on any level.”

Because of the bill’s complexity, Mr. Sheldon said it could not be amended piecemeal without risking unintended consequences to other parts of the law. “There’s just too much there in the ACA for us to peel it all back one piece at a time,” he said, “and make some subtle tweaks and changes…what is relatively easy to do is to get rid of stuff cleanly, and it’s a lot cleaner to get rid of the ACA and start over.”

To learn more about the candidate, visit Mr. Sheldon’s official campaign website at www.electsheldon.com.

Other Issues At A Glance

Energy

Wants greater energy independence in the U.S. but wants the free market rather than the government to decide which energy sources are best for the country.

The Middle East

Supports a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine; thinks America should not have an “occupying presence” in the Middle East or engage in nation-building, but should retain enough military presence to address security threats; supports troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Reproductive Rights

“This decision should ultimately be made by a woman in consultation with her doctor,” he said, but wants to reduce abortions performed in the U.S.; opposes federal funding for abortion services, which he said should be covered entirely by the patient and/or her insurance.

Same-Sex Marriage

Marriage is primarily a religious issue, not a government issue, Mr. Sheldon said, but states should decide on who may be legally married through direct voter input rather than court action; supports a repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

Second Amendment

“Unequivocally” supports the right to own firearms, does not believe “responsible citizens” should be restricted in their gun ownership.