Focus 580; Talk to the Candidate With Jonathan Wright

This morning we'll be having another conversation with one of the candidates who'll be competing in the primary this march here in Illinois to represent their party in the general election for U.S. Senate here from Illinois one of our senators Republican Peter Fitzgerald has decided that he's not going to run again and we have a crowded field with seven Democrats and eight Republicans who all would like to replace him. We invited all of them to be on this program and I'm a little sorry to say that this is the last of the scheduled interviews we have with candidates we've had four of the seven Democrats and now three of the eight Republicans. Our guest this morning is Jonathan right. Let me tell you a bit more about him. He currently serves as Assistant State's Attorney for Logan County Illinois his home is in Lincoln. He has served in the state legislature and the Illinois House he also has worked in the Springfield office of the Illinois attorney general he's a graduate of Chicago canta College of Law and also of Monmouth College in Monmouth. And as we talked this morning with Jonathan Wright course of course questions are welcome the the idea behind these programs is so that

potential voters can ask questions or reporters get to talk with candidates all the time. But here's your chance to ask whatever question you want whatever issues really important to you you just pick up the telephone and you'll have the opportunity to talk with the candidate. Here in Champaign Urbana the number is 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We do also have a toll free line that means no matter where you are in Illinois it would be a long distance call. You can use the toll free line and calls on us. That's 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 3 3 3 WRAL and toll free 800 1:58 WLM Mr. Right. Good morning. Thanks for talking with us. Thank you and going to be a party program. Well I believe you have the distinction of being the only candidate out of all of these 15 who is a downstate or. That's correct I'm the only one who resides south of Interstate 80. So well tell me why you want to run for the Senate. Well part of the reason I decided to do it was forged in my

experience as a state representative. Certainly when I heard Peter Fitzgerald was not going to seek reelection My first thought was not to run for U.S. Senate but as I began thinking about it and other people that knew me both in Springfield and in my community started suggesting it. I looked at it more seriously and I think it's time for someone who is going to bring an honest approach back to the campaign promise process someone who's not necessarily a self funded millionaire that I think frankly turns off a lot of voters to the process. And so. When he's going to try to bring some change to government we always hear the rhetoric on both sides of the aisle but very rarely do we see those actions carried out once they get elected and I think I have a record of understanding all those issues and following through. We have a caller already so I guess we could go ahead and rather than make them wait to talk with them on our line number one right here. Hello. It's called Airline one. Well well maybe either they change their mind

or we haven't got all of our buttons pushed correctly as we don't want to try one more time. OK. Well in any case if there are people who are listening who want to call in again 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 we do also have a toll free line. That's good. Anywhere that you can hear us that's 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. When we get some people ready to go here and we may get that first caller straightened out. OK we'll try. We're going try again we have a caller here in Urbana. Bring it on one. Hello is the call of their on line one. Well maybe we there. Yes ma'am Hello good morning. Yes go ahead. Yes. Good morning. Thank you for being on the program this morning good morning. Great to be here. I love you or you memory or you I'll be glad to do that. The Environmental issues are important as I think we start looking at new energy

sources and I think is we're getting into this issue we're becoming more aware that we not only need to reduce our dependence upon foreign oil but we need to reduce our dependence on oil is a finite supply of oil out there aside from whatever ramifications it may have on the environment. Oftentimes we talk about new findings of oil reserves found many oil reserves in years we're just now able to access oil reserves we couldn't before. And so I think we need to start looking at hydrogen seriously as an alternative fuel source. And I think that's really the way we're headed and I think we just need to get serious about it in terms of how we fund those sources and then funding different sources in the meantime whether that be. But I think burns cleaner or even some other opportunities we may have between now and the time that hydrogen becomes a reality. OK and the second question what I was hoping you got your alternative transportation like Crane walking transit and quality rail service and how you would what kind of legislation you

might try to for you Rich. Oh the other mode of transportation. Well in terms of cycling and walking I don't know that legislatively we can do too much and I know it might be easy to make promises but I'm trying to be honest in my campaign approach I don't know that you can do a whole lot legislatively to encourage cycling and walking. I think we can try to look at alternative fuels that burn cleaner I think public transportation although that tends to be at a local level when you get into different communities are important and I think a lot of communities do have a bank frankly weren't struggles is in the smaller communities you know Chicago and and even purely in Springfield have good public transportation systems but you get the smaller areas and they just don't have that ability to be able to to do that so as we look at funding for transportation I think we need to give as much creativity to the state local governments as we can and frankly need to do a lot more block. Thing to do serious for transportation then to try to make a one size fits all answer in Washington.

Well I would like to take you up on one thanks he said. I you said there's not too much that can be done legislatively to encourage cycling and walking. But there are actually things that can be done that do encourage cycle locking more or are very difficult for individuals to deal the way that the way that we construct our built environment has a large impact on people's transportation choices. And a lot of that I think could be done legislatively encouraging wider right lanes so that cyclists feel more comfortable writing I'm encouraging Wi-Fi to walk in and just the way that we've built our cities so that people feel that they can get around it in this safe way without using their car. Well I'm not opposed to those issues. I guess I would get back to the issue that is a federal U.S. senator. I'm not sure you senators are going to have a lot of direct say or impact on the right of the law. Issues about sidewalks and wider lanes certainly federal transportation dollars are given to the states

and local even to some degree. And that's why I think it needs to be block granting So they have the flexibility to make those decisions. But my understanding is the federal government typically does not get into a lot of those local decisions nor do I think they should. But but we ought to give the local level that flexibility. All right. Thank you. You're welcome thank you. Thanks for the call. Let me ask you a question and give you the opportunity to talk a little bit about the economy since that appears to be perhaps the number one issue I think probably once we get around to having a presidential contest people will be spending a lot of time talking about that while things last year started to look up a bit. The economy is not as robust as Certainly anybody would like. One of the things that Democrats have pointed out is the number of jobs that have been lost over the time that Mr. Bush has been the president and we're adding back some jobs but nothing like at the rate that we have lost them. So we come down to the issue of what if anything the government the federal government can do to stimulate the economy and encourage the creation of

jobs. Well and I think that's an important question. And because ultimately the federal government is limited I think we can create a climate that's conducive to jobs. But we're not going to create jobs in Washington apart from bureaucracy. Ultimately the biggest vote that will be cast will not be cast in March or November it's cast every day when people make their shopping decisions and where they spend their dollars. And if the American consumer wants the cheapest product period there is going to be little the federal government can do to stave off the loss of jobs. So ultimately the American consumer Kassam goes to work. Having said that I think how we work our tax code is important in terms of making our jobs healthy climate. I think we need to look at health insurance most. Jobs in not only the state of Illinois but in our country are small business employers and they're finding it harder and harder if not impossible to deal with this issue of health insurance not only for themselves but their employees.

And so I think we need to tackle the issue of health insurance. And I think we need to really look at is our economy changing in a permanent way much like we did in the industrial revolution. Now I'm not suggesting it will be that significant but to me it is going through some permanent changes. The jobs that we've lost in the last 10 to 12 years are not jobs we're typically going to get back. If you look at the history of some of the cycles of our economy we've had times where the last jobs and then when the economy comes back those jobs are reinstated and they hire back on these jobs are moving and probably are going to be gone so we have to look at how we stop that from happening. And I think part of it is to make ourselves competitive. It's going to be hard for us to compete with other countries in terms of wages. So I think we need to look at what we can offer. Transportation certainly in manufacturing is a critical issue. And if no one is aware of what's going on. Show with our Intermodal. It's an ingenious creative way where they thought outside of the box and they're actually bringing jobs back to their area because they looked at what assets they do have and transportation was one of them.

The one thing that I think is fair to say the one thing that the president has proposed in along the way of economic stimulus is a tax cut. And the Congress did indeed pass a package of tax cuts and that was perhaps when President Bush was running for election the first place that was one of the things that was on the top of his agenda. Now the one thing about those tax cuts is that they have a built in sunset. And if they're going to be made permanent the Congress is going to have to do that. I am I am assuming I guess that if you were elected you would vote to make those tax cuts permanent. Yes I would do so and I think they have helped to try to jumpstart the economy back. Certainly we'd all like to see the economy farther along than what it is but I think it's headed in the right direction and I think the tax cuts were helpful in that area. And I think the tax code is an important reason why we do lose a number of companies. You know Governor. It has been very critical of offshore companies because they go to countries where the tax code is much more friendly or well you know what we can deal with that is try to make our tax code a little bit more friendly not only

in the United States but in Illinois as well too. I know that there are some candidates who believe that the that the government the federal government should do something to discourage companies from taking jobs here in the United States and relocating them in some of the country. They they have the idea for different people maybe have different ways about approaching it but that somehow that there ought to be some sort of penalty for that and that's something that the Congress could address to take away some of the advantages a company might see in taking taking American jobs and exporting them. Do you think that there that would be appropriate anyway that that would be appropriate. I've not seen any specific proposals on that. Certainly I would want to see any specifics but I think we get to the issue then art is that it can to a Terra rule. What we make of it and not so much because tariff is a bad word but because even today the World Trade Organization has issued sanctions to the United States

because of what they perceive to be tax subsidies that gave American companies a benefit. And so how would that be perceived by the World Trade Organization by other countries and would we have other sanctions passed on because of that. And then ultimately we get to the question of business is freedom to be able to move. If we've created a disincentive for businesses to remain in this country should we penalize them then for going to other countries where they create an incentive for them to come. I think the better response is not to penalize them but to remove those disincentives. We have a couple of other callers and maybe I'll just introduce very quickly our guest we're talking in this hour focus 580 with Jonathan Wright. He is a Republican one of eight that will be competing in the March primary here in Illinois on March 16th. That will then go on and represent their party in the general election running for the seat that's being vacated by Peter Fitzgerald in the United States Senate. There are a number of candidates as I mentioned beginning there eight Republicans and there are seven Democrats and some of them have been

interested in here being on this program and we're pleased they could give us some of our time questions here a welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We also have a toll free line good anyway. Where you can hear us that's eight hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5 are next. Both callers are in Urbana. Next is line number two along. I don't want to give the impression I'm trying to blindside you. But are you familiar with the congressional study that came out on hydrogen this morning. I have heard bits and pieces of it I haven't had a chance to go through it in detail I know the president has commented on it but I wouldn't claim to be an expert on it already. Well essentially it's a finding that it will not be practical for probably about 50 years that we have no way of containing hydrogen and you know fuel tank. We need very basic research.

Given the probability do we need to both focus on fundamental research on hydrogen but also on fuel conservation with existing technology and pollution controls. Well I think we need to have a two pronged approach. I certainly understand when I talked about hydrogen that's not something that's going to happen in the next year 10 years 15 years although I have heard the term 20 years used but but I'll certainly defer to you I haven't had a chance to go through it in detail. We do need to stay focused on looking at hydrogen. And other sources long range part of the reason we're in the problem now is because we perhaps haven't had the long range vision we should have had in terms of alternative fuels. But having said that I think we need to also look at what we can do between now and then. And ethanol I think is one way we can look at burning a cleaner fuel. That is something we produce that reduces our dependency upon foreign oil. I think we need to look at a lot of technology that's also being developed for other resources

we have more than unbelievable resource we have in this country. And there's a program called future agenda that would actually trap a lot of the product from coal and it's burning underground in the coal mine after the coal is read eradicated from the ground. And there's some great technology I know even in Logan County there's a possibility of some nuclear clean burning technology that's going to put in. Coal burning plants. So we need to look at those in the interim is ways we can burn officially and friendly to the environment and there are resources that reduce our dependency on any foreign energy will there be oil or otherwise. Thank you. You're welcome Let's get another caller this is also Urbana and it is the line number one. Hello. Oh good morning. Good morning. I was interested in your response to the lady who was asking about things that might be done on a federal level to improve pedestrian and bike traffic locally or in urban settings. And I think

that you're probably assuming a rather short sighted position when you say the federal government can't do much because if we look back about 30 years here at the University of Illinois where a lot of work was done to change sidewalk design and door design and so on to help disabled people navigate the campus in the near environs. And later these programs are translated into state and federal programs with the Americans with this. Abilities act. I think there's a certainly the same possibilities to improve and gauge federal dollars and federal insanities for pedestrian and bike traffic and with a country that is going as obese as feature stories tell us weekly almost daily. Whatever we

can do to get ourselves off of our fat backsides is not only an economy in the consumption of fossil fuels not only a way of Riva fighting our central cities which are rotting at the core but a vital incentive to a healthier lifestyle and I really think you're dismissing something that. Or is it you treated this lady's query rather dismissively in an area that's important to a lot. Well I am sorry you took it that way I was really just trying to bring what I thought was an honest conversation about the NIE that you said that you thought a little possibility of federal action and what I'm saying is 30 years ago. If somebody had posed the same question to you about disabled people improving access to or you know of ordinary streets and doorways and public

facilities for disabled people your present answer would indicate a disposition to the said 30 years ago. Oh no the federal government shouldn't get involved with something like that I hope to change your mind. Well and I appreciate that I am not changing what I said or backing away. From that but I do think there is a reality the 88 was designed initially for accessibility not necessarily to and to encourage more people to be walking and traveling it was really an issue of well I think to those who are disabled having utility argument I only presume that the humble. But but revolutionary instance of where the federal government in a very imaginative stretch interested itself in projects that were piloted first at universities. And I don't see why this is such a stretch to say that pedestrian and bike traffic can't be handled by the federal government in much the same and lightened way.

Well listen I've said my piece. Thank you thank you for calling. I will go on here next is another urban a person this is lie number three. Hello good morning. I have two questions for you. OK my first question is whether or not you oppose opening our second National Wildlife Refuge up for oil drilling. I don't oppose opening it up. I think it is. A short term solution it does provide us with an immediate need to reduce our dependency upon foreign oil now to be consistent with what I said before we need to reduce our dependency upon oil completely. But as the previous caller noted we're still a number of years away from getting to some of those serious alternative fuel sources. I think the proposal that was made was an environmentally safe proposal. And I think it would have helped at least in the immediate future to reduce some of our dependency upon foreign oil. Are you aware that there's only six months worth of oil and that it would take seven to 10 years to get that

oil to the market. I mean it's not a perfect solution but also if we don't get the oil from there we have to get it from elsewhere. I mean I think we have to be realistic and recognize that at least in the immediate future we're still dependent upon oil. And having said that we need to start tapping into whatever resources we can here domestically to try to access it. I think my second question is if George Bush is re-elected next fall and the opportunity presents itself during his term for him to appoint a Supreme Court justice to the bench on the basis of whether or not they were pro-choice or pro-life if he appoints a pro-life judge on that topic alone would you support or oppose there a confirmation process if the justices pro-life. Would support their confirmation process and I think certainly is a secondary answer they would deserve a vote one way or another. But they would certainly get my support.

OK thank you. You're welcome thanks for the call. Again we'll continue and believe our next caller is in champagne. I think the line number two. Hello good morning. Yes go ahead. Yes OK. I think you all think you underestimate the federal capacity to change things in terms of transportation especially like your comment about. But champagne. No modal transfer station to the right to be removed from the type trains that go take. So I found us and often they're shocked by so much. No attached and no. Can be taken for an exchange very quickly and they can move around cities without you know between.

You know that already. I can encourage that sort of process. Your federal. Yes which allows you to get a cart horse like you do in Danville and let me get an interim basis and keep the car doors for possible future and different start of it. I wonder what I wonder if you can say something about a little bit more about the modal right situation as it comes to places like champagne. I'd be more than happy to address it now you certainly will claim to be an expert on it but. I think you bring out some some legitimate issues that we need to be creative on in terms of dealing with transportation in Rochelle specifically at that particular site. The Union Pacific in the Burlington Northern Cross at that site. And so someone there I think it is very creative idea to say let's put it in a model where products can be transferred

either to the train or off the train to some money. I rather quickly and reduce a lot of the transportation costs and I know they're already getting manufacturers who are wanting to relocate because their friends will go down by at least a million dollars a year because of less shipping that they have to do to get it to the Rio specifically. I'd also like to comment I think small is beautiful I'm not I don't I would not write the face some of these small runs pushed out of action by huge I can only run on very heavy duty lines. So I'm running for something. More and more traditional and I think some of the ghost writer Grant for railroading him out I could encourage that sort of thing. I agree and I think that you're bringing up some excellent examples of how we need to be creative and in how we approach this issue and one of the ways may be looking at real

sources that would be other than the traditional heavy duty rails but would at least allow transportation between two sites of a freight and then make transportation more cost effective and also reduce. A lot of the energy issues that we've been talking about in terms of the need for less fuel to be consumed in transporting those so I think really we're only limited by our own image. Mission in creativity in these discussions but we need to start discussing it he said. Congestions in cities where the prime issue and what I could and I could never have been mentioned through already right. I agree and I don't I'm not running because I think I have all the answers to deal with the transportation but I am running because I think I can try to focus some of this discussion in trying to address these needs. Thanks very much. Thank you and thank you for the call. Well go on to a caller here in Crystal Lake Illinois a line number for yes.

I don't have business overseas because we can get it laid laid just laid there whether it's Mexico or now China today. You know and certainly the unions have been building. They get the overseas labor for slave wages and off. So I think that the tax cuts are not really necessary because I think that if a company has based in the United States and they produce overseas they can say it's the U.S. credit and they don't have to pay a tax for shipping into this country and for the other reason that the and the business goes overseas really because. Well the well maybe we will get to you know certainly a lot of companies like Enron they get tax havens overseas aid. They don't have to pay any tax a particular money in banks in the Cayman Islands

and Rand had a high has or had a hundred banks overseas. And and oh I know. And also the bedrock of going overseas is that we are we including United States Germany and Japan kept the value of the dollar up so that things were cheaper over there and they kept the oil and other countries had a head of the devalued dollar. And now that consumption isn't so good that the value of the dollar has gone down and I think that's purposely done to encourage overseas investment. When and when you can get things cheaper produced over there. And I'm transportation certainly in mass transit in this state because even kayaking space is getting we're using at budget and land and Owsley mission. Republicans usually don't know what you're for but they usually don't land until the mission efficiency they want high use of gasoline for cars like SUV.

Well let's say you're rid of a whole lot of questions I want to give that. Guest a chance to respond to some of what you've mentioned some some of the things we've touched on before but there are a few new points Mr. Reich you want to talk about any and all of that. I'll do my best. She raised a lot of great issues and I'll try to recall them as best I can in terms of the tax code. I think there are a lot of things we can try to restructure for example in America if you have a domestic corporation and they produce something that is sold in a foreign market in terms of the income they pay a tax here for not only what they generate domestically. They then pay a tax on what they sell on a foreign market here in America and then they pay the tax in the foreign market for the income they generated there so there's essentially three taxes they have to pay whereas if they go to that foreign market typically most other foreign countries don't tax them for what they earn overseas. And so there again that that's just one example I

think of how we've created a disincentive for companies to remain here in terms of the wages. I think you're right we have a difficult time competing with. With those slave laborers and low wages and I think that's where we really need to try to deal with the World Trade Organization although I think it's failing miserably. China has been a part of the World Trade Organization for 18 months and they have yet to address their slave labor labor issues they've yet to address how they steal our intellectual property even though it's protected by our laws. They steal it and then produce it in mass quantities that that's slave labor. And so frankly the World Trade Organization has not addressed that and we need to address our role in the World Trade Organization. And lastly and others you mentioned Enron getting back to the tax code. Art of I think a big part of the reason Enron happened is because the way we started taxing profits off. Stocks used to be when the market was in its early stages

the value of the stock had a little bearing on whether somebody made money off it it was all dividends and it was driven by dividends. Then we started taxing those dividends and so corporations then started to look for other ways to get it to their shareholders and so they went with the value of the stock which is a very vague issue in terms of what is the real value of the stock and so dividends is decreased and we started to go to value the stock and buying it low and selling it high and then it encouraged unfortunately a situation where you had some dishonest people manipulate the books to try to get high stock. I think what we need to do is get back to a divot dividend oriented market where we don't get into the gray areas of the value stock. We are moving into our last 20 minutes here on the program we have some other callers and radio would certainly encourage anybody call in. And again I think I should probably introduce our guest We're talking with Jonathan Wright he is one of eight Republicans that will

compete in the March 16th primary here in Illinois to represent their party in the race for the U.S. Senate. Pete Fitzgerald Republican senators not running again. We have an open. Seat and a very large field of candidates eight Republicans seven Democrats will be competing in the primary just a little bit more in terms of background. But our guest he is an attorney he's a graduate of Chicago-Kent College of Law. He worked in the Springfield office of the Illinois attorney general. He also served in the general assembly. He was state representative for the former 90th district in Illinois this was from June of 2001 until January of 2000 and three currently He serves as Assistant State's Attorney for Logan County. And he makes his home in Lincoln. Questions are welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Back again to a caller in. Well let me see. No we're going to go to Belgium. Over by Danville line number two.

Hello good morning. Good morning sir. I'd like to direct your attention in slightly different direction. The primary system that we're using we're doing is really good for those influence groups that may have enough money. Now I'm not really referring to the primary that you're involved with where it's much more low. Straight right situation I'm referring to the federal primary system that we have at this point. We don't. And in March the 16th. We're not going to vote for a presidential Democratic candidate. It's already been decided for us in previous elections. Wouldn't it be much wiser to have much better representation if we did it all on One Day proclamation. I think that outstanding question I think that's something that really needs to be considered seriously I wouldn't want to go on record committing to it because I haven't seen all the pros and cons but it certainly creates a situation where people don't go to the polls the polls because

in Illinois they'll think well it's already decided as you mention and I'm not going to have any impact on it. I think we need to be doing the opposite we need to be creating as much interest and involvement in the process as we possibly can and it will implicate our race because I think we will have a lower voter turnout in this primary and in a crowded field where we have less people showing because they'll perceive the Democrat presidential candidacy has decided it's uncontested on the Republican side. I think we will have a very low voter turnout. And you always hate to see that in our form of government when people are going to the polls and feeling like they have a real voice and say and I think there's a lot of ways we need to address and number one the timing of when we do our primary system. I don't agree with Peter Jennings on a lot of things but he made a very interesting point last week when he said polls have really become a lazy way for media to address this issue because we now do so many polls that that there are again people buy in to think well it's already taken care of and going into Iowa they thought it was between Howard Dean hand and Dick Gephardt. And that's what all the polls suggested and

so who knows how many people actually took part in that caucus system in other primaries because they thought the polls had it won one way or another so I think there's a lot of issues we need to address in our whole system to really try to create voter interest in turnout. Thank you very much sir. Thank you and thank you. The last poll that I saw of course people you can decide whether you may or may not believe in polls that asked about the the the Senate the primaries for the Senate here said that among people there were a lot of people who said they had not made up their money. And so I think one has to acknowledge that a lot of people that are on the side but of those people who expressed a preference for a candidate as I recall it the candidates who came out on top on both sides Democrat or Republican were those candidates who had the greatest personal financial resources to commit to the campaign and had been able to spend a lot of money on advertising. And I wonder what you think about campaign finance as it exists and whether in fact that presents a son an unfair advantage if you have somebody who is a multimillionaire and decides that he will spend all the

money he's got. That certainly puts someone like you but doesn't have that kind of resources in most of the other candidates don't at a great disadvantage. And that's a good point because we get asked an awful lot about campaign finance reform and the reality is any campaign finance reform that flows out of Washington benefits somebody as much as they may like to put a spin on it that I really object to the fair system in this case and campaign finance always been. Common And number two in this case it benefits those who are personally wealthy. I think we really need to what we need to address with campaign finance is open and honest reporting of where a person or a candidate is getting their money from and not so much a concern when are they investing it from their own money or is it coming from others. If we have open and immediate disclosure of where a candidate receives funding then people can make use of that resource and decide are right there tied to these interest groups and I don't I'm not going to support that. In this case I know they have what's called the millionaire Amendment

and the $2000 cap of contributions can increase if a candidate infuses a lot of their own money. But that too can be manipulated because frankly a smart candidate would wait until the last 60 days to infuse a lot of that money. And therefore by the time the millionaire amendment was triggered it would be too little too late to really have an impact for any of their opponents. So I think what we have right now however well-intentioned may have been is not effective. And we just need to get to a point where it's open and they're pretty close to immediate disclosure of where the funds are coming from and then let people make their decision. And you would not approve or favor any kind of public financing of campaigns. No I don't necessarily want to go to that route where we have just a finite value and because I think then you get into. First Amendment implications of whether we can eliminate eliminate a person's ability to spend money which is a form of apparently speech is what the the US Supreme Court has called it.

And whether there are now limited to how they want to spend their funds in terms of supporting a candidate I think the issue with the funding of it isn't so much how much but where it comes from and what we need is disclosure so the public can be well informed to say they're getting their money from these interest groups or from this lobby group. And therefore I'll make my decision accordingly. We have another caller here writes to Atlanta Illinois lawyer one. Hello. Interesting conversation and a good parrot. I've got a lot of questions right now most politicians are pretty well founded on economic things for the better. Their campaign campaigned rotate through. And which is you know justified considering the problems we've had in the last couple years with the economy. However about a year ago in the last report one of the top Democratic spinmeisters was on there it was a gentleman from Texas and I'm sorry that I forgot his name right now. And Jim Laird interviewed him at length

and at the end of the conversation he asked him what he thought the most important issue facing the Democratic Party was and I was kind of shocked at the answer because being a top politician I didn't think this would ever come out of his mouth but he said the the environment and you know that that looks more of a long term thing than our present economic thing and I know the senator that you would like to replace is a very strong environmentalist and I just wonder where you rank the environmental issues on your agenda. And I'll hang up and listen thank you very much. Well thank you all. I'll try to be as specific as I can on on that question although it is pretty broad. I certainly think we need to be strong in with regard to the viral environment not because the environment is is something we worship in and of itself but because we need to be good stewards of it and obviously if we're going to make use of the resources that we have around us the only responsible way to do that is to be good stewards of it. Now

that probably may not be the best of answers because that could probably be going in either direction. But I think we need to really focus on our new mobile resources make sure we're protecting those resources and using them as wisely as we possibly can getting the most out of it without limiting our ability to use it for future generations. Well again I hope that it gets to the question of the car. I hope so too it was kind of a broad based question so it was a broad based answer but but I hope you find that satisfaction when we have less than 15 minutes and certainly the time for other questions 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Do you do. Do you support did you support President Bush on the war in Iraq. Yes I did at the time. We went into Iraq and I still do now. I think it's it's an important issue as we try to deal with not only a rogue country that's working toward weapons of mass destruction and there's been plenty of proof that they certainly had it in the past. And there's even proof now that we can't

find the smoking gun that they were again working towards it for the immediate future. And I think we need to address those issues the potential ties with Al Qaida. I support the president and his great justness for stepping forward and taking action. The man who was leading the effort to find the weapons of mass destruction some time ago made a quite a lot of got a lot of attention because essentially he said he thought that there weren't any. Now the administration has said they intend to keep looking I think for a lot of people. A bottom line question is suppose that we never do find them. We and it may be that they had the. The expertise and the intention. But did not and the president in his State of the Union speech not this year but in the year before before the war said very clearly he has the weapons. He has them now. He is willing to use them if it turns out that in fact there were no weapons of mass destruction. Do you think that that matters

in when one asked this question Was it the right thing to do to go in there or not. Given that the the assumption that question and I would be prepared to make that admission yet but given that assumption the question I still say yes because if they have the intention and they're actively working towards it and they have scientists who are working on those weapons of mass destruction President Bush called this a preemptive strike and everyone knew it was a preemptive strike and obviously it loses some of its preemptive nature if we also wait until they actually have them although at the time we launched we thought like they did have them. And I think we need to address our intelligence and how we gather intelligence to make sure that we don't have a failure in the future. But they were certainly on track to have it and we have a rogue nation like Iraq. I don't think we automatically should wait till they have it and then try to bargain and be in a position where if we attack they can use them against us. So I would still support it.

Clearly there's enough information now that they were on a track for producing them although they may or may not have actually had them in hand. We invaded Iraq. Are you satisfied with what we're doing in terms of homeland security and if the answer is No. What should we be doing that we are not. I would say overall I'm satisfied. You know it's kind of a difficult question because you always want to keep yourself sharp and when you become too satisfied that's when you let down your guard. So we need to keep looking for ways to improve. But I think the president and Secretary Ridge have done a very good job of trying to address some of these issues in terms of homeland security in terms of trying to make sure there's a coordination of information and I think that's one of the most fundamental changes we had after 9/11 was coordinating the information between federal agencies state agencies and local agencies. And in making sure we have response teams in place if something were to happen. So I think we've done a good job there's always room for

improvement. I don't have any specific idea in mind now but we always need to make ourselves better at whatever we do. President Bush has proposed a program that would give illegal immigrants in the United States a temporary worker status that essentially we're talking about here is a guest worker program for the United States if sponsored by employers they could stay for three years and people living outside the cunt. Free could apply for this temporary status but they couldn't bring their families and it's not designed to make it any easier for these people to become citizens just the idea is that they would come here temporarily and they would work. This is just a proposal it's just on the table of course. No telling what would happen to it if it managed to work its way through the Congress but just based on what it is the president has said. What do you think of that idea. I I applaud the president for bringing the issue out. You know obviously not talking about illegal immigration is trying to talk about everything but the elephant in the room so to speak. I think maybe the timing of it was in reverse.

I think before we start addressing some type of program to deal with those illegal immigrants that are already here we need to start working with the government of Mexico and securing our borders. The stem the flow of legal age. Because until that happens if we say we will grant some type of legalization and I understand he's not proposing Lam's some type of legal status to illegal immigrants. It's counterproductive because it actually increases the amount of illegal immigration. And if you look at the statistics from the INS and in the last couple of months since the president made this proposal there has been a spike in the number of immigrants who are trying to come to our borders illegally. And so I think first what we need to do is is work with securing our borders a little bit better work with the Mexican government to to try to help them address this in. Finally So there's not as much pressure for them to leave Mexico. And then once we've done that then we can be in a position to say how do we then best address the situation with the number of illegal immigrants we have in this country.

We have another card. Let's talk with someone in her Bama. Well in one. Hello. Yeah. What is your what are your thoughts on what's going on in Haiti. Do you think the administration of the right thing down there and if not do you think there might have been another way to handle this. Well I appreciate the call and the question I think the administration handled it appropriately. A rather than getting in too quickly we waited to see what the situation was we did send some in troops to make sure we guarded our own the embassy and our own citizens. And now we're sending a larger contingency that has international backing. I think it had to come to a point where steeds had to step away from that government and really we needed to then allow them the ability to maintain some security and try to get the democratic process moving forward again so I think the president handled it well as well as it can be handled under very difficult circumstances you always need to read about the loss of life

that occurs. But obviously the Haiti people are the ones that need to make some determinations on where they need to go as a country. Why. The Haitian had actually elected earth. They had elected terrorists. But they then the question is and I think Senator Secretary Powell addressed this in some of his comments this morning that that airspeed was then not really running much of a democratic process once he got the vote and of course we can't assume that we're comparing apples and oranges when we talk about voting because it's not exactly like it is in American terms of how the government than handles itself since then and you have a large number of people who really felt like your steed was was running the government in anything but a democratic process and they were not having a voice and they were not having a say in and the people were literally starving in some parts of that country so they felt as unfortunate as it is the old the only way they could address it was to bring violence to the table no no one encourages that or wants that. But

obviously our stated made some policy decisions that forced people to to do. Will be what they wanted to do least of all. Well if we're having difficulty with democracy just 200 miles away what kind of odds would you give democracy working in Iraq for example. Well Iraq is going to be a rough road. You know we have had a lot of years for our own country to develop and even before we had our Constitution we had freedom in many respects just practically speaking set aside the legality of it in this country in terms of being so distant from Great Britain or England. So it's going to be a rough road because you're you were infusing a new concept into Iraq now that's not to say we still shouldn't forge ahead and pursue it. But I don't think we can try to look at this through rose colored glasses. They know that they have some very form of government established that in the year everything will be wonderful it's going to be a tough road and that's why I think we need to stay committed to helping them through this process. OK

thank you. Thank you. We have a couple minutes left. I want to ask at least about one other area and that's education. THE PRESIDENT One of the things that he said when he was running was that he was very concerned about the quality of education in this country and so ultimately what happened was he proposed and the Congress passed this legislation that's come to be called No Child Left Behind and the idea is that that there should be accountability and schools are required to set standards and then test and then demonstrate whether or not they have met those standards. And then funding is contingent on their being able to demonstrate that it's a proven fairly controversial and now actually around the country there are places where schools are actually talking about opting out saying fine we we're not we're not going to go down that road. What are your thoughts. About No Child Left Behind I didn't support No Child Left Behind. Senator Kennedy introduced it in the Senate nor the one the president signed it. I think we need to make some fundamental changes in the education. I don't think

standardized testing is necessarily the way to go even within the academic field there's even those who dispute the really the validity and purposefulness of standardized tests. And I think when you talk a lot of teachers it's a problem because they have to break their curriculum and then spend four to six weeks teaching the standardized test just to make sure that the school can retain its funding. And then you have this uncertainty thrust upon in the middle of the curriculum what with the standardized testing. And I think the issue of accountability also comes a little too late. You know a school has to have gotten bass as bottomed out really on their standards before accountability is infused into the scenario and my concern is then do we sacrifice four five six generation students while the school is going down. In terms of their standards before we allow the parents to have some some measure of say as to where their children go. And then we've got to address the notion of his there the ability for other

schools to absorb students. In Chicago there's a couple of schools where the students now qualify to choose other schools and there's a waiting list and a place to go. I mean it sounds great to say well we'll let them go to other schools but the other schools don't have the ability to to absorb those students into their system. Well you know we're we've used our time we're going to have to leave it at that with our thanks. Mr. Wright one thank you very much for giving us some of your time today. We thank you very much enjoyed being on the program. Excellent call them and a good exchange of ideas and that's what that's our system apart from every other system in the world so I'm privileged to take part in and thank you for the opportunity to be here. All right Jonathan Wright he is one of eight Republicans that will be competing in the March 16th primary one of them go on to represent their party in the general election for the U.S. Senate. This is for the seat that's now held by Peter Fitzgerald.