News
1st District candidates face off: Progressive, Republican challenge Olver
26th August 2008
1st District candidates face off: Progressive, Republican challenge Olver
Published: Tuesday, August 26, 2008
GREENFIELD -- The two candidates at Monday's political forum stood, politically speaking, to the right and left of Congressman John W. Olver. The only one missing was Olver.
The two-hour-long session at the Greenfield Public Library was among the last in a series of 26 ''town hall meetings'' planned by Republican candidate Nathan Bech, 34, of West Springfield. The veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is hosting the sessions this month as part of his bid to unseat the 17-year House veteran from Amherst, who was attending the opening of the Democratic National Convention in Denver Monday.
But while Democrat Olver hasn't accepted Bech's invitation to attend the Republican candidate's sessions, Stockbridge Democrat Robert Feuer -- a progressive Democrat challenging the incumbent in the Sept. 16 state primary -- was on hand, along with about a dozen members of the public and supporters of the two.
A spokeswoman for Olver said earlier Monday that he would not attend campaign functions until the current Congressional session ends after September.
Although Bech and Feuer remained cordial throughout their 15-minute presentations and question-and-answer sessions, they differed on virtually every issue but one: that the First Congressional District deserved better representation in Congress than it was getting from Olver.
Bech criticized Olver for his opposition to drilling for offshore oil or in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge and to building a fence along the Mexican border, and called his support for earmarks ''wasteful uses of taxpayer money'' -- even those benefiting the district.
Earlier Monday, Bech scheduled but then did not attend a Bank Row press conference to blast Olver's work in getting $250,000 ''for a boarded up bank that's been closed for decades … We should confine bank bailouts to those financial institutions that actually hold deposits.'' He also criticized Olver's work in getting $200,000 for a citizens' group to renovate a movie theater in downtown Amherst, asking, ''Doesn't the First Amendment provide for separation between the arts and government?'' Feuer, a 6-year lawyer and Coast Guard veteran, said he decided to try to unseat Olver after the fellow Democrat refused to support his efforts to impeach President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
During Monday's meeting, he voiced support for a single-payer health plan and his opposition to the Iraq war, which he termed a ''foreign hostile occupation. I don't buy that we're at war; I don't know what nation we're at war with.''
When the two candidates differed on drilling for additional oil -- Feuer emphasizing a pressing need to develop renewable technologies with ''the lion's share of investments,'' while Bech called that a ''long-term'' strategy -- Donna Peterson of Greenfield said, ''Nate, I'm a Republican, and I want so bad to vote for you, but what Bob is saying is where my vote is headed … The longer we talk about drilling in America, the further we are from new technologies. I just see it getting put off and put off.''
Peterson also questioned when Bech said he would do away entirely with the so-called ''death tax,'' and Feuer said he would favor a ''hybrid,'' reforming the inheritance tax but ''using the tax code to reward good economic behavior.'' Feuer said the Reagan-inspired tax reforms, rather than resulting in a trickle-down effect, has meant more ''being collected from the rest of us. … We've been trickled on long enough.'' Repealing the inheritance tax, Peterson told Bech, ''We're going to have a nation of a few princes and princesses, and a lot of very poor people.''
Richard LaFrance of Whately pressed the candidates on health-care reform, asking Bech, ''What's wrong with a single-payer pie? Why pay these (insurance) people $1.2 trillion a year for scaling pieces of paper back and forth?'' Bech responded that states could experiment with single-payer approaches to see how they work, but the U.S. health care system is too large to be overhauled all at once. Instead, he called for lowering health-care costs through tort reform, bulk drug purchases and emphasis on prevention programs.
Asked whether they favor a line-item veto, Bech responded that he did, while Feuer said, ''I don't agree that all that power should be in the hands of one man to undo that (congressional) deliberation.''
Bech, who has held similar sessions in Shelburne, Orange, Sunderland and other communities around the 107-town district, attracted three people to a meeting Monday morning at Bernardston Town Hall.