Linda Lingle says her experience as a Republican governor in a primarily Democratic state makes her the strongest candidate to be Hawaii’s new junior U.S. senator. Linda Lingle says her experience as a Republican governor in a primarily Democratic state
Linda Lingle says her experience as a Republican governor in a primarily Democratic state makes her the strongest candidate to be Hawaii’s new junior U.S. senator.
That experience will specifically be helpful in Congress, where partisanship is driving the two parties so far apart, they argue even when they are trying to do the same thing, such as preventing student loan interest from doubling, Lingle said Thursday during a Rotary Club of Kona meeting at King Kamehameha’s Kona Beach Hotel. She added she can bring the ability to compromise to Congress, which, she joked, has a 9 percent approval rating “on a good day.”
“Being a Republican in Hawaii has positioned me and given me the experience to help others find the way forward,” Lingle said. “You can’t just have your way all the time.”
Given the chance, one of her first federal government cuts would be to reduce or eliminate the Medicaid distribution office in Washington, D.C. Lingle said the “bureaucrats” who oversee that department set policies dictating how states should spend Medicaid funding and don’t consider factors that make each state unique. She proposed returning Medicaid funding to states as block grants, with performance measures to meet but allowing each state to determine how to best meet those measures.
Social Security will also need reform, although people who have been counting on the system — and paying into it for decades — shouldn’t see major changes to their expected benefits. Lingle said she would like to make changes effective for people with at least 25 years to go before retirement, so people 37 and younger. Cost of living allowances for Medicare now exceed inflation, which is one concern, she said. She proposed means testing, and withholding Social Security benefits from people who earn more than a certain threshold.
People with high incomes she’s spoken with about such an income test have told her they don’t mind not getting Social Security — they don’t need it anyway — but they don’t want the federal government to just spend the money. They don’t mind the money being provided to people who need it, however, Lingle said.
Her top priority, if elected, is job creation, and the best way to do that for Hawaii residents is by promoting tourism nationally, and making it easier for foreign visitors, especially the Chinese, to come to the United States.
Businesses nationwide aren’t hiring, she said, in part because they feel uncertain about what changes to economic and tax policy may come in the next four years. Lingle proposed fewer federal regulations, noting examples of local businesses threatened by such regulation. If elected, she said, she would be a voice for Hawaii and other states, questioning broad federal regulations.
Lingle also supports a reform of the country’s tax code.
“It’s out of control,” she said of the existing code. “Why did the tax code get this way? Because we have the highest corporate tax rate in the world, every industry felt compelled” to lobby for some kind of loophole or tax break.
She said she doesn’t blame businesses that did that, but she does blame federal officials for creating such a complicated tax system.
“It should be open,” Lingle said.
