Kirsten Gillibrand for Congress

Background:

As an attorney with fifteen years experience, as well as a wife and mother with deep roots in the region, I have been a civic leader in both the private and public sectors.

After graduating magna cum laude from Dartmouth College, I received my law degree from the UCLA Law School and then served as a Second Circuit Court of Appeals law clerk.

During the Clinton Administration, as Special Counsel to the Secretary of HUD, Andrew Cuomo, I worked to strengthen the Davis-Bacon Act requiring fair prevailing wages. I also helped draft New Markets legislation to stimulate small business and economic growth in lower income areas.

I have advocated for those with no voice and no means who needed first-rate legal representation, including abused women and tenants seeking safety from apartments contaminated by lead paint and other hazardous conditions.

Deeply committed to public service, I serve as Chair of the Women's Leadership Forum Network, on the Boards of the Eleanor Roosevelt Legacy Committee and The Commission on Greenway Heritage Conservancy for the Hudson River Valley, as well as on the Advisory Board of the Brennan Center for Justice, which recently led the call for reform of New York State government.

I intend to fight Washington's current culture of corruption. American values call for decent wages, not windfalls for well-connected special interest groups. Restoring fiscal discipline is also at the top of my agenda, including focusing on tax cuts for middle class families.

The families in our district are facing many challenges: finding jobs, paying medical bills, financing college educations, caring for loved ones who can't care for themselves, and too often simply putting food on the table. I am ready for these challenges, and honored to join the fight.

Goals:

I want to restore to public service integrity and accountability, and a real concern for our families' economic health and safety.

My vision of open government calls for creating policies with constituents, and providing honest leadership that takes those views into account.

Through local forums, town meeting and open door sessions -- by listening to the people of the district offering their own solutions to their own problems -- I hope to make open government a reality. Our district stretches 200 miles north and south and covers ten counties, but I will travel to every corner of it with my family to listen, to share ideas and develop solutions with the people who know best, the families of the 20th District.

I have pride in my district. I was raised here, and this where my husband, Jonathan, and I have decided to raise our two year-old son. Working together, we it can build upon its great heritage and make it stronger.

Issues:

Our security is being threatened on every front. The war in Iraq continues without an exit strategy. Our homeland security remains at risk because the 9/11 commission recommendations have not been implemented. Every day good-paying jobs are disappearing overseas. Affordable health care is just a memory. That is why I focus on core issues of security - both physical and economic.

National Security: First and foremost, we need to promote energy independence. Less reliance on Middle Eastern oil means a safer America. We need to define our mission and end goals in Iraq, as well as our expectation that Iraqis take responsibility for their sovereignty. We must resolve to have no permanent bases, and return Iraqi contracts and enterprises to Iraqi hands. The lack of a strategy from this Administration is not acceptable, and I will be issuing a comprehensive policy on Iraq and homeland defense in the coming weeks. Once issued, I will post it on my website.

We must invest in our troops and veterans. They have been sent into battle without proper equipment, and returned home to overcrowded and under-funded hospitals. We must offer our soldiers comprehensive veterans' benefits to honor their service.

Economic Security: Families cannot feel secure without secure jobs. In our district, we can promote new jobs by investing in and supporting our agricultural and manufacturing base. America must lead in the new energy era by supporting a new energy initiative by providing tax credits and incentives for innovative alternative energy projects, stimulating local industry and business and fully funding local education. We must restore fiscal responsibility to Washington, balance the budget, and lower the tax burden on working families.

We must make access to health care one of our highest priorities. The Medicare Prescription Drug Plan must be reformed to allow the government to bargain for the lowest priced drugs. Current gaps in coverage must be closed as well. The threat to Social Security solvency, which has been highly exaggerated, can be met with modest adjustments. We must reduce excessive overhead costs in healthcare to restore the international competitiveness of our businesses, which is essential to the nation's economic security.

Grassroots Support:

Grassroots organizations are the heart of my campaign. I can't overstate how essential it is to have grassroots organizing at the center of my campaign strategy. I thank everyone involved for the incredible work already being done by our grassroots networks; they are building the communities that make all of our voices stronger.

I want to engage the grassroots in everything from researching issues for policy creation to building voter files and getting out our voters. With local advocates I will create a sustainable network to map and track our district's complex diversity of interests and needs, from private individuals to industrial leaders, from small business owners to local governments, from schools and colleges to churches and non-profits. That is how we will create relevant policies. I will then open this network to empower others to develop our communities.

I believe that once I have heard from everyone in the district and that they have heard from me we will have laid the foundation for a comprehensive get-out-the-vote strategy that will effectively defeat an entrenched politician who is part of the problem.

DFA Values:

I support cutting taxes for those who need it most, the middle-class and working families. I support investments in health care reform that will drive down the costs and expand coverage and fixing public schools so that every child truly gets the education they deserve.

We can pay for these priorities by cutting back bureaucratic pork spending, eliminating the kind of waste and fraud that we have seen with the current climate of bridges to nowhere and no-bid contracts that have undermined reconstruction in Iraq and Katrina devestated areas.

We should further eliminate tax refunds for millionaires; we have to act in earnest to reverse the negative economic trends hurting working families instead of following this administration's trend of long-term commitments that reduce taxes on the wealthiest members of the population.

Our fiscal priorities should be targeted and strategic; throwing money at problem does not work, we need to design innovative, long-term solutions with precise, fiscal discipline.

One example of how I will do this is by creating an energy policy that cuts America's dependence on foreign oil in half in ten years. A tenet of this policy will provide for the research and development of alternative energies and the subsequent burgeoning industries that will foster scientific and technological advancements to reestablish America as a leader of innovation the way the Apollo Project did almost 45 years ago.

Another example is my plan to address our enormous debt burden of almost $4.8 trillion and a Federal government that spends $900,000 more a minute than it takes in. (That burden translates into approximately $10,000 for every New Yorker.) I want us to invest in the American people by returning to a pay-as-you-go budget like the one that helped create the surplus of the 1990s. I also agree with Representative Rahm Emanuel that we should address this by holding a summit on the budget to deal with the debt that's been added up in five years and the structural deficits of $400 billion a year.

With the money saved we could provide people with the health care, education and retirement security that they deserve. We could also provide our soldiers with the armor, training, benefits and support they require and deserve in order to do their jobs and return home safely from Iraq.

I don't have all the answers yet, but with DFA's support I will work determine the viability of the following progressive policies toward bolstering the region's fiscal health:

 Investing in the district's workforce by supporting Trade Adjustment Assistance and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership
 Targeting small business growth through innovation and regional coordination
 Stopping the GOP proposed repeal of the Estate Tax and instead support estate tax changes that do more to protect America's family farms and small businesses
 Boosting unemployment/re-employment insurance, incumbency training and job retraining
 Create incentives for recent grads and young professionals to invest in the region