Ensign on the issues

Sunday, Oct. 25, 1998 | 9:22 a.m.

Rep. John Ensign:

* Nuclear waste -- Ensign argued that he'll be able to block attempts to ship high-level nuclear waste to Nevada because he'll be able to peel away Republican senators who previously voted for the proposal.

When the Senate last debated this measure in 1997, 53 of the 55 GOP senators voted to establish a temporary nuclear waste dump in Nevada. Despite the bill's passage, it fell two votes short of overriding President Clinton's threatened veto.

"We're going to need a Republican to convince Republicans to vote against the bill," Ensign said. "I feel very confident we'll be able to stop nuclear waste. Based on my conversations with people pro and con, they don't think the House and Senate are going to be able to work out their differences."

Ensign said he isn't worried that Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., has been quoted as saying that the transport of nuclear waste to Nevada is one of his highest priorities.

"We're going to fight him," Ensign said. "He's going to find out what it's like to fight one of his own colleagues. Remember, he didn't have anybody in the Republican conference last time fighting him."

The congressman also said he supports the study of new technologies to re-process nuclear waste so that it "takes pressure off of people trying to ship it here."

* Crime -- Ensign would push his legislation requiring federal prison inmates to work 50 hours a week in order to earn any perks beyond the minimum food, exercise and medical attention required. A third of their wages would go to their victims, a third would pay for their incarceration, and the balance would be used for their own savings account and for state and local governments that enact similar prison work programs.

"Only one out of eight of them are working right now," Ensign said. "We're going to eliminate cable television (in prison). We're going to take drug dogs into the prisons to sweep the prisons for drugs. And we're going to drug test every prisoner. If found positive, they'll go into treatment programs.

"When you come into prison, we're required to give you three things, an hour out of your cell a day, basic medical and basic nutritional requirements. Unless you participate in our program, that's all you're going to get."

The congressman, who has sponsored legislation banning pornographic magazines from prisons, also supports harsher penalties for sexual predators and criminals who commit gun-related offenses. He also backs legislation that would force a state that grants early prison release to a violent offender to pay all court and prison costs if that individual commits a crime in another state.

Ensign also would like to see more money spent on drug courts because of their success as an alternative for non-violent criminals.

* Social Security -- He wants to remove the Social Security Trust Fund from the federal budget by statue rather than by amending the U.S. Constitution.

"It's difficult to do something with it once it's locked into the Constitution," he said. "We're going to pass the balanced budget amendment, and then we will enact a law, and I'm going to push hard for this, to take Social Security off budget.

"But when you do that, because Social Security masks the deficit between $70 billion and $100 billion a year now, you have to be willing to make tough votes, tough cuts."

He would use any federal budget surpluses on both tax cuts and to pay down the nation's debt.

Once Social Security is off budget, Ensign said he would favor two options for investing the money. One would be to allow younger people to invest a portion of their Social Security payments into "tightly regulated" private accounts that could be invested in stocks and bonds but with a guarantee that they wouldn't lose more than 5 percent annually.

Another option, he said, would be to invest all the money in low-risk stocks and bonds similar to the way Nevada runs its state employee pension fund.

"Over the long haul, even if you average a 5 percent rate of return, you're going to do a lot better than the current system is," Ensign said.

* Education -- The congressman wants to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, replacing it with educational block grants for each state. He has argued that the federal government provides only 5 percent of the money for education but 95 percent of the regulations.

"First of all, get Washington, D.C., out of schools as much as possible," Ensign said. "Washington, D.C., right now is ruining, for instance, special education. Special education teachers can't teach nearly what they should be able to teach. They have to fill out paperwork all day.

"Parents and teachers need to be in control of our schools. I want to see more charter schools and truly flexible charter schools. I want to see good teachers paid more and bad teachers removed."

He favors competency tests, especially for new teachers. He also believes the federal government ought to experiment with tax-supported vouchers that would give parents the choice of where to send their children to school.

* Defense -- Ensign believes American troops are spread too thin around the world and should be removed from Bosnia. He said the United States lacks a coherent foreign policy.

"We're going to be 1,200 pilots short next year," he said. "Pilots are leaving left and right because they're being scattered all over the world. Their quality of life is going down for missions that they don't feel are necessary. Frankly, neither do I.

"We're trying to make our military the police force of the world, and it was never intended to be that."

Ensign would like to see more money spent on military readiness and training. He also believes troops have a standard of living that is "outrageous" and must be improved, noting that 12,000 are on food stamps.

The congressman also supports establishing a defense system to protect this country from intercontinental ballistic missiles.

"We're helping develop this for Israel, yet we're not developing it for our own country," he said.

* Taxes -- He would replace the federal income tax code, preferring instead a national sales tax in the 15 to 17 percent range with a potential exemption for low-income families.

"It encourages savings and investments because you're taxing consumption," Ensign said. "For exports you can't take the income tax off at the border, but you can take a sales tax off at the border. That would make our products more competitive in a global economy."

Ensign also wants to cut taxes and spending, arguing that virtually every federal agency needs "a severe haircut." In addition to eliminating the Department of Education, he'd also like to get rid of the Department of Commerce and Department of Housing and Urban Development. He said HUD could be replaced by spending its money instead on tax credits for builders who provide rental housing to low-income residents.

"We have low-income housing tax credit projects all over town," Ensign said. "I can drive you up to them, and you can't even tell they're low-income housing. With public housing, you have all poor people, a lot of drugs, and it's just a disaster."

The one area in which the congressman actually would raise taxes is on Indian gaming. He believes Indian casinos, which he calls the top threat to Nevada's economy, must be taxed and regulated the same as other gaming establishments in order to maintain a level playing field.

* Environment -- Ensign, who sponsored a law establishing a clean-burning fuel tax credit, would like to expand that so that operators of trucking fleets can get credits for converting their vehicles to non-polluting fuels such as propane or natural gas.

"The more we can get these clean-burning fuels out there, starting with fleets, then once the infrastructure is in place we can start getting them (the fuels) into private cars," the congressman said. "It's a big answer for air pollution for the future."

He also supports the use of remote sensors to catch polluting vehicles, rather than require annual smog checks for all motorists as is the case in Nevada.

"A small percentage of the cars cause most of the pollution," Ensign said. "Remote sensing set up around town targets the polluter, takes a picture of their car, and send them a notice in the mail that says you've got to get your car fixed. And if you don't, then you get a ticket.

"That can actually clean up the air much better than what we're doing today."

The congressman also favors giving private landowners more incentive to help protect the environment.

* Growth -- Ensign wants to secure funding for the construction of a monorail that he said would serve the Las Vegas Strip and extend into the northwest portion of the valley.

"Our traffic is just horrendous," he said. "The quality of life is being hurt by the traffic in this town."

The congressman co-authored a federal land exchange law that will release U.S. Bureau of Land Management acreage for private development in exchange for the protection of environmentally sensitive land elsewhere in the state. He said that law should help manage growth in Southern Nevada but will need to be monitored to ensure its effectiveness.

* Health care -- He would allow anyone to open a medical savings account, terming it an option instead of a panacea.

Ensign also would push for medical malpractice reform by placing a $250,000 cap on punitive damages. He said this is the primary difference between the health maintenance organization reform packages supported by Republicans and Democrats, who favor unlimited litigation.

"We have so many frivolous lawsuits that it's just driving up defensive medicine with all kinds of unnecessary tests being ordered because people are trying to cover themselves," the congressman said. "Everywhere I go it seems that everybody is for this (punitive cap) except for trial lawyers.

"Theirs (Democratic bill) get you into a courtroom. Ours gets you into a health care room."

Ensign voted against Nevada's ballot measure to legalize medical marijuana, noting that the active ingredient found in the plant can already be prescribed in pill form. He also said legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes sends the wrong message to youth.

The congressman would, however, put more money into veterans' health benefits. He noted that an increasing number of veterans are moving to the Southwest, but that the Veterans Administration's allocation of resources such as medical specialists lags in this part of the country.

"We can't afford to be cutting their benefits," Ensign said. "They don't have enough specialists, and they have to wait too long (for care). These are the people who sacrificed for this country, and we need to treat them in the manner that they deserve. Eventually, I'd love to see a VA hospital here."

* Seniors -- The congressman wants to shift Medicare so that it better emphasizes preventative care. He said the program must focus on paying health care providers to keep people healthy instead of covering patients only when they're sick.

"For instance, with dieticians we don't pay them to teach a diabetic how to eat healthy," Ensign said. "A dietician, who knows more about nutrition than anybody, can teach a diabetic how to eat to maintain their blood glucose levels in a way that can prevent heart disease, kidney disease and blindness."

He also wants to continue to get rid of waste and fraud in the Medicare system, while making sure that people aren't punished for honest mistakes.

Ensign also believes people must be better educated on the advantages of obtaining insurance covering long-term care.

"We need to do more of it at home because people would rather be home than in a nursing home," he said. "We also need to make sure the standards for care are very high."

Along those lines, he favors removing the Medicare cap on reimbursement for physical therapy.

"If you can rehabilitate somebody, it may take three, four, five, six months," Ensign said. "If you limit the amount that you spend on them, they could be trapped in that nursing home the rest of their lives.

"But if they can function independently, then you're not in a nursing home and overall you're going to save money and have a better quality of life for the patient."

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