Congresswoman Jackie Speier Speaks to San Francisco Leaders

Congresswoman Jackie Speier

Ken Cleaveland, BOMA San Francisco's Director of Government and Public Affairs; Rep. Speier.

Your BOMA Advocacy team attended an informal meeting with Congresswoman Jackie Speier today. Leaders from business, non-profit, labor, and community organizations were in attendance to listen to Rep. Speier speak on issues being debated currently in Washington D.C. Here are the highlights:

On Washington D.C.:

• With the advent of the Obama administration, the changes in Washington have truly been transformational. President Barack Obama has presciently surrounded himself with the best minds he could find, including Raul Emanuel as his Chief of Staff, who is a brilliant strategist and will help take his agenda through Congress.

On Iran:

• The American people and the Iranian people have much more in common than most people realize, which should help bring both countries closer together over time.
  
• Regarding the current civil unrest--due to a contested presidential election--Rep. Speier was supportive of the Administration’s tempered response to the crisis as the right approach to helping stabilize the country.

On Disengagement from Iraq:

• Defining what disengagement means will determine whether the U.S. will truly become disengaged any time soon from Iraq. Although the United States has committed to”getting out” of Iraq by the end of 2011, we will undoubtedly maintain a troop presence in the country as a peace-making measure for the foreseeable future. Speier noted she voted against the most recent Iraqi War appropriation measure as she did not feel it was America’s duty to force every country in the world to adopt democracy as its form of government.
• Speier noted that the U.S. still has over 20,000 troops in Serbia.
  

On Global Warming and the Waxman-Markey Bill:

• The United States "cannot not act" on the issue of global warming.
• On her trip to China with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Speier received comments from Chinese leaders who told them they felt the Unites States should do more to curb carbon emissions before pushing environmental controls on China. They said Americans should help pay to reduce China’s environmental pollution problems because America is China’s biggest customer for its exports.
• The Waxman-Markey bill--the climate and energy measure making its way through the legislative process in Washington--will contain a carbon offset provision. Rep. Speier stated that a number of compromises have been made to bring the bill this far, especially with the agricultural states and coal-producing states.
  

On Health Care:

• Health care in the U.S. is not better than in many other countries, such as the UK, it's just more expensive. Indeed, businesses and individuals have absorbed over 100% increases in premiums in the past 20 years. It costs the United States $7,000 a year per person to fund the current health care system, whereas it's about $3,500 for many other industrialized nations.
• Another issue is that many Americans are under-insured and may not be aware of how low their lifetime medical coverage maximums are.
• President Obama's efforts to reform the health care delivery system in this country is based on maintaining an employer paid private health care ability with the addition of a government-sponsored insurance option. Indeed, 70% of Americans currently have their health insurance through their employer. This won’t change. What will change is bringing the 43 million uninsured people under some form of government-backed medical coverage. Whatever legislation is passed on health care, it will undoubted be a tribute to Senator Ted Kennedy.
• Rep. Speier also mentioned the end-of-life issues needed to be addressed, as the medical community is spending far too many resources on care that won’t prevent the inevitable.
  

On Education:

• The core functions of a state, according to Rep. Speier, are infrastructure and education. These functions are especially important to maintain in times of financial crises, and California is severely failing in both areas. Speier said that California’s Congressional delegation is not interested in “bailing out” the state, and, indeed, believes the state Legislature and Governor are responsible for putting the state into such dire financial circumstances. She said the Recovery Act funds cannot be specifically directed to education, but that she was working on increasing the amount of Federal funding the state receives for Medicare and Medi-aid reimbursements as they currently lag the national norm at 50 cents/per tax dollar versus 57 cents, the national average. This change alone would mean $4-5 billion more to the state.
• Education is key for California’s future and the State is doing "a terrible job", according to Rep. Speier. The State's higher education system has produced great minds decade after decade. As such, California needs to preserve its great institutions of higher learning in order to keep being a world leader in producing new innovations and new technologies.