CD1 can’t be a Venezuela

NEWS MEDIA coverage of the crucial Congressional race for District 1, which includes Albuquerque, has not adequately highlighted the enormous differences between the candidates, Janice ArnoldJones versus self-declared Democratic Socialist Deb Haaland. A few examples:

Deb wants a complete government takeover of health care that would cost at least $32-38 trillion over the next decade. Janice recognizes health insurance means nothing if you can’t get to see a doctor without excessive waits. Care can be improved by cutting out middlemen, improving communication with and between health care professionals, worldwide competitive drug pricing, etc.

On foreign policy, Deb’s “priorities” discussion on her website only says she prefers diplomacy to military force — who doesn’t? — and says nothing else about national defense or national security at all. Janice recognizes we must rebuild our depleted military so we can achieve peace through strength, deterring any potential aggressor.

Deb wants to repeal entirely the 2017 tax cut and reform bill that gave tax cuts to the great majority of our taxpayers, and also impose ruinous new taxes as high as 90 percent on our most productive citizens. Janice would work to correct some flaws in the 2017 bill but keep its many valuable features.

Deb has pledged she’d support the OFF Act — H.R. 3671 — banning all fossil fuels by 2035 and she demands 100 percent renewable energy. Janice supports an “all of the above” energy policy and recognizes Deb’s demands are technologically impossible; striving to meet them would be ruinously expensive and would destroy N.M.’s vital oil and gas industries.

Deb claims climate change is our most important threat to national security and hardly discusses any other threats. Janice recognizes many other threats, from Russian and Chinese aggressiveness to cyber security to our exploding national debt. She would enhance border security while working to develop a path to citizenship for the DACA children.

In brief, Janice’s moderate conservative policies would build on recent economic growth, while Deb’s policies are more akin to those that reduced the onceprosperous democracy of Venezuela to an impoverished dictatorship.

DAVID C. WILLIAMS

Albuquerque