3 for Congress spar over veterans bill

CONWAY — The Heber Springs mayor looking to unseat Arkansas’ 1st District Republican congressman criticized the incumbent Friday for his vote against a Veterans Affairs bill that increased funding for veterans medical treatment and expanded health care access.

During an AETN debate, Democrat Jackie McPherson said that U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford of Jonesboro was wrong to vote against H.R. 3230, which allows veterans living more than 40 miles away from VA hospital to get care from non-VA doctors and facilities.

The bill, which came about in response to publicized mismanagement of the veterans administration, passed the U. S. House of Representatives with overwhelming bipartisan support.

It also makes it easier to fire bad VA hospital executives and reduce VA bonuses paid to administrators.

Crawford was one of five to vote against the bill.

“Four-hundred-and-twenty members of Congress, the entire Arkansas delegation … all voted for this bill except for [Crawford],” McPherson said. “In my eyes, he cannot defend that vote.”

Crawford pointed out that McPherson was the only

nonveteran in the race and called McPherson’s criticism a gross mischaracterization of what happened.

“As far as the firing authority, that affects 1 percent [of administrators]. So the other 99 percent are left alone with no accountability,” Crawford said. “If [McPherson] had [read the bill], he’d see that this was a bad approach and a typical Washington [response] — business as usual, let’s throw more money at the problem with no accountability.”

Added Crawford: “No one is more on fire to help veterans than me.”

Crawford, who comes from a military family, served four years in the U.S. Army as a bomb technician and left the service as a sergeant.

McPherson countered by saying the bill, which is now law, wasn’t perfect but it was a step in the right direction.

Libertarian candidate Brian Willhite, who served in the U.S. Air Force, said the government should consider a voucher program so veterans can choose the care they want.

Crawford, McPherson and Willhite debated a host of issues including federal regulations, federal spending, and the need to invest in education outlets besides traditional fouryear colleges and universities.

Crawford, who was first elected in 2010, said the federal debt, now nearly $18 trillion, is the most pressing threat to Arkansans and that Congress needs to enact both procedural and spending changes to be able to rein it in.

“We have a debt crisis. We don’t have a whole lot of time to address it,” Crawford said. “That’s why I voted against budget resolutions that my party offered. … They don’t address the issue at hand which is our debt crisis.”

Crawford said he supports enacting a balanced budget amendment, a notion that was supported by both Willhite and McPherson, but McPherson said such a drastic action should be done carefully.

McPherson argued that the best way to reduce the debt is to invest in education and other programs that “offer a return on investment” that will create good paying jobs that will generate greater tax revenues.

“[Budgeting] is a thoughtful process,” McPherson said. “Blanket cuts just don’t work.”

Willhite, a teacher from Cabot, said that if elected, he would work to defund or eliminate some federal departments.

“The Department of Education is a giant bureaucracy. The Department of the Interior … there is no reason for the federal government to own land,” Willhite said. “In fact, they should be selling the land to help pay off the debt.”

The debate eventually moved to the proposed ballot initiative that would raise the state’s minimum wage from $6.25 to $8.50 by 2017.

Crawford, who ran his own business prior to taking office, said he supported an increase of the minimum wage but insisted that minimum-wage levels should be left to states and not the federal government.

McPherson, who started a Heber Springs restaurant, said he had helped collect signatures to get the measure on the ballot. He then questioned Crawford’s support of the measure, saying his opponent “stayed on the sideline” until there was overwhelming support for it in voter polls.

“It’s a shame working men and women [in Arkansas] who are working full-time jobs [are] still living in poverty,” McPherson said. “The average age of people working [for minimum wage] is 35 years old. … [They are] having to make a decision: ‘Do I put gas in my car or do I feed my family?’”