Dan Liljenquist Town Hall meeting notes - 6/2/12

Dan Liljenquist held a Town Hall meeting in Provo tonight.  Here's some paraphrased highlights from it I tried writing down. Someone recorded it so hopefully that'll be out there later.  (UPDATE: Here's the link to the recording of the whole thing.) It started at 7:00 and I got there around 7:20. (Hopefully I didn't get anything inaccurate in typing.)

DAN SPEAKING:

There's nothing the Senate should be more aggressive about than the Justices and regulatory czars.

We have for too long blamed the Democrats. It's been Republicans and Democrats that got us here. If we're intent on just blaming the other party, we'll never get anything done.

I went to 16 states helping with pension reform issues. I'm most proud these were not partisan issues, these were reality issues. The debates were civil and objective. We've got to work together to get things done.

I have great reseect for Sen Hatch; he'll go down in history as one of our finest. But this is about the future.

Hatsh said he'll be chair of senate finance committee. Well, he made the same argument in 2006. He keeps saying we're almost there. I almost have enough power. If Hatch is not reelected, we'd have Mike Crapo as chair, he's BYU grad, solid conservative, voted against TARP, he'd make good long-term decisions. He's huge Mitt Romney supporter, as am I.

No one senator is a king no matter what seat they sit in. It takes 60 votes to get anything done.

Have you heard this: If we lose, we lose Hill Air Force Base? We found some campaign literature from 1976. Frank Moss #1 argument then was "If you lose me, you lose HAFB." Hatch was elected; we didn't lose HAFB. It is offensive to the men & women of HAFB to say one person stands between them and oblivion. It is politics of fear and it is not right. No one senator is too big to fail.

This race will come down to seniority, if the voters feel they're forced to vote for seniority and keep the same system in place, or if they can vote for someone new. In the last 7 years, there've been 49 new senators. About 10 more will be retiring soon. It's important to know that 60% of the senate is turning over; we haven't this kind of turnover since the 1970s. Hatch was committee chairman in first 4 years. That same turnover is happening now. What will get us to move forward is not relationship with Olympia Snowe, John Ensign, Ted Kennedy, etc. The future is Marco Rubio, Pat Toomey, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, etc. I know these guys, these are the ones who lead the future of the senate, the future of this country, those relationships are being built now. We have just enough change to break through the logjam.

Time for questions.

QUESTION #1 - I emailed Hatch about an issue ten days before a crucial vote. I got response two months later and it wasn't even about what I'd asked. Actual question: Harry Reid has messed up badly. How will we structure the Senate Majority leadership rather than have stuff stuck in DC?

I want to focus on Utah as much as possible, be here most of the time. I hope you have chance to ask me directly. Hatch is hiding himself from most voters. Our debate is on radio on Friday June 15 at 9:00am on 1160. Say what you will about Obama, but he's done one thing with honesty. He has said "I do not need Congress." He goes executive order route. Congress has outsourced its job. Nancy Pelosi was never more honest than when she said "We have to pass a bill to find out what's in it." 81,000 pages of new laws and regulations not voted on, just decreed. He said he'll dare Congress to stop him. We've gone 3 years without budget. Becuz when we had GOP prez, we didn't try to rebalance things. We said its our turn to rewrite things. We're closer to having an Emperor becuz President can just decree and Congresss wont do its job.

1. Don't rubber stamp appointees. 2. No new fed regulation goes into effect until Congress approves it. Congress is built for playing defense. There is no bill so urgent you have to ram it through.

QUESTION #2 - Have you been in touch with Club for Growth?

Our preference is let us run our own race. There've been outside groups from both sides get in this race. We'll see what CFG decides, but we're running a grassroots campaign.

QUESTION #3 - Prez can affect most change. I'm for Mitt Romney, but he's endorsed Orrin Hatch. I assume Romney wants Orrin in for seniority. How would voting for you help Mitt over voting for Orrin?

Orrin came out for Romney in 1997. They have a deep relationship. They're friends. That's fine. He endorsed Hatch before I even got in the race. When Romney endorsed Hatch, who was in line to become Sen Finance Chair? Olympia Snowe. We've got to repeal ObamaCare. I don't begrudge Romney that at all, but it's important to know what he's endorsed. He's endorsed term limits. I will be big supporter of Mitt Romney. Crapo's next in line to chair committee; he's huge Romney guy. I can help.



You don't affect more change by reelecting someone whose votes the past 30 years got us into this mess. I'm running becuz he'd be chair, not despite of it. He's been on that committee 18 years; it didn't help. He helped pass Medicare Part-D. National health care w/o a way to pay for it.

QUESTION #4 - Senators should represent the states. Are you in favor of changing 17th Amendment?

I am. That's where we lost our way. One of those frustrating about serving in state senate is seeing what's coming on our way and some of it being sent to us by our own people. No Child Left Behind. If we had US senator working with legislature, we could stop these things. Founders wouldn't have set up six-year term for senators if they knew it'd turn into popular vote. Mike Lee said I know it's my role to work with state legislature. Hatch said "I don't report to you." That's why majority of UT senators support me.

QUESTION #5 - You talk about Romney. What about Ron Paul and his financial issues? How do you feel about Federal Reserve?

Congress has Constituional repsonsibility for finance. They've outsourced that to Fed Reserve. Who's loaning us that money? We have same debt-to-GDP ratio as Greece. They have Euro. They can't print their own money. We can. If Fed Reserve wasnt keeping rates artificially low, our rates would shoot up. It's the one thing keeping fed spending going. And yet, I think if we gave the power back to Congress, they'd probably print money. Congress won't act. They wont balance the budget. There should be full audit of Federal Reserve. Our inflation rate this year, excluding cars and large appliances, is 8%. Everything's going up. Try finding a candy bar for under a $1 at a gas station. Congress won't do its job. I intend to change those programs.

QUESTION #6 - In terms of Fed, where they're talking about worldwide financing with euro, how would you help stop that?

We will review the charter, audit the Fed Reserve. We created autonomous group in 1913. They say its too complex, you dont want to know. I do want to know. I understand finance; it doesnt scare me.

QUESTION #7 - I'm a skeptic. The more I researched you, the more impressed I am. Do you know the amount of debt our Fed owns compared to 20 years ago?

About $8 trillion now. I dont know the percentages compared to 20 years ago, but it's gone up with quantitative easing. I was disturbed when China about 18 months ago, holding billions of dollars in short-term paper. They sold about 100 billion to 4 billion. They said when you print money, you've defaulted. Look at stock market. If you account for inflation, our purchasing power is no better than is was 3-4 years ago. They will set a new world currency. The international monetary system is based off the dollar but that will be not be the case down the road if we dont make changes.

Pimco (?) are smart investors, and they're shorting the dollar. Any dollar you put in treasury is devalued becuz we're printing money. People deserve a return on investment. Its a hidden tax on everyone in this economy.

QUESTION #8 - Where do you stand? In what year would you drive the deficit to zero? How aggressive will you fight to reduce the deficit?

Ten years optimistically. Here's the practical reality. The baby-boom generation who thought we put trillions away; we didn't. I think 50 years is too long, but we need to realize we're the largest economy in history and we're borrowing 10 cents for every dollar we spend. We have a $1.4 trillion deficit. Let me tell you how Bain would handle. First, fire the management team. We'd look at revenues and costs. I don't think we're undertaxed. Do we have a tax distribution problem? Yes. We need to remember, there shouldn't be such thing as too big to fail. TARP ripped us off. I'm not in favor of bailing out banks. I'd resintate Glass-Steagall. We'd put the wall back up between investment bansk (think Goldman Sachs) and deposit banks (think Wells Fargo).

The people who did well are trading on the margins. Pensions are hurt most. Ben Bernake said Fed has no authority to bail out states. Once states saw Congress not Fed would bail them out, they got serious about reform. It is not our job to nationalize risky behavior.

QUESTION #9 - Flat tax? Dept. of Education?

I'm in favor of fair tax, consumption tax. People are nervous about moving that forward. If we move forward with natl consumtion tax, they'll slap fed income tax on top of that. We've used tax code as welfare. People get tax returned when they havent paid taxes at all. Stop playing favorites with tax code. Right now you can go to Congress and get your own special tax break, like GE. I am determined to get rid of loopholes. Get rid of exceptions. Make taxes predictable and stable.

As to Dept. of Education, there's no purpose for it. No reason for Natl D o Educ. I saw that our own Davis HS was fined $15,000 for having a soda machine on during lunch. That's amazing. The Fed govt is creeping into every aspect of schools. NCLB, Common Core, when people start handing out money, we get blackmailed by our own money. The family is the best Dept of Edu., and the state is the backup.

Thank you for coming; let me wrap up and give you some hope. I am so optimistic. I am an economist. Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists of choosing between the disastrous and the inpalatable. We need to do hard things.

I said I had to reform pensions. I literally had a Senator pat me on the head and say "Good luck with that." Even though I had 4500 people protesting me, we did it anyway. I run into people here and there who really dislike me for that. But it was neat to see that you people in this state saw that we had to do something. We've given courage to other states, and they're fixing their problems. When we face reality, face the disastrous, we can fight it and fix it. I need three things from you in this race. I need your vote, a little of your time, go to DanForUtah.com, get people involved. We need a little of your financial support. We're up on TV now; we're going to stay there. With your vote, we can win this race.

Afterwards he answered individual questions. Here's some of what I remember (because I asked some of them)

- Against extending copyright any farther than we are. It's getting ridiculous.

- Against SOPA/PIPA. Six hours after he made a statement about being against it, Hatch came out against it, even though he co-sponsored it. Hatch has a lot of friends in Hollywood and music industry, so we need to keep on top of internet censorship bills.

- Against extending Patriot Act, against the NDAA.

- Would vote to repeal Sarbanes-Oxley.

- As part of getting rid of too big to fail, he'd not only bring back Glass-Steagall but one idea is to say to the big banks, "Comply, or we'll pull FDIC backing." But he needs to think more on that one, how exactly he'd tackle getting the big banks so they're no longer too big to fail.

- Supports the lawsuit to get some of Utah's lands back from the Feds.

- We need to reform and open up legal immigration, make it easier for people to emigrate here.




So there you have it. Hopefully someday I'll be able to find a Hatch event I can attend. I knew about the Dippin' Dots thing he had this morning, but I never got the postcard.

I also had a chance to talk briefly with John Dougall, running for State Auditor. Seems like a good guy. I've read some of his stuff, and right now, he's my vote, but I will make a concerted effort to get to the open house at Spanish Fork High School on June 14.  Dougall and Auston Johnson will be there, as well as attorney general candidates Sean Reyes and John Swallow.