Esty Speaks To WCSU World Governments Class

                                       By Scott Benjamin

At a time when Washington has been noted for rancor, U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty (D-5) of Cheshire said she and other members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee have achieved bipartisan agreements on issues.

She said, for example, U.S. Rep. Bill Schuster (R-Penn.), the committee chairman, has come to Connecticut twice to meet with her and U.S. Rep. John Larson (D-1) of East Hartford to discuss how to improve the crumbling roads and address flooding.

Mrs. Esty, who is serving her first term, said Mr. Schuster faces the same issues in his district.

She said members of the committee have had to design legislation that just doesn’t address problems in “their own district, but what would be more broadly helpful to other districts across the country.”

“You have to have a really good proposal,” Mrs. Esty said during a talk Apr. 17, 2014 to students in a section of PS 104: World Governments, Economies and Cultures. “It’s a very different environment than 20 or 30 years ago.”

She said the committee members have put together proposals that have been overwhelmingly approved in the House.

Mrs. Esty said that last October, just a week after the government shutdown started, a water resources bill, which, among other things, addresses pollution in the Connecticut River, was approved by a 417-3 vote in the House.

On another topic, she said much of her work as a member of the House Science and Technology Committee is focused on making America more competitive in the global economy.

Mrs. Esty said as a result of digitization and the addition of more capitalistic economies, the population of 1 billion people in the world seeking competitive jobs has now grown to 5 billion.

 “Each one of you is competing in a global economy,” the congresswoman told the students.

On a separate subject, Mrs. Esty said “competition among schools” to build better classrooms and dormitories has been a factor in the surge in college tuition.

Last year she said student loan debt exceeded credit card debt for the first time in American history.

Mrs. Esty said the typical student at a four-year college now has a $30,000 debt, which “means you don’t have the money to put a down payment on a house.”

She acknowledged that she doesn’t have a solution for the problem.

Regarding proposed trade agreements, Mrs. Esty said U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid  has said none of them will be considered before the November election, so any action on the Trans-Atlantic Trade Investment Partnership with the European Union or the Trans-Pacific Partnership with Japan, Canada, Mexico and eight other countries will come in 2015 at the earliest.

The congresswoman said Connecticut is an export-dependent state, noting, for example, that about  40 percent of its exports are in aerospace, mostly related to the Department of Defense and commercial airlines.

However, Mrs. Esty said some of the previous trade deals have eliminated American manufacturing jobs, partly because some countries have much lower environmental and worker safety standards.

She said the air pollution is so bad in part of China that parents purchase inflatable tents for their children to use as they play soccer.

“It’s important to get the mix right” she said regarding the pending trade legislation.

On another topic, Mrs. Esty said Congress is “not addressing” campaign reform, which has gotten worse in the recent years following a U.S. Supreme Court decision that has allowed Super Political Action Committees to raise unlimited amounts of money.

She said already during this election cycle, some congressmen have already had $1 million in television advertising spent against them from Super Political Action Committees.

“It’s pretty hard for these folks to concentrate on their jobs,” Mrs. Esty said.

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Cheshire), who preceded Mrs. Esty as the congressman in the Fifth District, has advocated partial public financing of campaigns.

Connecticut has had such a system for its state races during the recent years.

Mrs. Esty will likely be nominated for a second term in the district, which she called “one of the most diverse” in the country, during next month’s Democratic convention.

Her likely Republican opponent, real estate developer Mark Greenberg of Litchfield, has distributed several news releases over the recent months criticizing her support for President Barack Obama’s health care reform and her opposition to the proposed Keystone natural gas line.

Mr. Greenberg ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination in 2010 and 2012.