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On Oct. 7, I had the honor of meeting Adm. Joe Sestak after he had walked 18 miles from Wilkes-Barre to Scranton to meet voters. He was understandably tired but eager to talk about many critical issues facing our nation.
He began by discussing ways to return manufacturing to our area. Some of his solutions were to give tax credits to companies that create jobs in the United States, close tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas and reform the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate to ease the burden on small business.
He’s clearly troubled by our nation’s ballooning national debt, and warned that if left unaddressed, the United States will go bankrupt in the next two decades. He spoke about the bipartisan Bowles/Simpson Debt Commission’s plan to resolve the debt, saying that even though he disagreed with some provisions of the plan, he would have supported it in a spirit of principled compromise over rigid partisanship.
Sestak declared that America’s greatest deficit is the “trust deficit,” because people have lost faith in their government.
I found his brand of independent-mindedness refreshing. He’s a patriot who values what he calls “people effort” – citizens working together for the common good.
Over the last year, he has walked 422 miles across Pennsylvania to demonstrate his lifelong dedication to our state and our nation. Washington needs his passion and optimism over Pat Toomey’s stealth extremism and blind devotion to the interests of Wall Street.
Eric Skelton
Dupont