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LAKE PLACID - Kirsten Gillibrand, the Democratic incumbent for the 20th Congressional District, thinks the economy is in rough shape.

"I do think we're on the very edge of a very long-term recession," she said at an interview at the Lake Placid News office Friday afternoon. "I think the government has a role to play," in averting what she said she considers a "crisis."

But every cloud has a silver lining, and she thinks the twin problems of the economic downturn and the country's overdependence on foreign oil can be alleviated with a federal investment in alternate energy sources.

"Energy independence creates jobs," Gillibrand said.

She said she favored more federal funding for forestry and for generating energy with wood pulp. There are a lot of opportunities for this in the North Country, she added.

"The amount of timber is fantastic," she said. "And we don't do much with it."

She said investing in the creation of a feasible electric car, big enough for a family to use, should be a national goal.

"It's all possible," she said. "We have the entrepreneurs, we have the inventors, but nobody cares enough to do it."

She said energy independence within 10 years needs to be made a national mission, similar to when former President John F. Kennedy said the U.S. should put a man on the moon within 10 years.

Gillibrand also said she favored investing more money into infrastructure improvements, such as extending broadband to rural areas.

"There are investments you could make that would grow the infrastructure and grow jobs."

All these proposals would cost money, and Gillibrand says there are places where the budget can be cut. She is a strong supporter of "pay as you go." As an example, she cited the State Children's Health Insurance Program bill that President Bush vetoed. The bill paid for itself - by taxing tobacco in the first version - by taxing U.S. corporations that move their headquarters overseas to avoid U.S. income taxes in another.

She had a number of proposals for cutting spending further, to help fund these priorities. She said she favored allowing the federal government to negotiate with drug companies for cheaper prices for Medicare and Medicaid, which would save money. She also favors ending subsidies for corn-based ethanol. And, she said she wants to end subsidies to oil companies, which will save $146 billion over five years.

She said she favored retaining the Bush tax cuts for families making under $250,000 a year, and cutting them more. For example, she said she favored allowing people to deduct their local property taxes from their federal income taxes even if they don't itemize. However, she favors repealing the tax cuts for people with higher incomes.

She said upstate New York hasn't been hit as hard as the rest of the country by the mortgage crisis and the financial meltdown because fewer people here borrowed more money than they could afford to pay back or bought homes they couldn't afford.

"Upstate New York has a good core of fiscal discipline," she said.

She said the rest of the country could learn from the thrifty habits of upstate folk.

Transparency

Gillibrand held one of her "Congress on your corner" sessions at the Bookstore Plus after her interview at the Lake Placid News. She said she has made a point of holding these at bookstores, coffee shops and other venues throughout her district, as a way of getting to know people, increasing her knowledge of people's specific problems and possibly helping them, if she can.

At one such session, Gillibrand spoke to a single mother of three boys who had received a bill from the state for $25 - an amount which, she said, could buy her sons lunch for a week. One of the provisions of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 is a requirement that the states charge a $25 annual fee on people who receive more than $500 annually in child support, to help fund child support payment enforcement efforts. Most states, including New York, are funding it by passing the fee on to the families collecting child support.

"We shouldn't be balancing the budget on the backs of those who can least afford it," Gillibrand said.

Gillibrand is now fighting to repeal this provision.

"Being directly accessible to the public has resulted in a change that could directly affect someone's life."

Food

Gillibrand said she is a strong supporter of encouraging small farmers. She said she was pleased with the trend toward eating local and organic foods.

"It keeps the small farms alive," she said.

She said always going with the cheapest food producer will lead to our food production being outsourced to foreign countries where we have no quality control.

"If you think having your oil dependent on the Middle East is bad, imagine having your food dependent on China," she said. "I view agriculture as a national security issue. We cannot outsource food production."

Iraq

Gillibrand characterized the Iraq War as a failed investment, similar to the $700 billion bailout, and said the U.S. should set a deadline, and leave by that deadline.

"The Iraqi government has to take over policing and kick out the foreign terrorists," she said.

This deadline, she said would force rival Iraqi factions to work together to kick out the terrorists, to ensure Iraqis will control the country after the Americans leave.

Gillibrand said she favored turning day-to-day security over to the Iraqis, but keeping 20,000 to 30,000 American soldiers in Iraq for antiterrorism operations.

"Keep doing those missions, but stop policing the streets," she said.

Gillibrand also said she favored moving about 20,000 more troops to Afghanistan, and forcing the other NATO countries to play a larger part.

"Afghanistan isn't an American mission," she said. "It's a NATO mission."

Currently, Americans make up the bulk of the soldiers in Afghanistan, and do most of the fighting.

Veterans issues

Gillibrand sponsored a bill to require the Veterans Administration to publish a booklet every year, delineating what benefits veterans are eligible for.

"I want to make the VA proactive, not reactive," she said.

She said the VA is currently not always responsive to veterans' needs. She said one Vietnam veteran came to her, desperate because he was out of money and his home was going to be foreclosed on. The military owed him $60,000 in back pay, but his local VA was not helping him get it. Gillibrand solved the problem by talking to VA officials in Washington.

Gillibrand said our soldiers are being kept in combat in Iraq too long, without enough rest time in between redeployments. During World War II, she said, soldiers would not be kept in combat zones for more than 180 days at a time. By contrast, they regularly spend 12 to 18 months in Iraq. This, she said, is leading to an increase in problems among returning soldiers, such as domestic violence, mental problems and drug and alcohol abuse.

Contact Nathan Brown at 891-2600 ext. 26 or nbrown@

adirondackdailyenterprise.com.