Mac D'Alessandro, US House Questionnaire Responses

1. How have you as an office-holder or private citizen worked to support progressive causes at the national, state and local level?

As Program Consultant for Surdna, a national foundation, I helped organizations acquire critical funding to promote environmental justice and sustainable development. As Legislative Director for Greater Boston Legal Services, I made sure low-income workers had the job training and support they needed to join the workforce and succeed. As New England Political Director for the Services Employees International Union, I fought to protect hospital patients, vulnerable seniors and healthcare workers. I was involved in several critical campaigns, the most recent – the fight to enact health care reform – which my opponent voted against.

How would you use your congressional seat to help local economic development efforts in your district and across Massachusetts?

We are still in the midst of the worst recession in several generations and the fact that unemployment still stands at nearly 10% means the federal government must continue to act to stimulate the economy because the private sector is not creating jobs.

The stimulus I support keeps teachers in the classroom, police officers on the beat and firefighters at the ready. It also helps us improve our broken bridges and roads – infrastructure critical to our future economic success.

By putting people to work like this – we put cash in their pockets – money they will spend on groceries and clothes and basic necessities. This, in turn, creates the demand we need to get the private sector going again.

But I would also take some additional steps:

Banks aren't lending to small businesses like we hoped they would so the federal government should do more to make loans and extend credit through the SBA – more than 50% of our growth comes from small businesses.

We also need to invest in the Green Economy – provide incentives to businesses investing in alternative energy rather than incenting big oil, gas and coal companies that have wreaked havoc on our environment and our national security.

2. What are your views on the conflict in Afghanistan and what America's position in this conflict should be going forward?

Last fall when the President announced his surge strategy I was dubious. I am concerned that this conflict has lasted longer than any other war and that our progress is limited. I am also concerned that our mission is unclear and confusing.

Unending, ramped-up military force isn't going to achieve our goals in Afghanistan. We need to bring about a stable government - one that isn't corrupt - and a stable economy. We can address the first part by rooting out corruption and assisting legitimate leaders to create a stable government based on free and fair elections. We can address the second part by shifting the focus of their natural resource development from narcotics to expanding other forms of agriculture and tapping Afghanistan's wealth of mineral deposits. These goals are accomplished through committed diplomacy and international aid, not through military force - through the State Department, not the Defense Department.

I emphatically echo the sentiments of Congressman Jim McGovern who said, "All of us are dedicated to defeating Al Qaeda wherever they are, but our current policy in Afghanistan is deeply flawed," the Worcester Democrat said yesterday. "It is a mistake to give this administration yet another blank check."

What we can't have are votes like Congressman Lynch's for a blank check to support a flawed policy and unending war.

3. What changes do you propose to the health care reform legislation?

Unlike my opponent, the only Democrat in New England to vote against the bill that passed in March, I strongly believe that legislation was an important and necessary first step. However, I have never seen the word perfect and law in a sentence and so believe some important improvements must be made.

First, I would fight to include a public option. Only by providing a public option can we have real competition and substantial cost reduction in our health care delivery while not impeding quality of care.

Second, I would fight to ensure that the exchanges provide real competition by offering more than one plan in every state and eliminating the anti-trust exemption currently in place for the insurance industry and included in the current health care reform legislation.

Third, do everything we can to reduce medical costs so that we don’t have to impose an excise tax.

4. Can you describe your position on women’s reproductive health specifically; do you support any legislation that limits access to abortion services and birth control?

I am unequivocally committed to a woman’s right to choose and do not support legislation that limits access to abortion services and birth control. I am proud to have received the endorsements of NARAL and Planned Parenthood. In a recent blog I wrote:

Over the nearly four decades since the Supreme Court ruled that the right to a legal abortion was a fundamental one, protected by the Constitution, a woman’s right to choose continues to be undermined through a variety of legal maneuvers, State level decisions and executive orders.

• 32 states have enacted laws that force women to delay abortions as long as 48 hours after receiving state-mandated counseling.
• 44 states have enacted legislation requiring minor women to involve their families in decisions regarding their reproductive health. Some require a minor to obtain consent from a parent even when she is a victim of familial sexual abuse or incest.
• 47 states have “refusal" or "conscience clauses" that pertain to hospitals, physicians, pharmacists and insurers and allow individuals or institutions to deny women counseling services, medical procedures, referrals and insurance coverage if the services conflict with their moral or religious views.

Now, the Obama administration, in a compromise over health care reform, is reportedly excluding abortion services from the newly-created high-risk insurance pools being established for individuals with pre-existing conditions.

This is only one of many instances in which the neediest women – those who are sick or poor or uneducated – have the most limited access to the very rights the Supreme Court protected in Roe v Wade. We must fight against this pernicious assault on a woman’s right to choose – and we must begin to push back vigorously on the kinds of restrictions – mandatory counseling, parental and spousal consent – that treat women like children and lesser citizens.

5. What are your views on expanding public transit and rail service locally and across the country?

For more than half a century we have been actively subsidizing every aspect of the automotive and oil/has industry. The highway fund has created miles and miles of road that encourages urban sprawl and the production of gas guzzling vehicles. Subsidies to the oil and gas industry, particularly for offshore drilling have kept us dependent on fossil fuel and driven disastrous climate results. Over this same time, we have under-invested in regional and local rail and we have let our municipal bus and subway systems fall into financial failure and capital disrepair.

If elected to Congress I would press hard for several programs:

• Additional stimulus – this time dedicated not to road repair but to rail construction.
• Investment in light rail that links communities and urban subway system expansion (like the Green Line)