So who is Sen. Elizabeth Dole’s favorite in the heated battle for the GOP presidential nomination?
“Oh, I’m staying out of that ó no endorsing,” Dole said in an interview Monday, shortly after attending Salisbury’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day breakfast at the Civic Center.
But she took five minutes to talk about less controversial topics: recession, war, illegal immigrants and health care.
The economy: Congress should take steps soon to reinvigorate the economy, Dole said, and she has sent a letter to the secretary of the treasury outlining some of those steps.
Increased food stamp benefits and extended unemployment benefits would target help to those facing the greatest financial hardship, Dole said.
Her other target would be the business community itself. Dole advocates a temporary 10 percent investment tax credit for new equipment, returning restaurants and retail space to a 15-year depreciation schedule (now 39.5 years) and a reduction in the corporate tax rate.
“We’re second to Japan in the world with the highest corporate taxes,” Dole said. “I think that’s something that should be focused on as well.”
Dole was returning to Washington just after the breakfast. She expected meetings to begin today “to take a hard look at what the president’s brought forward and wrestle with what is the very best thing that’s temporary that really infuses money into the economy quickly.”
To citizens worried about the economy, she said, “I think we’re going to take action fast.” She’s hoping for 30 days.
War in Iraq: Dole said she took the position several months ago that U.S. troops not withdrawn should be reassigned this spring to non-combat duties in Iraq such as border security, training and other support services.
She has supported Gen. David Petraeus’ recommendation to withdraw the equivalent of six brigades by July.
“We’re seeing progress,” Dole said. “I think we have to be cautiously optimistic. We have to be sure nothing undermines this progress.”
Defense spending: Dole and Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., recently introduced a joint resolution calling for defense spending to be at least 4 percent of gross domestic product each year. The spending level is 3.3 percent now and needs to be higher, Dole says, after the “procurement holiday” the country experienced in the 1990s.
Immigration: Dole moved quickly to the topic of illegal immigration. The first priority, she said, is to secure the border, and $3 billion has been set aside for that.
Second comes the need to deal with illegal aliens who have committed crimes. Dole refers to this as “self-identifying themselves.” She has been working to connect North Carolina sheriffs’ departments with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to check criminal suspects’ immigration status. That effort is moving right along, Dole said.
“We’re the first state to have a statewide plan,” she said. Wednesday she will make a presentation to all Republican senators about the program.
Health care: Dole said she was pleased to be able to get a one-year moratorium on a proposed change and save the state’s hospitals $330 million in the process.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services plans to limit Medicaid payments to public hospitals by redefining “public.” As a result, many hospitals would not get as much funding to treat low-income and uninsured patients, she said.
The one-year moratorium is expected to save WakeMed alone $19 million. Rowan Regional should save more than $2.6 million; CMC-Northeast, nearly $5.7 million.
Family leave: Finally, Dole told the story of a man who quit his job to stay by the bedside of a son, Eric, who suffered a head injury in Iraq. Doctors said the young man would be in a vegetative state for the rest of his life. Refusing to accept that, the father stayed with his son at a rehabilitation hospital, acting as cheerleader and encourager and working with doctors and nurses to care for him.
“Some months later, this guy walks out of the hospital,” Dole said. He needed help, but he was doing far better than doctors had expected.
The family visited Dole in her office ó the son and his wife, child, mother and father. He was still sitting in a wheelchair and unable to talk, still going to rehabilitation three times a week.
“His eyes filled with tears as he was listening to us talk,” Dole said. “And at the end of the visit, the father said, ‘Eric wants to show you something.’ He got up out of the wheelchair ó and they helped him a little but he was mostly doing it on his own ó walked across the room and he gave me the warmest hug.”
It made her glad that she co-sponsored a bill with Hillary Clinton and others allowing a parent or spouse of a person injured in combat to take six months’ leave through the Family Medical Leave Act.
“You see something like that and you say, ‘What a difference this makes.’ “