By JIM GENARO

Despite their differences, lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle care deeply about the country, Rep. Heath Shuler, D-Waynesville, told a town meeting at UNC Asheville’s Reuter Center last Wednesday night.

The freshman congressman discussed his activities in Washington and answered questions from the audience during a meeting that was sponsored by the Leadership Asheville Forum and the N.C. Center for Creative Retirement.

About 200 people attended the forum, including about 30 pro-immigration protesters who entered the room holding signs while Shuler discussed border security and immigration reform.

Shuler opened the forum by outlining his week in Washington.

On Mondays, he said, he drops his 6-year-old son off at school before flying to the capital. There, he meets with staff members and gets caught up on the week’s legislative agenda.

Tuesday mornings, he said, he meets with advocacy groups, before attending meetings with one of the three House committees on which he sits.

“You truly get to gain a great deal of knowledge” in these meetings, he said. The committees are “where most of the great work is done.”

Shuler sits on three committees: Transportation and Infrastructure, Small Business and Natural Resources.

He related an anecdote that he keeps in mind when working in the Natural Resources Committee.

When he worked his first job as a teenager, Shuler said, he was upset to learn how much of his paycheck was taken up by taxes. When he complained to his father about this, the elder Shuler told him to think of one thing the federal government provides that he could feel he owns in part.

The younger Shuler, who had always loved camping, decided that his taxes were his “payment for owning a piece of the the Great Smoky (Mountains) National Park.”

Today, he said, that love of the beautiful natural resources around Western North Carolina guides his choices on the committee.

Sometime soon after the committee meetings, the House calls a vote and the Congress members must rush to the House floor — usually forgoing lunch.

Here is where the passion of people with widely different perspectives comes out in debate, he said.

“Although we may disagree on a particular issue, they truly care about what’s best for America,” Shuler told the audience. “It truly is great quality people” who are members of Congress, he added.

For Shuler, this sense of common purpose is most clearly felt in one of his favorite sessions of the week: the Thursday morning House prayer session.

At the weekly prayer breakfast, “we pray for members from both sides of the aisle,” Shuler said. “If there’s one place that has nothing to do with Democrats or Republicans, it’s there.”

But he added, “I just wish at times that would carry over onto the House floor — because it doesn’t.”

Shuler lamented the sometimes childlike behavior of his fellow congressmen, saying, “Typically, it’s about not letting the other party get control of the House floor.”

Nonetheless, he said, many lawmakers from both parties “are great individuals.”

In closing, Shuler said the U.S. must redefine its priorities.

“Let’s start graduating our students at the top in science and math, instead of 17th and 18th in the world,” he said.

In terms of foreign policy, Shuler added, the U.S. needs to take a leadership role in combatting poverty, HIV, and other diseases that ravage the world’s poor. These problems are massive, he noted. “Yet we send billions of dollars a year to countries that we buy petroleum from so that they will be our friends.”

Shuler then answered questions that were collected from the audience and then presented by the forum’s moderator.
“What are you doing to assure all Americans get health insurance?” the first questioner asked.

First, Shuler replied, the federal government needs to pass the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which funds health insurance for underprivileged children.

Created in 1997, SCHIP was vetoed by President Bush when it was up for renewal last year, despite strong bipartisan support in Congress.

Shuler lamented Bush’s veto, saying, “It’s not that 7-year-old’s responsibility to provide health insurance for themselves. They can’t go out and get a job.”

He acknowledged that the program had some problems, but added, “What about that one child that, you could save a child’s life?”

The next questioner asked Shuler about his “plans to make our nation a leader in fighting climate change.”

Shuler said the U.S. needs to “lead by example” and take steps to encourage development of alternative energy sources domestically.

He noted that while solar technlology was invented in the U.S., today it is produced primarily in Germany. By investing in clean energy, the government also could encourage economic growth, he added.

However, Shuler said that the problem at the moment is overcoming Bush’s veto power.

“It’s very difficult when you have an oil man in Washington that’s profitting off the oil sales,” he told the audience.
A man who described himself as “a disabled Vietnam vet” asked Shuler, “When will we bring our troops home (from Iraq)? The mission was accomplished a long time ago.”

Shuler said that when he first took office, the Democratic leadership in the House brought in a number of generals who were opposed to the occupation in Iraq.

However, Shuler wanted to get the other side of the story, so he contacted Gen. John Johns, one of the commanders of the first Iraq War under President Bush Sr.

Johns “wrote the book on insurgency,” Shuler said.

He told the congressman, “It might have cost President Bush his re-election, but now you know why we didn’t go into Iraq.”

The retired general used a football metaphor to describe the situation to Shuler (an irony that was not lost on the football player-turned lawmaker).

“We must get the Iraqi government off the sideline and get them into the game,” Johns said.

However, Shuler said, the Iraqis will never get engaged until the U.S. stops fighting for them. He said that withdrawal of the troops is the goal of most members of Congress from both parties.

“We don’t have that plan to come home yet, and that’s what we need to work toward.”

However, he also expressed opposition to moves by the Democratic leadership in Congress to cut funding for the soldiers as a way to force a withdrawal.

“I don’t want anyone to play that game with our soldiers,” he said.

Furthermore, he urged his audience to honor the soldiers in Iraq and not to blame them for the war itself.
“As individuals, it wasn’t their decision to go to Iraq,” he said.

“What is your position on attacking Iran?” a questioner asked.

“Come on, folks, we’ve had enough of one war, with Iraq,” Shuler replied.

Instead, he urged regional diplomacy, noting that “if you’re at odds with your neighbor, the best way to resolve it is to come to the table and talk.”

Shuler noted that 10 years ago, more than 80 percent of the world’s population held a favorable view of the U.S. Today, that figure is about 7 percent.

A questioner asked why Shuler has supported the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements Act, which focuses on tightening border security and immigration enforcement without first “providing an easier path to citizenship.”

Shuler said that the U.S. has a moral right to secure its borders and to discourage illegal immigrants from making the dangerous — and often deadly — crossing into the country.

As he was discussing the details of SAVE, about 30 protesters came into the room holding signs with slogans such as “Immigrant rights are human rights” and “Stop deportations — no human being is illegal.”

The demonstrators were members of Students for a Democratic Society and Hispanic Outreach for Learning Awareness.

Addressing the protesters, Shuler said, “I respect you and I commend you, because you care about an issue.”

“Will you work with us on our issues?” one protester shouted back. Shuler did not respond.

When asked if he would support Barrack Obama or Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination for president, Shuler said he gets quite a few calls from both sides these days.

“The past president calls quite frequently,” he said.

But he added, “I’m still hoping John Edwards gets back in it.”

“How do you believe the federal government can resolve the disparity between the costs of Medicare and Social Security and the funds needed to pay for it?” a questioner asked.

Shuler replied that “it’s all based upon health care.”

He told the audience that universal health care alone was not the answer.

A greater focus on preventative health care is necessary, he argued. For instance, establishing public wellness centers for those who cannot afford gym memberships and hiring nutritionists to work there would save significantly on health costs in the long run, he said.

Furthermore, serving healthier foods to children in schools would be a good step toward promoting wellness, Shuler suggested.

“When a child can go to high school and eat pizza everyday, that is not preventative medicine,” Shuler said.
Finally, a system of integrating databases about health information could significantly cut health costs, he said. Because hospitals do not have digital access to all of a patients medical records, costly duplication of tests often result.

Such duplication could be avoided by cultivating new systems of communication among hospitals. Furthermore, he said, this could invigorate the information technology sector locally.

“What’s great is what’s happening in our communities,” he added in conclusion.