I met Bob Roggio through his Berks County Campaign Coordinator, Dan Sauder. I’m often accused of judging politicians harshly and to this I must plead guilty. I’m always prepared not to like them. But in Bob’s case I was dead wrong. I like him very much. As a small businessman I’m always impressed by those who run for office after successfully operating a business in the real world, as opposed to career politicians who’ve never run a thing but their mouths. Bob is a successful businessman who is offering his expertise and intelligence to the voters of the 6th Congressional District in Pennsylvania. I think that they should take him up on that offer. What I like about Bob is that he’s articulate and never groping to express his ideas. He knows what he believes and is forthright in telling you such. He knows who he is and knows what he’s about. I sense a calm but strong internal strength. Like Barack he’s the type of guy who won’t panic in a crisis. The voters in the 6th are lucky to have a candidate such as Bob Roggio.

Chuck: Bob, you’re on the threshold of unseating Jim Gerlach in the 6th Congressional District of Pennsylvania. Can you give us a little biography of yourself and tell us how you got to this point?

Bob: Yes, I was a businessman for thirty years. I owned my own business with a couple of partners, and we sold that and were fortunate enough to do fairly well to retire relatively young. I didn’t really want to retire. I wanted to go on and do something, and I’ve always been interested in politics and where our country’s going, way back from the days of Bobby Kennedy and John Kennedy. I remember that really well. So I went back to college to finish my degree which I had not been able to finish back in the sixties because of the death of my father. Two years later I got a degree from Penn State in American Studies, and then within a month I went down to Washington and volunteered for John Kerry’s campaign. I guess by April of 2004 I actually had a staff job with John Kerry and he moved me up to Philadelphia. I was their volunteer coordinator and events planner up here. I did that for John Kerry for those six or seven months. I was a little disappointed we didn’t quite get it, but a year and a half later I started working for Bob Casey. I worked on his campaign as Suburban Philadelphia Coordinator. I was his surrogate, speaking for him at many, many different events. Eventually, we actually won that election. Senator Casey gave me a job as his Regional Representative here in Southeast Pennsylvania and I had constituent groups such as the VA Hospital, some non-profit groups and also some of the bigger corporations that we had in Southeast Pennsylvania. I decided after doing that for a year, which I loved, that I was going to go out on my own and try to become a Congressman. I feel very deeply that what has happened in the last eight years has been a tragedy to the United States. This administration has totally damaged us in so many ways. With the economy, with the Iraq War. Also by ignoring the real problems of this country like health care and education. I thought I had some kind of a unique background between business, and also now my experience in politics, to present people with a perspective that they’re not used to, which I think in genuine terms represents change. A new way to look at how we should do business in Washington.

Chuck: Bob, I want to go through a few issues where I think there may be substantial differences between you and your opponent in this race. When George W. Bush became President, he inherited a surplus from Bill Clinton. Today, we’re running huge deficits. Seems to me they’ve spent like drunken sailors, but I don’t want to put words in your mouth. Could you tell me what your position would be on fiscal responsibility?

Bob: Let me start with their fiscal responsibility. They claimed to be, and my opponent actually calls himself, a fiscal conservative. They’ve been fiscally irresponsible. It’s one thing to spend money if you have the money. It’s a totally different thing to just keep borrowing the money, lowering taxes, borrowing money, borrowing money, borrowing money…etc. That’s all we’ve been doing. My opponent, Jim Gerlach, who says he’s a fiscal conservative, has signed off on every single deficit budget that Bush has sent down in the last six years. I’m not sure how those things can be said in the same breath, fiscal conservative and excessive spending. We have a $480 billion dollar deficit coming up this year and our debt went from 4 1/2 trillion dollars to 9 trillion dollars. They’ve been a disaster from the perspective of fiscal responsibility. My background, as someone who knows and understands fiscal responsibility, is running a business. In a business you don’t have the luxury of going and taxing the people- your customers- to keep going. You have to bring in more money than you put out. Otherwise, you’re not in business. That’s a tough task, and a lot of businessmen will tell you that. We did that for thirty years. I understand the value of that and I understand how you grow with that. If you do bring in more money than you put out, then you have the opportunity to invest. Invest in your future. In the case of America right now, we do not have an opportunity to invest in things we should be investing in. We pay a large portion of our yearly income just for interest on the loans we get from China, Japan and other countries.

Chuck: Do you feel that the Bush/Gerlach tax cuts that were enacted were fair to working families?

Bob: I think the Bush tax cuts for working families were directionally correct, but I don’t think they were proportionally correct. Obviously, I think the people who gained the most were the people who made the most. If I were going to vote today I would repeal the Bush tax cuts for people who make over $300,000. I would actually decrease taxes for the middle class. The middle class has suffered greatly in the last eight years, and it’s not only because of a lack of a tax program that makes sense. Because of the way this program works, helping the corporations and helping those who make the most money, very little was done to actually help the middle class.That has to be reversed.

Chuck: The War in Iraq. I may be incorrect, and I’m sure you’ll correct me if I am, but hasn’t Jim Gerlach voted 100% of the time with Bush prosecuting this war ever since he’s been in Congress? Never questioning it? Now it’s election time and he’s trying to position himself as an independent?

Bob: The answer to your questions is yes. He has voted with Bush 100% of the time on the Iraq War. Even though he considers himself an independent, he himself in an interview I heard in the last two weeks admitted that he totally 100% supported the Iraq War. He believes it was the right thing to do. He voted for all the funding and execution programs that were put out there. He’s 100% behind the Iraq War. Why he thinks he’s an independent I’m not sure.

Chuck: How about you? What’s your position on the Iraq War?

Bob: It was a senseless war. It was an unnecessary war.The actual downside here with the human lives lost over there, the 4,000 lives, the probably 100,000 people that have been injured permanently—it was not worth it just on that basis alone. We’re spending 10 billion dollars a month there. If you think about the total aggregate for the last five years there, what we could have done with that money here in America. In terms of new schools. In terms of investment in infrastructure. In terms of building our economy. It’s mind boggling. Every penny of that today is being borrowed. There’s not one penny that Americans are paying to fund the war in Iraq. I think it was senseless to begin with. I don’t think it’s any better now. I think my position and motivation to bring the troops home as quickly as possible and reasonably is based not only that I’ve seen we’re wasting billions of dollars, but also what I have seen at the Coatesville VA Hospital ( they were a constituent group of mine when I worked for Bob Casey). I’ve seen the Iraq vets when they come home. I’ve seen some of the problems they have. Particularly there, they specialize in post traumatic stress disorder. These people’s lives for the most part have been ruined. Drugs. Alcohol. Their families have been devastated. We are trying to help them. The VA Hospital is trying to help them, but they were underfunded dramatically until 2007 when Democrats finally fully funded the VA Hospital. I know Senator Casey himself is working on programs to fully fund not only the Hospitals but also the therapists who treat people with post traumatic stress disorder.

Chuck: Bob, just to change gears for a second. At the recent Republican Convention they nominated a Vice Presidential candidate who believes that women do not have a right to an abortion even in the case of rape and incest. What is your reaction to that?

Bob: I would like to react, if I could, to the whole convention and particularly to Sarah Palin. If you watched the convention it really was about divisiveness. Separating the country again. It had no real plan for health care, for the economy. Nothing was mentioned like that. It was all done in terms of patriotic fervor. All this talk about the hockey moms which actually to me was disrespectful. In terms of John McCain, who I actually had great respect for, and I certainly respect his service—well, he let me down. He let me down terribly with this pick of Sarah Palin. I find it irresponsible. I find it insulting to women all over this country, and it just says to me that he is now a political animal no longer putting his country first. As far as the particular issue you’re talking about, I’m far to the other side of that. I do not believe that the government has any business in interfering in a woman’s right to choose. I think the extreme position she took is senseless. You can’t say to somebody that if they’ve been raped or a victim of incest that they cannot choose on their own what to do about it. She’s also included in there, not only rape and incest, but also the mother’s health, and that’s just beyond the pale.

Chuck: Staying on the convention just for a second, did you hear the word infrastructure once during the entire Republican Convention? Is our infrastructure a problem in this country?

Bob: Yes, it’s a serious problem. We heard it a lot in the Democratic Convention. Barack Obama talks about it all the time. We have not taken responsibility in this country for over thirty years. If you go back through our history, yes, one of the reasons we’re the most prosperous country in the world is because of the free enterprise system. But that free enterprise system needed help in significant ways which the government had provided. If you go way back in our history in terms of infrastructure, we had the canal system when we first started, we built the railroad system in the 1860’s, the national highway system in the 1950’s, the airports, our water system and our sewer system. All these made companies able to function in the United States and be able to move the resources around as we need to do. That has made the United States one of the most powerful countries in the world. There are lots of countries that have the kind of resources that we do that have not been able to build the economy we have. One of the reasons is infrastructure. The United States right now has to take responsibility for infrastructure. Not only creating new infrastructure but also repairing the old infrastructure. If we don’t repair our bridges, if we don’t repair our water system and sewer system, we our going to find ourselves having a horrendous bill when all this collapses upon us. That will set us back even more years than we are now.

Chuck: Is there a health care crisis in this country? I would like you to speak to it in terms of the businessman who has to pay for it and still stay in business and from the individual who has to keep himself covered.

Bob: I would call it a crisis. We have 47 million people in America without health care. And we’re the richest country in the world. I don’t think the general public realizes that we’re paying for their health care anyway because they go to the emergency rooms or they’re part of the Medicaid system. We are actually covering those costs in a very ineffective way. People and businesses are very concerned about it. The rising cost of health care has gone up probably about 75% in the last 5 years. From a business perspective, actually I just had a conversation with the President of the company I used to own—he’s a good friend of mine and worked for me when I was there. I’m told 18% of their budget goes to health care. So each year, in order not to penalize their employees and also not to increase costs, they have adjusted their health care program. What happens is that people who maybe six years ago were paying a $10.00 copay are now paying $35.00 copay. But they’re paying the same amount into their health care so in some ways they think, “Well geeze, I’m still getting health care.” That can only go so far. The other thing is they change the type of programs they give them. How much coverage they give them. Businesses all along are doing this. It’s the only way they can survive. Otherwise, the health care costs will go 20-25% of their budget. That’s going to collapse. That cannot continue to happen. The businesses, like my old business, are starting to realize that we need dramatic change. I think that from the individual point of view the average family of four pays $12,000. That’s really dramatic if you think about haw many people can really afford $12,000 a year just for health care. If you compare that to European countries and Japan, they’re paying anywhere from $3,000 a year for a family of four to as little as $1500 a year for a family of four in Japan. I think the last thing I’d like to say about health care, and I’ve met with so many people about this problem, is that people think they’re covered. They get a basic coverage. If they have an injury such as a broken arm that doesn’t quite heal right, they get the initial coverage. Then all of a sudden they find themselves paying for therapy and paying for additional operations and in many cases over and over again. Then they find themselves in great debt or even in bankruptcy. That is totally immoral in my opinion for the United States to have situations like that. Also we have people denied insurance because of pre-existing conditions. That’s again, I’ll use the word immoral. We should not have a country that allows the private sector to say you cannot have insurance because you have health problems that were no fault of your own.

Chuck: I’d like you to address a similar issue. Military veterans. It seems to me that we’re pretty quick to send them to war but not so quick to take care of them when they get home. Do you think veterans are getting proper coverage, especially the Iraq veterans for injuries sustained? Or is the bureaucratic red-tape paramount? I hear so many reports, like on 60 Minutes, where the system is snaring these people.

Bob: Well I think that this is a national shame in some ways. We all honor the troops that are over in Iraq, the men and women who are fighting hard and obviously doing a dramatic job over there. They’ve been there under incredibly tough conditions. If you think about it, try to put yourself in their shoes. They’ve been over there sometimes 15 months at a time and have repeated tours over there that sometimes go three, four or five times. They’ve been taken away from their families. They live these 15 months in a situation where any day either their best friend or themselves could be eliminated very easily. Then when they come back, for almost 5 years we actually lowered their benefits. We did not fully fund the VA Hospital. That did not happen until 2007 when the Democrats came in and for the first time ever fully funded the VA Hospitals. Beyond that there are bureaucratic problems right now. To get into a VA Hospital program, unless you’re some kind of emergency case that just came out of some serious situation, there’s 400,000 people waiting in line. That could take anywhere from 3 months to 9 months to even get attention coming out of the Iraq War. That’s just inexcusable. Beyond that, I think we also see, and they’re changing this because of people like Bob Casey, when you did come out of the service before many times you would not be diagnosed for anything—but particularly for post traumatic stress disorder until a year and a half or two years later. By that time damage has been done. You’ve started to take to drink or you’ve started to use drugs and have serious problems with your family, and it’s much more difficult to help people like that. Because of Senator Casey and some other people, and the U.S. military themselves recognizing this, now when you get out of the military, within the first 30 days you go to a seminar on post traumatic stress disorder. That does two things. It takes the stigma out of it because every single person who comes out of the military has to go. It also gets them educated very quickly. According to a renowned doctor at Coatesville, Dr. Silver, if we can nip this at the time they come out, we really have an opportunity to change things and make sure they don’t arrive at the point of turning to drugs, alcohol and destroying their families. This part of the military was ignored for basically 5 years until the Democrats got in. My opponent Jim Gerlach has voted consistently to cut back on VA benefits. I find that unconscionable.

Chuck: I’d like to switch you to an issue that’s on all of our minds now every time we go to the gas station. This country has squandered a lot of time in becoming energy independent, doing very little, if anything, in that direction. I’m wondering how your energy policy would differ from the incumbent, Mr. Gerlach.

Bob: It’s different mostly in magnitude. I would make a major effort as Barack Obama talks about, of putting 10 billion dollars into this thing immediately. Have a ten year program in which we certainly can develop alternative energy fuels in many different areas. Solar panels, wind energy, a new type of ethanol. It could be hydro-electric batteries. There’s a lot of avenues that we could go to. I think the big difference between us is that I have an open conscience about developing this. I know that I am not tied in to the oil companies. My opponent has gotten over $100,000 from the oil companies. I find it must be very difficult for him, even if he had good intentions, to go down to Washington and vote against the interests of the oil companies while taking that kind of money in contributions. I don’t have that type of situation. I would not accept that type of situation. So when I go down there, I can look at all the facts and do what I think is right which is this accelerated program in alternative energies. I also think we can do something in terms of the taxation for the oil companies. Right now we are actually giving them tax subsidies. My opponent just voted for these again in April. We are subsidizing with our taxpayer money the most profitable companies in the world. Exxon just made over 40 billion in profits last year. A record profit. No company in the world has ever done that. We give them tax subsidies on the basis of trying to get them to do more exploration and to build refineries. Well, when I was in business, if you wanted to invest for your future, you took your profits and you built yourself a new building, bought new equipment or you hired new people. I never asked the government to subsidize my efforts. And if I were making 40.8 billion dollars I wouldn’t need a subsidy.

Chuck: Maybe a little bit of an off the wall question. Civil Liberties. Have we struck the right balance since 9/11 between our need for security and our need to be what differentiates us from the rest of the world—our freedom and our civil liberties? Have we struck the right balance in that area in your estimation?

Bob: No, I don’t believe we have. It’s somewhat difficult to answer, only in the sense that the government we have now is one of the most secret governments we’ve ever had. The Bush/Cheney team has really not allowed us to examine exactly what’s going on there. Therefore it’s somewhat difficult. But from what I do know, I think they’ve taken it too far. I think our civil liberties are what makes this country great. Our freedom is what makes this country great. To cut down on our way of life and the way we’re used to living and being an example to the rest of the world in the name of national security—don’t get me wrong, national security would be one of my top priorities—but we have to have a balance that allows people to understand what they can and can’t do that doesn’t cut back on our freedoms. The idea that we were out there after 9/11 and our President tells us to go shopping without making any kind of sacrifice. We could have nipped this thing a lot earlier. We could be much more transparent about what this government is doing without giving away our hand to the terrorists. I think we have to have transparency. I’m not saying that there can’t be a CIA—we need that, we need that desperately, but we need it to be well run. But we also need a government that we can trust. When you have a government you can’t trust your question becomes much more difficult. Had this government been a government of people that we knew were honest and straight-forward with us all of the time and when they say here’s what we have to do I would be more inclined to say maybe they’re right. But they’re a government we can’t trust. They have consistently misrepresented everything they’re trying to do for 8 years. So I would say we have to balance it better in favor of the civil liberties.

Chuck: Pretend for a moment that the debate with Mr. Gerlach had just finished and they give you that two minutes at the end to say why the voters in the 6th district should choose Bob.

Bob: This election has two major phases that the people should be considering. The one is sort of like what we just talked about here. It’s very important that people know the issues, know what your positions are and know what Mr. Gerlach’s positions are. Make a choice on what they think are in their best interests. Educating themselves as to what Mr. Gerlach’s record is and what I plan to do. In all the major areas from the economy to health care to education to global warming, it’s very clear, and they’re all on my website at Bob Roggio for Congress. That’s the first part of this election. To me that’s only 50% of the election. The second part of this election is what Barack Obama talks about all the time and I have mentioned in my speeches, and that’s “politics as usual”. Let the government run the way it’s running right now. We have very strong problems in Washington. We have a level of partisanship that’s never been seen before. That’s gotta end. That’s counter-productive to the needs of all Americans. Politics as usual is actually something that I thought maybe we were starting to get away from. We certainly are with Barack Obama. After witnessing the Republican Convention, it’s obvious to me that the Republicans have learned nothing over the last 8 years. They’re still trying to divide this country. They still put out statements that have nothing to do with what’s going to make this a better country. The cynical ad with Barack Obama and Paris Hilton. What does that tell us? It just tells us that they don’t have issues. They don’t debate on issues. They want to scare us. They want people to get impressions that have nothing to do with the future. My opponent, Jim Gerlach, is doing some of these similar things to me. He put out a campaign brochure that says “Change has a Champion” and it has a picture of Jim Gerlach. That’s politics as usual. It’s absolutely misleading. How could “Change has a Champion” be Jim Gerlach. Jim Gerlach has voted 100% of the time for the Iraq War. He’s voted 85% with the Bush Republicans. He’s been part and parcel of this deficit spending. He’s voted for every single budget that has caused us to go further and further in debt. And yet somehow he can put out this piece with a big smile on his face and say “Change has a Champion”. Well my opinion on that brochure, and I think when we come out with one it will say change has a champion—change is my business and I will put my picture on there and it will be a much more authentic piece. That irritates me, and it should irritate the American people. That’s the second concept of this election. We don’t want politicians to be able to get away with just putting out whatever they want to put out. There has to be some integrity in politics. The American people demand that integrity. When you read something about Bob Roggio, or when you read something that Bob Roggio is saying about Jim Gerlach, it’s going to be factual. I promise you that. I’m not going to attack him personally. He’s probably a man of some good intentions. But his policies have been wrong, and he’s now trying to mislead the public so that he can be reelected. I hope they’re not buying it. I have found in my travels to the 6th district that the public is no longer tolerating that type of politics. They’re going to be very surprised when the American public does not buy into the whole Republican program that we’ve seen at their national convention. Or to the programs that Jim Gerlach is putting out there.

Chuck: Great! Thank you for your time.

Bob: Thank you.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

For more on the candidate be sure to visit Bob’s website.

Print This Article