Congratulations to the College of Western Idaho

Madam Speaker:

I rise to honor the fine public officials, the dedicated educators and the wonderful citizens of my great state who today are celebrating the official opening of the new College of Western Idaho.

It is the first community college in the Treasure Valley, the state’s largest metropolitan area. The school officially opens today after nearly two years of bipartisan, grassroots efforts by those with a vision of providing educational opportunity and workforce training to students of all ages and backgrounds.

Idaho has seen an economic boom over the last two decades, but the last year has been hard. Layoffs and closures leave Idaho with a higher increase in its unemployment rate than any other state in the country. People who want nothing more than the opportunity to work are sitting at home, growing increasingly desperate.

But today there is hope. Almost 900 students are enrolled for the first day of classes at the College of Western Idaho, many of them displaced workers who are taking advantage of federal assistance to train for a new career. Others are there to prepare for transition to a baccalaureate program. And some are there simply to acquire basic skills to help them provide a better life for their children.

The vision of the College of Western Idaho is to become a valued community asset, enhancing lives, learning and prosperity. They want all students to receive a quality education through a variety of platforms and locations, to better serve the community and to make sure students can learn where they live. The founding board and this community believe, as do we all, that education is about building for the future.

There is no better form of economic development and community enhancement than an educated citizenry. That is why I rise today with pride to commend my constituents, and to join them in welcoming the College of Western Idaho to our educational system and to our state. I ask that members of this 111th Congress join with me to wish the administrators, staff and students every success for many years to come.

I yield the balance of my time.

Editorial on auto-industry bailout

Like the many Idahoans who own and operate businesses, I have spent my entire adult life paying my bills, looking for ways to reduce costs and meeting a payroll. I never expected the taxpayers to bail me out when I made bad decisions, nor did I expect to keep my job if those decisions had led to the failure of my company.

Those values led me to promise during my campaign that I would demand fiscal responsibility from our nation’s leadership. That’s why I opposed the federal government’s bailout earlier this year of Wall Street fat cats. And that’s why I now oppose the President’s plan to give $15 billion of taxpayers’ money to the Big Three automakers, who - best case - will limp along for another month or two.

The American auto industry is too important for us to let it disintegrate. But to survive it must radically restructure - and do it now. To become competitive with its foreign competition, The Big Three must introduce new, fuel-efficient cars, close surplus plants, abandon corporate jets and luxury office space, slash executive overhead, restructure labor agreements, radically change supplier contracts, and write off its bad debts. Each company also needs “best in the world” new management, not some politically selected “auto czar” who second-guesses the same bad CEOs whose greed and poor decisions caused the problem in the first place.

The only way to quickly save the industry and the majority of its jobs is for government to force each of the companies to go through a “pre-packaged” bankruptcy. Under this process an impartial and experienced bankruptcy judge approves each company’s reorganization plan after weighing the objections and suggestions of those affected. These plans would force each company to scour the world for the best new management, and then order each company to restructure its balance sheet, most likely wiping out the interests of existing management and investors.

Part of the plan could offer taxpayer debt guarantees to induce private banks and bondholders to provide the necessary credit to keep the companies solvent. If done right, it shouldn’t require any direct taxpayer investment.

This is “tough love,” but it’s what the airline industry did to survive. Half measures like those the President just promised, or like most in Congress unfortunately seem to favor, simply won’t get the job done. They just prolong the agony, waste billions we taxpayers don’t have and leave a crippled, inefficient auto industry which still can’t compete with its more nimble foreign competitors.

Free enterprise only works when business is free to fail as well as free to succeed, and where CEOs are fired without any “golden parachutes” when their companies fail. Dedication to this principle is what for years made American business the envy of the its foreign competition, allowed each generation of Americans for 200 years to live better than their parents and made our country the most powerful nation in the world.

Bailouts to prop up bloated, inefficient big companies is what other countries do. It’s what caused socialist systems to fail. We must do better.

Walt hires two Idaho natives

For immediate release

BOISE, ID - Congressman-elect Walt Minnick (ID-01) has hired two key people for his new Congressional office.
Kate Haas will serve as deputy chief of staff, and will work in Minnick’s Washington, D.C. office.  John M. Foster will be Minnick’s senior advisor and director of communications, and will be based in Idaho. Both will report directly to Isaac Squyres, Minnick’s new chief of staff.
“Idaho’s first congressional district will benefit greatly from both John and Kate,”  Minnick said. “Both have deep Idaho roots and understand Idaho’s unique needs.  I am pleased to have them on my staff.”

About Kate Haas
Haas has spent the last four years working for Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Indiana), most recently as his director of operations, where she oversaw hiring, served as liaison to Senate legal counsel, and managed a budget which returned money to the U.S. taxpayers every year. Haas began her career as a staffer in the Oregon State Senate after graduating from Willamette University, and went on to work for two other members of Congress before joining Bayh’s staff. She lives with her husband in Washington, and they enjoy spending their vacations at home skiing Brundage Mountain.  She is a Boise High School graduate and is the daughter of Cheryl Haas of McCall and Patrick and Alison Haas of Boise.

About John M. Foster
Foster, also an Idaho native, most recently worked as a member of Minnick’s winning campaign team. Prior to Minnick’s campaign, Foster was executive director of the Idaho Democratic Party, where he oversaw the state’s record-breaking Feb. 5 presidential caucuses. Foster jumped to politics from journalism after spending more than 10 years as an award-winning investigative reporter, blogger and editor for the Idaho Business Review and other publications in the west. In addition to his journalism career, Foster spent time as a professional bicycle racer. He and his wife Andrea have a five-year-old son and a two-year-old daughter.

Walt announces transition team

For immediate release

Walt Minnick has assembled a bipartisan team to assist in setting up his offices and hiring staff to help constituents in Idaho’s First Congressional District.

  * Mike Kennedy is president of Intermax Networks and a member of the Coeur d’Alene City Council.
  * Shelley Landry is the North Idaho field organizer for the Idaho Democratic Party.
  * Mike Mitchell is a former Idaho legislator and longtime Lewiston community leader.
  * Vern Bisterfeldt is a member of the Boise City Councilor and a former Republican commissioner of Ada County.

“We’ve got to have a bipartisan approach to help move this country forward, and I could not be more pleased to assist the Congressman-elect with his transition,” Bisterfeldt said.

Minnick has already selected Isaac Squyres to be his chief of staff. Squyres, a Boise native, has more than a decade of experience in politics and public policy. In 1996, as a new graduate of Davidson College, he worked on Minnick’s campaign for the U.S. Senate.

Post-election news

Walt Minnick will be available Friday and Monday for interviews with members of the press. I am happy to schedule interviews in-person or over the phone. If you are from outside Idaho and would like to do a television interview, we can set something up via a studio in Boise.

Some updates on the latest news:

  * Bill Sali has officially conceded, meaning there are no plans for a recount.
  * Sali left a very gracious and heartfelt message for Walt last night. Sali offered to do anything he could to help with the transition. He and Walt were scheduled to speak to each other today.
  * Walt will be back in Washington, D.C., next week.
  * Announcements on a chief of staff and other transition information are forthcoming.
  * People interested in submitting resumes should continue to visit the website http://www.waltforcongress.org, which will soon be updated with information on the transition.