SE: You’re put in charge of national unemployment. What do you do?Read more of the interview at the Daily Caller here.
RP: Change directions. Immediately redirect remaining stimulus dollars to create 4-5 million jobs by enacting a one year suspension of the payroll tax on the first $50,000 of income – puts more money in peoples’ pockets and helps employers invest in expansion and jobs. End the TARP bail out and direct all repaid dollars to pay down the record national debt to show we are serious about getting our fiscal house in order. Ease the uncertainty that employers and job creators feel right now by stopping the job-killing proposals like card check, the new energy tax, tax increases on small businesses, and burdensome regulations and correcting the health care bill.
SE: What’s your favorite work of fiction, and why?
RP: Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher’s campaign ads.
And, yes, I know that second one was a beauty pageant question too, but I really like Rob's answer... :)
UPDATE: In the comments j.hart said...
"Repeal" is a word I like when the health care bill is mentioned. "Correct" makes me uneasy.I agree. I'd like to see Rob Portman stressing the REPEAL rhetoric, but that's just not his style. To be perfectly honest, I'm too afraid to ask Team Portman if Rob favors repealing it...but like most of us, I sure would like to know.
UPDATE 2: Team Portman reads WMD :) Rob has addressed this and here is what he had to say to the Columbus Dispatch on the subject:
The GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate, former Congressman Rob Portman, wants to repeal the new health-care law. His Democratic opponent, Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, says the overhaul did not go far enough.Emphasis added. I am going to trust that the writer is acurately describing Portman's position in the first sentence of the piece. I would be reassured by a quote wherein Portman actually says, "I, Rob Portman, would favor REPEAL and REPLACE" rather than I like parts of the bill but other parts are yucky. But I now classify Portman as a REPEAL vote and plan to hold him to it.
Speaking separately today at the Ohio Hospital Association’s annual meeting in Columbus, the candidates agreed that soaring health-care costs are unsustainable, too many Americans are unable to get coverage, and the system desperately needs reform. But on how to tackle the problem, there was little common ground.
“The health-care bill doesn’t solve the problem, it makes it worse,” Portman said. “More should have been done about cost control.”
The House passed the legislation in March without a single Republican vote. Earlier, it had been opposed by every Republican in the Senate.
Portman said he supports provisions of the legislation aimed at expanding access to health coverage and ensuring that those with pre-existing conditions can get insurance. But the Obama administration and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate did not focus enough on reducing costs, he said.
Referring to a recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, Portman noted that the legislation will cost Ohio an additional $266 million a year in expanded Medicaid costs.
He said he favors medical malpractice reform, greater emphasis on prevention and wellness, allowing health insurance to be sold across state lines to increase competition and expanding the use of technology to slow rising health-care costs.
And rather than a single piece of legislation to address the problem, Portman said he thinks reform would be more manageable in a series of smaller bills.
In remarks about 30 minutes later, Fisher said, “Health-care reform needs to go much further than it did.”
