Cicilline Kicks Off Campaign for Congress
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
Providence Mayor David Cicilline kicked off his campaign for Congress yesterday by rolling out ambitious plans for instituting interest-free student loans, reviving manufacturing, and pulling out of the war in Afghanistan.
Cicilline is running for the First District seat, which Patrick Kennedy is vacating.
He faces a four-way race in the Democratic primary against former state party chair Bill Lynch, state Rep. David Segal, and businessman Anthony Gemma.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTEconomic Recovery Depends on Manufacturing
Speaking at the Groov-Pin plant in Smithfield yesterday, Cicilline said manufacturing was the key to economic recovery. He proposed federal grants to aid manufacturers. “For our economy to truly recover, we need to make things,” Cicilline said. “We need to invest in manufacturing. We need to invest in companies that are manufacturing in America.”
He said government should stop charging interest on loans to students, saying it didn’t make sense to charge interest on loans to children of hard-working families who were trying to go to college.
Cicilline also said the United States need to pull out of Afghanistan—which is costing $2.6 billion a month—and invest the money in infrastructure at home.
To make his point, he stopped by the Hamlet Avenue Bridge in Woonsocket, which has been rated as structurally deficient. “We’re rebuilding brides, roads, schools, water systems halfway around the world,” Cicilline said. “We have bridges, roads, schools, water systems in this country that are crumbling.”
Cicilline took a whirlwind tour through the First District yesterday, making stops in at the Taunton Plaza retirement community in East Providence and Hope Street in Bristol. He ended at his campaign headquarters in Pawtucket.
In Smithfield, workers at Groov-Pin, which manufacturers precision turned components, liked what Cicilline had to say, but were skeptical he would be able to achieve all of his goals as a freshman in Congress. “It all sounds good in theory,” said David Beland, a tool maker. “I don’t know what it takes to take all those ideas and make it happen.”
Beland and co-worker Andre Gauvin, both Burrillville residents, said they were surprised Cicilline didn’t address the cost of health care. Both said they couldn’t afford health insurance and were currently not covered under a plan.
But Beland did like what Cicilline had to say about manufacturing, as did Scott Jones, President of Groov-Pin. Jones said his company would use the grant to buy new machines and other equipment.
Highlights of other policies Cicilline proposed yesterday include:
■ Helping small businesses with tax credits for new equipment and employees and expanded access to loans through the Small Business Administration
■ A limit on the size of banks and other financial institutions, which Cicilline said would do away wit the idea that some banks were “too big too fail.”
■ Cutting the connection between money and politics by instituting a lifetime ban on ex-Congressmen from being lobbyists and barring campaign contributions from industries to Congressmen who serve on committees that regulate them.
