Crapo: Debt is top challenge

By CAMERON RASMUSSON

Staff writer

SANDPOINT — Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, believes that of all the threats the United States faces, there’s more to fear from dollars and cents than bombs and bullets.

In a Sandpoint town hall meeting last week, he warned attendees that he feared the national debt would soon become out of control if drastic steps weren’t taken to curb spending. In his mind, it’s a more pertinent danger than any disease or terrorist force out there.

“We haven’t done what is required to control this,” he said. “We run the risk that the world markets will no longer trust that the U.S. can honor its debts.”

Crapo said his preferred plan to address the debt crisis is a reformation of the tax code. While he would prefer to enact a flat tax, he said that goal would probably be politically untenable. Instead, he believes a three-tiered income tax system combined with a gutting of the many tax code loopholes would substantially boost revenue. He’d also like to see the corporate tax rate lowered substantially along with spending reductions and reforms in U.S. entitlement programs. That includes popular programs in Idaho like the farm bill, he said.

Most of the meeting was spent talking directly with constituents, who had plenty on their minds. A troop of Boy Scouts attended the meeting to ask some burning questions, like whether federal military spending was too high. Crapo said that while all federal spending should be trimmed, he believed the defense budget was mostly justified.

“I believe the most significant responsibility under the U.S. Constitution is to provide a strong national defense,” he said.

The judicial clearance for same-sex marriage in Idaho was also a popular topic. One attendee was angry about the legal costs of fighting the case in federal courts. Another worried that it represented an erosion of Constitutional religious rights — particularly for wedding business owners that don’t want to serve homosexual clients. While Crapo said as a federal official he wasn’t directly involved, he wishes the issue would have been left to Idaho residents.