{"id":576,"date":"2014-11-03T22:19:39","date_gmt":"2014-11-03T22:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stateofdisparity.org\/?p=576"},"modified":"2014-11-03T22:20:37","modified_gmt":"2014-11-03T22:20:37","slug":"congressional-candidates-from-cts-most-unequal-district-weigh-in-on-disparity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stateofdisparity.org\/?p=576","title":{"rendered":"Congressional candidates from CT’s most unequal district weigh in on disparity"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Republican<\/a>

Republican Dan Debicella (left) and Democratic Congressman Jim Himes at a debate in Norwalk<\/p><\/div>The two candidates running for Congress in the Connecticut district with the widest economic disparity talked in a debate last week about what they\u2019d do to close that gap. Democratic incumbent Jim Himes and Republican challenger Dan Debicella both agreed that the disparity is a problem, but they took different approaches to how they\u2019d handle the issue.<\/p>\n

Himes said the disparity is clear as you travel from affluent towns like Greenwich and Darien to Bridgeport, \u201cwhere an awful lot of people are living below the poverty line.\u201d<\/p>\n

Himes said regardless of what party people are in, \u201cwe feel that that\u2019s not quite right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s Himes\u2019 full response:
\nhttp:\/\/www.stateofdisparity.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/himes_disparity_141028.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/p>\n

Himes said the key to addressing disparity in the region is education.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to fix the failing schools that unfortunately are keeping our young people in communities of need back, that are not offering them the kind of opportunity to live the American dream.\u201d<\/p>\n

Himes said he\u2019s glad the country is having a good, if antagonistic, conversation about how to solve the education issue.<\/p>\n

Himes said he supports raising the minimum wage. And he said it\u2019s a problem that tax benefits tend to help only people at the top of the income level.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe ought to try to restructure our tax code and the subsidies that we give as a government to actually help those people who need help and who are struggling today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Debicella said the disparity question was very personal to him, because he grew up in Bridgeport, with a father who was a police officer and a mother who was a secretary. He said he\u2019s the first in family to go to college. <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s Debicella\u2019s full reply:
\nhttp:\/\/www.stateofdisparity.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/debicella_disparity_141028.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/p>\n

Debicella said the American Dream is threatened for too many families.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an area where we have to stop talking about income inequality and start talking about social mobility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Debicella is proposing what he calls enterprise zones in areas of Bridgeport, Norwalk and Stamford that are the most in need of jobs, where businesses wouldn\u2019t be charged any federal or state taxes, and the federal government would pay local property taxes. <\/p>\n

He also said we need to reform education.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpecifically we should be taking the lessons of charter schools and bringing them into the public schools.\u201d<\/p>\n

Debicella is also proposing what he\u2019s calling urban innovation zones in education \u201cthat allow local boards of education , teachers and parents, to determine things like curriculum for themselves, rather than having some bureaucrat or politician tell them what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said we need to stop what he called \u201cscare tactics\u201d and start talking about the American dream again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The two candidates running for Congress in the Connecticut district with the widest economic disparity talked in a debate last week about what they\u2019d do to close that gap. Democratic incumbent Jim Himes and Republican challenger Dan Debicella both agreed that the disparity is a problem, but they took different approaches to how they\u2019d handle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stateofdisparity.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stateofdisparity.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stateofdisparity.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stateofdisparity.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stateofdisparity.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=576"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.stateofdisparity.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":581,"href":"http:\/\/www.stateofdisparity.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576\/revisions\/581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stateofdisparity.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stateofdisparity.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stateofdisparity.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}