Reid touts improving economy, health care

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the economy is getting better and dared Republicans to try to stop the health care reform plan, during a keynote speech at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner Saturday night.

The event at Nevada Treasure RV Resort was the biggest for the Nye County Democrats since former first lady Rosalynn Carter campaigned for her son, U.S. Senate candidate Jack Carter, in 2006.

Reid took the crowd of 180 people back to the start of the George W. Bush administration in 2000, including the controversial election when Bush was declared the winner by a 5-4 vote of the U.S. Supreme Court though he had fewer votes than Democratic candidate Al Gore. There were no riots, no windows broken when that happened, a sign of the stability of the American political system, the envy of the world, Reid said.

"Remember, when he took office, we had four years of surpluses. In fact we were being criticized in Congress, along with President Clinton, for retiring the debt too quickly. Remember that? When President Bush took office Bill Clinton had created 24 million jobs," Reid said. "That changed quickly. Remember when President Bush wanted to privatize Social Security? And everyone thought he would accomplish it. But I was one of the ones who fought against that and we stopped it."

The Bush administration and the Republican Congress got rid of the pay-as-you-go budgeting, Reid said.

"We have all these huge tax cuts, not a single one of them paid for," he said.

Further, the war in Iraq cost the U.S. $1 trillion, Reid said. He added, Johns Hopkins University estimated 1 million Iraqis have been killed in that war.

The month Barack Obama was elected president in November 2008, the U.S. lost 800,000 jobs, Reid said. In December 2008, the Senate Majority Leader said he met with his new leadership team -- Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., -- who sat down with five congressmen, two from prior Democratic and two from prior Republican administrations, along with U.S. Sen. John McCain's economic advisor.

"Those five famous economists in Congress told us the only money left in the world is in Washington and you'd better spend a lot of it or we're going to have a worldwide depression. Well we did that. We avoided a worldwide depression. That's little comfort, little solace to people who lost their homes, lost their jobs, or are afraid they're going to lose their homes or afraid they're going to lose their jobs. Well we did that and right now things are starting to turn around," Reid said.

As examples, Reid said a Chinese company will build a windmill factory that will produce 1,000 jobs in Clark County; a solar and natural gas plant in Mesquite will create another 1,000 jobs and the expansion of a solar plant in Eldorado Valley will place 1 million solar panels in the ground by early 2011, enough to electrify 45,000 homes.

Reid was excited about a new agreement between NV Energy and LS Power. "For the first time in the history of this great state we're going to be able to transmit electricity from the North to the South," he said.

Reid lobbied for the health care reform bill.

"America should not be a country where people have to file bankruptcy if they get sick or hurt. We're the only industrialized nation in the world where getting health care is a privilege, not a right," Reid said.

He said the Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan referee, determined the health care bill will save $142 billion in the next 10 years and $1.3 trillion in the 10 years after that.

"We have immediate deliverables. I dare the John McCains of the world, all the other Republicans, including (Governor) Jim Gibbons, saying we're going to repeal this bill. Right now people in Nevada, small businesses, many of them right here, are eligible for health care for the first time," Reid said.

When health care exchanges are set up in two and a half years, Reid said Americans can decide whether they want to take out an expensive health insurance policy or one that isn't so expensive just like federal employees.

"People talk a lot about rural Nevada. I'm a rural Nevadan. I was born and raised in rural Nevada. I don't know anyone holding statewide office in recent years that's been from rural Nevada," Reid said.

The two Democratic congresswomen from Nevada showed up to support Reid. Though Pahrump isn't in their congressional district, both U.S. Rep. Dina Titus and U.S. Rep. Shelly Berkley hinted that could change with redistricting after the 2010 census.

Titus recalled the tough battle over health care reform.

"It's a very mean, very malicious, very misinformed movement that's out there. When the health care bill came up, we were coming to the time of the vote. In the 10 days prior to the vote they spent $1.3 million in ads against me and against that vote, $1.3 million in 10 days. They generated 2,000 phone calls a day to our office, not from the district, but from around the country that tied up our lines so we couldn't talk to our own constituents about the good things that were in that bill," Titus said.

Titus cited other important legislation in her short term in Congress, like passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act; a public lands bill protecting Nevada's national treasures; an education bill that provides more scholarship money and Pell grants for people going to college and a jobs bill.

Titus acknowledged the uphill fight this November for the Democratic party.

"Now with the new Supreme Court decision that allows corporations to put as much money as they want to into campaigns it's going to be tough. That's why what you do is so much more important," Titus said.

"Take your mother, your Sunday school teacher, your hairdresser, drag them all out to the polls because we have got to get that turnout. We know in off-year elections turnout is always lower. We always know it favors the party that's out of the White House and this year we don't have a presidential election to bring a lot of voters," she said.

Gubernatorial candidate Rory Reid, son of the senator, said the governor is supposed to present a plan where Nevadans are and where they will be under his administration. Rory Reid, the chairman of the Clark County Commission, said the day he announced his candidacy he presented a 30-page plan.

"We will never have a good economy in Nevada unless we have good schools," Rory Reid said. He said Nevadans should be "ashamed of ourselves" at the fact so many students don't graduate from high school.

Robert Randazzo, Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, said he was in charge of international business development for United Airlines, where he traveled to 52 countries. He retired as a pilot.

Randazzo said he's looking to bring some common business sense to the office and said the lieutenant governor should be trying to diversify the state's economy.

Randazzo endorsed health care reform.

"I have a mother who can't retire because my father has a pre-existing condition," he said.