You can read the Munter, Schultz and Stauber replies The Iron Range Paper’s question at link below. and below the link I have included the questions an my replies. I enjoyed writing these.
Harry Welty, R-Duluth
What in your view are the top issues in the Eighth Congressional District?
Let’s start here. Our three quarters-of-a-million residents in the northern third of Minnesota are worried about their nation. When I first moved to Duluth 50 years ago unhappy Iron Rangers talked about seceding from Minnesota. It seemed funny then but Donald Trump has made dividing America popular across the nation. Minnesota has a potent economy divided in three sectors, mining, agriculture and commerce. A critical key for all of these is our pristine water which seemed inexhaustible in an age before Global warming. Multi-millionaire Jeno Paulucci once proposed using our water to slurry coal from the Dakotas. He was serious. That was forty years ago. So was the Arizona scientist who just said we would need to pipe our waters to California to feed America. That was yesterday in the New York Times. We are paying a high price for our ignorance. Being a divided nation only fuels our ignorance.
How would you address your top issues?
Blunt honesty, which is becoming increasingly scarce in the myopic Trumplican party. We don’t need WWF performers. We need more Honest Abe’s in Washington DC.
Why did you decide to run for this office?
Because our Congressmen Pete Stauber’s nice guy act is running out of gas while he hides in Donald Trump’s pockets.
How would you balance the utilization of natural resources with the Eighth District with environmental protection?
I am not afraid of copper nickle mining but mineral investors have a long history of evading long term responsibility for their permanent despoliation of the environment. We need to invest in the study of sulphur extraction from mineral ores the way the University of Minnesota researched magnetizing low grade Taconite ore in the 1940’s which saved the Iron Range in 1963 (when I moved to Minnesota) and the Taconite Amendment was passed with statewide support.
Some of the communities and populations within the Eighth Congressional District are among the poorest in the state—what solutions do you have for this?
They are not very well hidden behind four facts. 1. America is by far the richest nation ever on Earth. 2. It’s also become the developed nation with the richest low taxed billionaires and 3. the most un-housed, underfed, under educated children. 4. Republicans intentionally confuse “socialism” with Stalin-Era “communism” to protect the rich from fair taxation. There are easy solutions to be found in these four facts.
Why should voters elect you?
Because I see Donald Trump for what he is—a lying, narcissist, dictator wannabe and I see Pete Stauber for what he is. Trump’s biggest fan.
