U.S. Senate candidate Heather Wilson (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
Heather Wilson told NMPolitics.net in March 2008 that the media was blowing the nation’s economic problems out of proportion. She said she expected that there would be an “economic slowdown,” but it should be “short and shallow.”
That was in line with what many of the nation’s leaders from both political parties said at the time. Of course, they were wrong. A few months later, the United States fell quickly into what some call the Great Recession.
Fast-forward three years, and the Republican Wilson is once again running for an open seat in the U.S. Senate. This time, she’s taking a much different tone when she talks about the economy.
“The country is in deep trouble,” Wilson told me in March. “The financial picture, no matter if you take the optimistic or pessimistic projections, they are both unsustainable.”
Wilson is speaking primarily about the economy these days, but she’s also talking about national defense, health care and building up families.
In a recent interview during a visit to Las Cruces, Wilson said her willingness to grapple with those issues and her experience are what set her apart in the Senate race, which also features, on the GOP side, Lt. Gov. John Sanchez and two lesser-known candidates – Greg Sowards and William S. English. On the Democratic side, U.S. Rep. Martin Heinrich and State Auditor Hector Balderas have entered the Senate race, as has little-known community activist Andres Valdez.
During her interview with NMPolitics.net, Wilson spoke at length about the economy, mentioning the balanced budgets Washington produced through bipartisan agreements at the end of Bill Clinton’s presidency. She supported the wartime spending necessary to respond to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, but said the mistake was “not getting back to fiscal balance soon enough after 9/11.”
Wilson was careful not to criticize President George W. Bush, however, saying the United States “cannot operate in the way we’ve been doing over the last two years” since Barack Obama became president.
She spoke glowingly about the efforts by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to steer the conversation about the budget, saying he has done a service to the nation by presenting substantive ideas. However, Wilson didn’t take a position on Ryan’s budget plan.
‘We have a spending problem’
Wilson said the solution to the nation’s economic woes comes not in raising taxes, but in cutting spending. That puts her at odds with former U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M. and her political mentor. Domenici, who has taken a high-profile role in the conversation about America’s fiscal future, says a mix of spending cuts and tax increases is necessary.
Not Wilson.
“We don’t have a revenue problem,” she told NMPolitics.net. “We have a spending problem.”
However, when asked about Obama’s proposal to cut military spending, Wilson said she doesn’t believe “significant” cuts can be made by the Department of Defense. She said it is “one of the more efficient and effective” departments in the federal government.
But she does believe that all departments need more scrutiny. The Senate should revive a past committee that reviews programs, so managers have to appear before lawmakers and justify spending.
Wilson said she favors a simplification of the tax code. And she said the United States must move toward low taxes, less regulation and a stronger education system.
Foreign policy
Wilson’s greatest area of expertise might be foreign policy. There’s a lot going on right now, including the unrest in the Middle East, and Wilson said this is a time of great risk. She said the United States must stay engaged and “stand on the side of freedom,” and she criticized Obama for reducing U.S. involvement in some countries.
But not Libya. Obama’s mistake there, Wilson said, was being slow to act. She said he should have been more decisive and not waited for U.N. involvement before engaging in Libya.
“Decisive action could have ended this sooner,” she said, adding that the decision to act should have been easy: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has supported terrorism and killed Americans, and the United States has some vital interests there.
Wilson said the United States should intervene – militarily or otherwise – in another country when there is a vital national interest at stake and when the United States is in a position in which intervention is doable, saying it’s more realistic in some situations than others.
She said U.S. military forces should only be involved when there’s a vital interest, when they’ll be under American command, and when there’s a clear mission from which they can come home safely.
Wilson said her view that the United States should be significantly involved in other countries is not inconsistent with her assertion that the United States’ financial situation is unsustainable. She said the Defense Department “is not the cause” of the nation’s financial woes and “cannot be the solution.”
Mexico’s ‘narco-insurgency’
One country that has Wilson concerned is Mexico. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano recently said the situation along the U.S.-Mexico border is “better now than it has ever been” and violence isn’t spilling over in a serious way. Wilson said Napolitano “seriously misjudges the seriousness of the situation in Northern Mexico” and its impact on this side of the border.
“Over the past 2-3 years, the cartels in Northern Mexico have gone from fighting each other to control the most lucrative drug routes to targeting local officials in Mexico for intimidation and even execution in what looks more and more like a narco- insurgency focused not on toppling a government, but on creating a permissive environment in which to operate their illicit enterprises,” Wilson said.
“And the corruption is spilling over the border,” she said. “The recent arrests in Columbus are one example. In the past five years, 80 border patrol agents have been arrested for corruption. At least a hundred more have been investigated.”
Wilson said the United States must expand its intelligence gathering and cooperation with the Mexican government, but she does not favor military intervention by the United States. And she said she would match her understanding “of the priorities in national intelligence” with Napolitano’s.
“While there is some intelligence collection focused on Northern Mexico, it is really very limited and needs to be beefed up substantially given the deterioration in the situation in Northern Mexico over the past two years,” Wilson said.
She said she favors a comprehensive approach to immigration reform and border security that includes use of law enforcement agents, physical barriers, technology and changes in policy, in addition to better intelligence gathering in Mexico.