A personal interview with Georgia Junior Senator Johnny Isakson

This is a personal interview that I did with Johnny Isakson. He is a neighbor of mine and was kind enough to invite me into his home to let me speak to him about politics for my AP U.S. Government class where he answered many interesting questions.

Ross: The first thing I wanted to ask you about, ummm, we are talking a lot about political ideology and what shapes it. What events in your life have shaped yours?

Senator Isakson: Well the first thing is there are external things. For me I was born in the 40’s, I went to elementary school in the 50’s and high school in the 60’s John Kennedy was elected president in 1960 and he was very young and very idealistic. I was young and he was kind of an inspiration for public service. He created the Peace Corps and things like that. So that’s an external influence, a role model influence. And secondly your life experience I mean uh, my father was a democrat, but a southern democrat in the 40’s and 50’s was like a national republican of the 90’s and 2000. My father’s conservative principles had an effect on me. And then I ran a business. I knew what it is like to make a payroll. I knew what it was like to take risk. I knew how much of an imposition taxes can be. All of those things, your external things, hereditarily to a certain extent, your relationships in your family and your life experiences.

Ross: Is there something in specific that inspired you to go into politics?

Senator Isakson: Well as I mentioned in my generation, Kennedy was a huge influence for outcome. My generation was right before the hippy movement and the flower kids and all that. We all had short hair cuts and patriotic and went to service, and all that sort of thing. Kennedy was a huge inspiration, so I guess; my two heroes politically are Kennedy and Reagan. They are in two different parties but they both had the same if you study them Kennedy wanted to cut taxes and was a hawk on defense, Reagan cut taxes, Reagan was a hawk on defense. And they both could stand up in front of a group, none of which agreed with them, make a speech, and have everyone clapping by the end of the speech because they were motivational folks.

Ross: What’s the most gratifying thing you have done as a senator?

Senator Isakson: Well, I think it’s impossible to pick out one thing but, I will tell you about two things and both of them really were in the last twelve months. I did the legislation that rewrote the pension laws for the country and allowed the airlines to save the pensions for their employees and a lot of other businesses too. And a lot of people said it couldn’t be done and I was successful in doing it and in the case of Delta, there are 91,000 people in Georgia whose pension was saved because of it. You have a lot of appreciation for being able to do something like that. Plus it was good fiscal policy on the part of the country. And then the other thing I guess you know today I did an appearance at the portrait museum at the museum of patriotism where they are doing the portraits of the 110 Georgians that died in Iraq and I met a lot of the moms and dads and last week I took the Washington Post up to North Georgia, me and Lucy Harris, and her brother Noah Harris was killed there two years ago. And to try and support the families whose sons and daughters have volunteered and sacrificed and I do what I can to help them. That’s a lot of personal meaning to me.

Ross: What kinds of things are you supporting to try and make things easier on the families of troops who lost their lives?

Senator Isakson: Well we finally really this is three years ago and last we got all of the benefits for veterans equalized. It used to be regular active duty veterans got one set of benefits for service and got another we have a whole new military where we’re calling up and activating the guard and reserve and they are serving seamlessly with active duty folks. So I did everything I could to make sure that all those benefits were equalized. We increased the death benefit. You can never put a price on someone giving their life but the death benefit was $12,500 which was not an appropriate amount and I think we increased it to $125,000 or something like that. The biggest thing right now is the challenge of making sure this kind of gets technical right now, the Department of Defense healthcare is delivered by Lancer Military Air Base in Germany by Walter Reed in Washington and countless DOD hospitals around the country. And then when a soldier goes out of active duty, he goes into the Veterans Administration, and to make sure there is no drop in the quality of service between DOD and Veterans. That is the important thing.

Ross: One of the things we talked about recently was legislation that passed that requires a voter ID for all voters. Do you think this will alleviate voter fraud?

Senator Isakson: Well the intent of it is for the integrity of the ballot box. And it was challenged in the court and recently upheld in the courts. In fact the ruling was a couple weeks ago. As long as the ID does not require somebody to have to pay money. Under the Civil Rights Act and Voters Rights Act and rightfully so you can not have a poll tax or a financial prohibition for somebody voting. You have to be sure that ID can be provided free. I think the integrity of the ballot box is absolutely important. We don’t need fraud and I think it was a good law.

Ross: Do you think the new IDs are going to stand in the way of people of less fortunate means to go out and get the ID?

Senator Isakson: No, because there is a provision, two ways, now they can vote without an ID if they vote by mail, you know they don’t have to have an ID because of the mail system. And secondly, the state needs to provide them an ID at no cost if they aren’t a driver. There is so no impediment other than making the effort to get the ID and if that’s to much to ask of someone, the we got a problem.

Ross: Right now voter turnouts very low currently. What types of things have you seen done while in politics to try to encourage higher voter turnout?

Senator Isakson: Well I chaired kids voting Georgia for 10 years. That’s an organization that tries to get school systems to hold mock elections at the same time the general elections are going on and actually have kids go on Election Day and vote, just like they would if they were a registered voting adult. I think most people disposition and habits are born in youthful years and the most important thing we can do is try and demonstrate how important it is to be involved. As a public official, American gets exactly the level of government that America votes for. And I’ve never thought it was a good idea to have the leader of the country to be elected by a minority of the country because more often than not it happens because people stay home and if you stay home, you don’t count. Best examples are the Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq where they had the chance in their first elections the Sunnis boycotted a large measure of the election, and Shiites and Kurds took over the entire assembly. And all the sudden the Sunnis say what a minute, we don’t have any say so; well they didn’t have any say so because they didn’t vote. I think now that they are looking forward to turning out in mass numbers at the next time there is an election. That’s the great thing about democracy in our form of government, participatory government.

Ross: One of the big issues for the 2008 election is the rising cost of healthcare. What is your stance on healthcare reform?

Senator Isakson: It would take 2 days to get into all the details but I don’t believe that a single payer government system is the way to go. My heritage is Swedish, the Sweds have tried and failed, Denmark this last year has switched from a government service system to a private system. We’ve got some big problems with Medicare and Medicaid, we took the patient out of the decision making process. You got the hospital today and you get a $15,000 bill. You sign your name and you leave and the bill goes to the insurance company and they negotiate and pay and you are disconnected with the cost from the payment of your insurance. We need to re-engage I think I have supported the idea of getting every American either a tax credit or a voucher to acquire insurance in the private market. If you did that, everybody then would be insured. You would lower the cost then because you wouldn’t have hospitals and providers charging you paying customer 33% more to cover the non-paying customer that comes in. You could offset doing the vouchers and tax credits, with the tax deductions that you now provide to who do provide insurance. I think what we need to do, and this is major surgery pardon the analogy. You just can’t fix it, its not like you have to fix the pinky or the thumb. You got to do major surgery and get the consumer back engaged in the service.

Ross: Is there anything you dislike about being a senator?

Senator Isakson: Well you know, it’s a volunteer business and the worst thing in the world to do is to go out and put your name out on the ballot and volunteer and doing something and complain about it. I’ve been in public life for 31 years, and I’ve never complained. Are their difficult sides to it? Absolutely, here’s my philosophy, my phone numbers in the book, in fact I imagine that’s where you got it when you called, and I don’t have any anonymous phone numbers, addresses. If people know you are available and they know you’re accessible, that’s when they are respectful. It’s when you try and not be accessible that it drives people crazy. That’s why I have always been kind of an open book. And because of that with rare exception, there have been a few; people have been respectful of my private time. But yeah, it’s a great opportunity and this is a great country. A lot of people have served in the military, a lot of people have served in public office, it’s a team effort, and I’m just glad to be part of the team.

Ross: I don’t know if you read it, there is a book called Hardball, and one of the political maxims is all politics is local and one of the big things they talk about is how some people don’t worry about their constituents. I am impressed to see you around here and actually being in the state walking around.

Senator Isakson: Well nobody in DC can vote for me. That’s a good reason to be here. And on that all politics is local, I know you are doing a paper. That was Tip O’Neil’s line, he was Speaker of the House and that’s true 95%, but you take elections like ’94, when the Republicans took over the Congress, they were able with the “Contract with America” to nationalize elections so it can be done. I appreciate what you said. I feel like if people sent me to Washington to represent them, that every minute I don’t have to be in Washington, I should be back here with them finding out what’s one their minds.

Ross: Do you currently support any of the Republican candidates in the primary for the 2008 election?

Senator Isakson: Well I was with Rudy Giuliani yesterday afternoon. I am on the floor of the Senate everyday with John McCain and Sam Brownback. I was in Iowa at the Iowa State Fair with Fred Thompson. I talked to Mitt Romney last week on the telephone but I have taken the position because of two of my colleagues in the senate Brownback and McCain are running that and I am not endorsing them, why go and endorse somebody else in the face of the colleagues you are trying to work with everyday. Plus I think the people of Georgia, I trust them they’ll make a good decision. I’m just trying to make sure they get to see all of the guys that are coming to the state.

Ross: As President Bush’s final term comes to a close, has there been more or less activity in congress?

Senator Isakson: Well, historically, I’ve been in congress during the last two years of Clinton’s administration, and now the last two years of Bush’s administration, and there is a natural tendency that when a president becomes a lame duck for people to politicize the future. I mean we have 6 members of the senate running for president. I mean give me a break everything Hillary says everything John McCain says has 2008 and 2009 implications. Every president is hand strung by time. In the end, we tend in congress to deliver on what’s important and more often than not that goes unnoticed because the important stuff is not great on the 6 o’clock news, but great for mom and dad in terms of pocketbook issues. I think we’ll get some things done.

Ross: During President Bush’s time in the White House, numerous tax cuts have occurred while federal spending has greatly increased leading to the largest deficit in United States history. How will this affect the conservative voters’ opinion of the Republican Party that usually stands by a fiscally conservative stance? Do you think there is a connection between this and the current Democratic majority in congress?

Senator Isakson: The first part is not going to affect it because tax cuts resulted in increased revenues. If you look at the scoring of the system, last June 15 of 2006, was the largest single take in the history of the USA in terms of taxes paid quarterly to the IRS. The deficit is $130 Billion less now than it was estimated to be in January because of the increased revenues from taxes from tax cuts on capital gains, on dividends, on accelerated rates for coverage, bonus depreciation, advanced expensing were paid all those things paid off more business investment and in turn more revenue. Our problem is and I’m raising my hand because I’m part of the team, we didn’t do the job we should have done on spending, and there’s a lot of frustration out there. The president now is trying to come back and be more tight on spending in terms of the appropriations bills, but he is somewhat hand strung by being a lame duck. The answer to your question is I think conservative voters will be frustrated; however, when they turn around and look at the proposals the democrats are making, if they thought we were bad spenders, you ain’t seen nothing yet. So it’s a relative situation. But that doesn’t mean we don’t deserve criticism on our spending level during our watch.

Ross: With the current social security system, do you think that future holds privatized social security?

Senator Isakson: Well I supported the President he never got a fair break 2 years ago on his proposal. I just worked on the confirmation with the ambassador in Chile to the USA. Chile privatized their social security system about 15 years ago. It has been a marvelous success. And it’s not privatized in the sense that Ross you go take care of it, you’re all right. It is privatized in the sense that you have say so in the direction of the funds you are being taxed and be part of that situation. Much like I am of the Proof savings plan as a member of Congress. The secret, Social Security runs out of money in the year 2045. That is an actual fact, it will probably be sooner, based on longevity and death and mortality, that’s it. We have, 38 years to fix social security. Because of the brilliance and time value of money and compounding interest, if we tweak the formula a little bit, we can overcome the deficiencies of a 38 year period of time, but it requires open minds and people having enough confidence in individual responsibility over government responsibility for that to take place. I had a meeting with my stock broker the other day. Now that I’m in the government I can’t do any business stuff because what I got is what I’m going to have. I think about these types of things. What happens when I’m 75 and 85, how much money is going to be left? If you invest over time and you are disciplined and you get the investor as a part of the decision making process, you’ll get it big. I don’t think you privatize the system, but what I think you do is get the beneficiary engaged in the decisions and give them flexibility in terms in way that money is done. Don’t let them take it out; don’t let them spend it on a car. Don’t let them buy new stereo equipment. Empower them, empowered people always do better than people in real hostage, because they think the government is just going to take care of them.

Ross: So it’s a case of it’s better to receive than to give.

Senator Isakson: That’s exactly right.

Ross: What do you think of the automated voting system now used in Georgia?

Senator Isakson: I don’t have any problem with it. I do think it is probably a good idea to have a paper trail just so people feel confident. Here’s what I tell everybody. The 2002 election was the first election it was used in Georgia. Georgia elected a Republican to the US Senate and the first Republican Governor since Reconstruction. If someone was monkeying with those things, those two things would not have happened. That gives me a lot of confidence that it works. But I think it is important to have the confidence of the voting public for their to be paper trail which is completely with in the capability of the equipment because of technology today. So if someone was to ever challenge the validity of the vote, we have back up paper documents to prove what the votes were.