DOVER Ken Harbaugh, the Democratic candidate for Congress in the 7th District, brought his campaign to Dover on Wednesday, taking questions from the audience during a town hall meeting at the local United Steelworkers Lodge.
Harbaugh, of Avon, is a former Navy pilot who flew reconnaissance missions in the Middle East and off North Korea. He will face U.S. Rep. Bob. Gibbs, R-Lakeville, in the November general election.
He spoke at length about his support for what he called common sense reforms to America's gun laws, saying that he favors keeping people on terrorist no-fly lists and convicted domestic abusers from purchasing a firearm.
"I don't want those people having a weapon, and the vast majority of Americans don't," he said. "The problem is we have a Congress that doesn't have the guts to do what the vast majority of Americans want."
He told a story about a conversation with his 13-year-old daughter Katie shortly after the school shooting in February in Parkland, Fla. His daughter was discussing an active shooter drill at her school.
"It occurred to me that the first active shooter drill I'd ever had was in Kabul, Afghanistan, in a war zone, and we're treating my little girl's seventh-grade middle school like the U.N. compound in Kabul," he said. "That's unforgivable. That is not what I fought for as a Navy pilot to come home and see schools turned into fortress compounds."
In answer to a question about health care, Harbaugh said his goal has to be affordable access for everyone. Things that can be done to reach that goal include fully funding the health care exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act and allowing Medicare to negotiate down drug prices.
The fact that Medicare can't negotiate prices, he said, is "an indictment of our politics. Both sides gave away the farm on that."
Both parties received campaign donations from big pharmaceutical companies to prevent that from happening, he said.
Harbaugh supports increasing the minimum wage. He said the current "artificially low, unlivable minimum wage" is a giveaway to massive corporations.
"We are massively subsidizing Walmart, for example, whose workers cannot live off the paychecks they're getting," he said. Harbaugh has spoken to people who are working two and three jobs and still barely getting by.
In response to another question from the audience, he gave his backing to Social Security and Medicare.
"Social Security is yours," Harbaugh said. "You paid into it. That is not a slush fund to withdraw from, like it's a piggy bank."
He described the recently passed tax bill, which he said would require the federal government to borrow more than $1 trillion, as "an opening salvo against Social Security and Medicare. Don't let them get away with it."
He said the only solution to protect those two programs is to give control of the House and the Senate to the Democrats.
The 7th District includes parts of Lorain, Medina, Huron, Richland, Stark and Tuscarawas counties and all of Ashland, Coshocton, Knox and Holmes counties.
Reach Jon at 330-364-8415 or at jon.baker@timesreporter.com.
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