Anderson seeks District 7 state Senate seat
By News-Argus Staff
Published in News on October 24, 2014 2:28 PM
Full Size
Erik Anderson
Whoever is elected to the District 7 seat in the state Senate needs to be independent because he is there for the entire district and not a select group, Erik Anderson says.
Anderson, 34, a Winterville Democrat, is challenging Republican incumbent Louis Pate of Mount Olive in the Nov. 4 election.
District 7 includes portions of Wayne, Pitt and Lenoir counties.
"I want people to know that I am looking out for them," Anderson said. "I don't want them to think that I am looking out for a particular interest or a particular party. Even though I have a D on my name, I am more of an independent. I have great integrity that I have proven over my young lifetime. Honesty. I have this great sense of community."
The problem now, he said, is that the state faces a lot of problems no one is solving, two of the biggest being Medicaid and teacher pay.
Anderson does not support privatizing Medicaid. He called a proposal to remove Medicaid from the Department of Health and Human Services and into its own department under the governor a "facade" to move money around.
Along with Medicaid, the issues include the economy, infrastructure and education, he said.
"If the problem is jobs, then that is what we need to address," he said. "If it is not making enough and underemployment, then maybe we need to look at raising the minimum wage. But we cannot sustain this (Medicaid spending) and kick it down the road."
Anderson said the state made a mistake by not expanding the program when it had a chance. Having done so would have provided the state with a three-year window to implement a plan to figure out the problem.
Anderson said that he chose not to become a teacher because of the low pay.
"I can't believe how much work is involved to make so little money," he said. "I know they don't do it for the money, but you still have to make a living. We have to find a way to pay our teachers and make it so that it is a cost benefit."
Anderson said he also wants to look at extending the school year. North Carolinians must be able to compete with the rest of the nation and world, he said.
"If everybody else has much higher school days than we do and longer school hours than we do, we need to find a way to compete with them."
Anderson said that it did not make sense for lawmakers to lower taxes while the economy is shaky.
"You raise the actual government in times of need, like you provide more services," he said. "That is how you get more jobs and that is how you get tax revenues. So in 2008 we really should have expanded a lot of the state jobs and then, when the economy starts bouncing back, then you should be relaxing some of those jobs and making sure the transition and hiring from private industry is doing OK.
"But in North Carolina right now, I don't think it's at that time (to cut taxes) when you have such a high unemployment rate."
While he supports returning lottery money to the counties, Anderson noted that could prove tough over the next few years.
"Right now, the priorities of the General Assembly are to get us to as low of a tax rate as possible, which puts more burden on the counties to make up for that money," he said.
The highway funding formula needs to be changed because currently it favors the I-85 corridor and I-40 regions, Anderson said.
Anderson said he believes borrowing $1 billion to do rural projects is a good idea. But at the same time, it is an admission that there is a problem with the funding formula, he said.
"Borrowing for the highway fund is a great initiative, but he (Gov. Pat McCrory) would have paid for it if he hadn't given all of the tax breaks he does," Anderson said.
"Lobbyists are a big problem in the General Assembly," Anderson said. "You see it if you go up there. It is kind of like a fish bowl. They will be in their committees and have windows and there will be 25 lobbyists just waiting for them to get out of their committee meeting so they can attach to them and say 'Hey. I am going to pay you this amount of money. Vote for this bill.'"
Anderson said that many legislators do not know how to write bills and simply accept the ones that are offered by the lobbyists.
Anderson said another issue he would like to see lawmakers tackle is an audit to look at the minimum wage to see if it needs to be increased.
He said the current system of drawing voting districts needs to be changed. The districts should be created by an independent source, instead of the political party in power, he said.