Tom Fiegen in 2016 IA Senate race
On Budget & Economy:
Why did nobody from Wall Street went to jail?
How is it that after all of the fraud, corruption and greed, nobody from Wall Street went to jail? They held our country hostage for nearly a trillion dollar bailout in 2008. And threw us into the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression. Our banking system must be part of the productive, job-creating productive economy. The Federal Reserve, a government entity which serves as the engine of the banking industry, must
eliminate its internal conflicts of interest, provide stricter oversight, and insist that the banks its supports serve the economy in a way that works for everyone, not just a few.
Source: 2016 Iowa Senate campaign website, FiegenForUSSenate.com
Oct 9, 2015
On Corporations:
Banks that are too big to fail are too big to exist
Bernie Sanders is absolutely right, too big to fail is too big to exist! We need to break up the big banks and bring back Glass Steagall. As a US Senator, I look forward to working with President Sanders's to re-enact Glass Steagall and break up the big
banks.It is time to break up the largest financial institutions in the country. The six largest financial institutions in this country today hold assets equal to about 60% of the nation's gross domestic product. These six banks issue more than 2/3 of
all credit cards and over 35% of all mortgages.
We must break up too-big-to-fail financial institutions. Those institutions received a $700 billion bailout from the US taxpayer, and more than $16 trillion in virtually zero-interest loans from the
Federal Reserve. Despite that, financial institutions made over $152 billion in profit in 2014--the most profitable year on record, and three of the four largest financial institutions are 80% bigger today than they were before we bailed them out. ?
Source: 2016 Iowa Senate campaign website, FiegenForUSSenate.com
Oct 9, 2015
On Corporations:
Disallow corporate tax havens; tax income when earned
I want to end the practice of Congress of selling tax breaks in return for political contributions. If I could single out just one, it is the provision that allows
U.S. corporations to earn income abroad and not pay tax on that profit until they bring it back into this country. The estimate was at the start of 2015 that there was over $3 trillion in
US corporate profits stashed in tax havens like the Cayman Islands. If that income had been taxed when earned, like domestically earned profits, the
Federal government would end the 2015 fiscal year with a $400 billion surplus, instead of a $600 billion deficit.
Source: 2016 Iowa Senate campaign website, FiegenForUSSenate.com
Oct 9, 2015
On Education:
We are forcing a lifetime of slavery to student loans
Can think of a more bizarre policy than to tell our best and our brightest to get an education to make them more productive workers and better citizens, but that the price is a lifetime of slavery to student loans?
At graduation this spring, the total of our student loans reached $1.2 trillion! Loans that our graduates cannot refinance, they will never likely pay back, and which will prevent them from ever owning a house, getting married, or starting a family.
Enough of this madness! We need to make higher education free to every qualified student and we need to refinance, reform and reduce the loan burden for people who have already graduated.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste -- and to enslave to needless debt.
Source: 2016 Iowa Senate campaign website, FiegenForUSSenate.com
Oct 9, 2015
On Energy & Oil:
Transform away from fossil fuels, and towards sustainability
The United States must lead the world in tackling climate change, if we are to make certain that this planet is habitable for our children and grandchildren. We must transform our energy system away from polluting fossil fuels, and towards energy
efficiency and sustainability. Millions of homes and buildings need to be weatherized, and we need to greatly accelerate technological progress in wind and solar power generation.
Unless we take bold action to address climate change, our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are going to look back on this period in history and ask a very simple question: Where were they?
Why didn't the United States of America, the most powerful nation on earth, lead the international community in cutting greenhouse gas emissions and preventing the devastating damage that the scientific community told us would surely come?
Source: 2016 Iowa Senate campaign website, FiegenForUSSenate.com
Oct 9, 2015
On Environment:
Democratize and decentralize our food production
My biggest concerns for Iowa and the country are: the need to address childhood hunger (One in five of our children in America is food insecure); the need to democratize and decentralize our food production, to grow, process and market more healthy local
fresh food (and revitalize local economies); and to clean up our water, by reducing and ultimately banning ag poisons like Roundup and Enlist herbicides. The number of cancer deaths in Iowa has increased over the last 40 years, in large part because of
the ag poisons in our drinking water.The small-farm revolution is part of the "back to the land" movement by young people to have a connection with their food. It is part of the local food movement which has spawned the farmers markets and CSAs.
If I am at the table in the Senate during the drafting of the next Farm Bill there will be a paradigm shift from supporting GMO/chemical mono industrial agriculture to supporting/promoting/subsidizing local healthy fresh sustainable food production.
Source: 2016 Iowa Senate campaign website, FiegenForUSSenate.com
Oct 9, 2015
On Free Trade:
I am concerned about lopsided trade agreements
I am concerned about the downward economic spiral of working people, lopsided trade agreements, the ruthless big banksters aka gangsters like JPMorgan Chase, which dominate our economy and politics. I am equally concerned about the lack of access and
affordability of health care and prescription drugs for Americans, and the $1.2 trillion student loan debt which is preventing our young people from getting married, buying a home or starting a family.
Source: 2016 Iowa Senate campaign website, FiegenForUSSenate.com
Oct 9, 2015
On Government Reform:
Whoever underwrites your campaign, owns you
Q: Why do you swear off PAC money?A: Because whoever underwrites your campaign, owns you. And as the Bible says, you cannot serve two masters. You cannot take money from corporate PACs and then serve working people. If me or anyone else running for
public office wants to stand with working people, they cannot owe anything to the corporate PACs. Our democracy is under fierce attack. Billionaire families are now able to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to buy the candidates of their choice.
Source: 2016 Iowa Senate campaign website, FiegenForUSSenate.com
Oct 9, 2015
On Health Care:
Stop the scam of paying generic drug makers to NOT sell
Companies that develop new drugs need to recover their costs and make a profit so that they can develop the next lifesaving drug and the next. But after they have made enormous profits and their patents have expired, drug companies are now running a scam
where they pay generic drug makers to NOT sell their drugs in America. Generic drugs are often 1/10 the cost of name brand drugs. Medicare and Medicaid should be able to negotiate with drug companies on their prices like the VA does.
Source: 2016 Iowa Senate campaign website, FiegenForUSSenate.com
Oct 9, 2015
On Homeland Security:
Take care of veterans and their families
While serious people can have legitimate differences about when our country should go to war, there should never be a debate whether we fulfill the promises made to the men and women who served this country in the military. As a nation, we have a moral
obligation to provide the best quality care to those who have put their lives on the line to defend us.Just as planes and tanks and guns are a cost of war, so is taking care of the men and women who we sent off to fight the war. It includes caring
for the spouses and children who have to rebuild their lives after the loss of a loved one. It includes caring for the hundreds of thousands of veterans with multiple amputations or loss of eyesight, post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain
injury. It includes veterans who are having difficulty keeping jobs in order to pay their bills, and it includes the terrible tragedy of veterans committing suicide. Sometimes war is necessary, but it should be the last--not first--option.
Source: 2016 Iowa Senate campaign website, FiegenForUSSenate.com
Oct 9, 2015
On Social Security:
Expand it rather than cut it
On Social Security: We are going to expand it, not cut it. There are powerful special interests who want to severely cut this bedrock program that is a part of America.
We are going to stop them from doing that and expand it, not cut it.
Source: 2016 Iowa Senate campaign website, FiegenForUSSenate.com
Oct 9, 2015
On Tax Reform:
Since 1980s, we've transferred wealth to the very rich
America now has more wealth and income inequality than any major developed country on earth, and the gap between the very rich and everyone else is wider than at any time since the 1920s. The reality is that since the
mid-1980s there has been an enormous transfer of wealth from the middle class and the poor to the wealthiest people in this country. That is the Robin Hood principle in reverse. That is unacceptable and that has got to change.
Source: 2016 Iowa Senate campaign website, FiegenForUSSenate.com
Oct 9, 2015
On Welfare & Poverty:
Address childhood hunger & childhood poverty
My biggest concerns for Iowa and the country are: the need to address childhood hunger (One in five of our children in America is food insecure); the need to democratize and decentralize our food production, to grow, process and market more healthy local
fresh food.There is something profoundly wrong when we have a proliferation of millionaires at the same time as millions of Americans work longer hours for lower wages and we have the highest childhood poverty rate of any developed country on earth.
Source: 2016 Iowa Senate campaign website, FiegenForUSSenate.com
Oct 9, 2015
On Principles & Values:
Progressive battling for the soul of the Democratic party
In addition to his race, Fiegen has announced his candidate in the Democratic presidential primary as well: "I'm supporting Bernie Sanders. I've decided I'm endorsing him.
Democrats need to walk the walk, not just talk the talk."He continued, "This is a real battle for the soul of the Democratic party. Are we really with the people?
Who are the people who are really with you, and who are the people who are only with you until push comes to shove?"
Describing himself as a progressive Democrat, Fiegen is the oldest of 11 children who was raised on a diversified family farm.
Previously, Fiegen served in the Iowa State Senate and has spent 27 years providing bankruptcy services to family farmers and small businesses.
Source: Spencer Daily Reporter on 2016 Iowa Senate race
Sep 23, 2015
Page last updated: Nov 30, 2021