Gurfein challenges Rice in race for 4th Dist. congressional seat

The race for the 4th Congressional District pits Republican challenger David Gurfein against Democratic incumbent Kathleen Rice for the seat.

The 4th C.D. encompasses diverse suburban communities in southern and central Nassau County.

Rice was first elected to Congress in 2014, having previously served as Nassau County district attorney for eight years. She started her career as an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn before moving to Philadelphia as a federal prosecutor, and then to Nassau County.

Gurfein is a retired U.S. Marine who enlisted at 17 and retired 25 years later as a lieutenant colonel. During his years of service, he led infantry Marines in Panama and the first Gulf War, before leaving active duty to earn his master’s degree in business from Harvard.

Herald: What can Congress do to make college more affordable for young people?

David Gurfein: 1. Reduce regulatory burdens placed on universities and eliminate subsidies that cover non-instructional costs. This reduces universities’ expenses while shifting investments in facilities, housing, technology, etc. to private endowments.

2. Analyze the cost of the intended degree with the expected salary. Spending tens of thousands of dollars on a degree that will not provide the means to repay the loan makes no sense.

3. Ensure academic and emotional preparedness. We spend a significant amount of money on [college] dropouts. Only 60 percent complete bachelor’s degrees within six years, and only 30 percent obtain associate’s degrees within three years.

4. Determine the most efficient path to graduation and deny payment of extra credits. Taking more courses than are required for a degree wastes time and resources for the student and the government that subsidizes their tuition, and ultimately makes college less affordable for everybody.

5. Encourage universities and the private sector to award college credit for prior work and experience. This will immediately impact our veterans, who acquire valuable training and experience, yet struggle with employment due to a lack of civilian accreditation.

6. Align incentives of universities who bear little risk. For example, they get paid regardless of whether a student succeeds. Funding should be directly associated with performance indicators, such as timely graduation and job placement.

7. Support alternative funding sources such as tax-exempt employer tuition assistance. Align the incentives of employers who require a more highly educated work force and employees who are looking for ways to enhance their knowledge.

Kathleen Rice: There is a lot that Congress can do to make college more affordable from allowing borrowers to refinance their loans at lower interest rates, to strengthening and expanding Pell Grants and other financial aid programs, to protecting and expanding tax breaks for parents who help their kids pay tuition.

I’m getting ready to introduce legislation that will help students and parents pay off loans in a number of ways. First, it will allow everyone to deduct up to $1 million of student loan interest payments on their tax returns, the same amount people are allowed to deduct for mortgage interest. Second, it ensures that any debt forgiven under an income-based repayment is not counted as taxable income, so that we no longer penalize people who’ve spent decades actively working to repay their debts. Third, it increases the grace period for student borrowers from six months to one year, and it freezes all interest from accruing during the grace period.  

Herald: Tens of thousands of families are opting out of Common Core tests. What can lawmakers do to ensure fairness in testing?  

Gurfein: By teaching to a test and forcing rote memorization at the expense of independent thought, we are actually diminishing a large part of the value of our children’s education in terms of adaptability and problem-solving, which are important for success in life. 

This impacts not only an individual child’s ability to succeed, but it collectively impacts the success of our nation overall in terms of international competitiveness and long-term economic growth. The more we can do to move control of our children’s education closer to the local level, the better. 

On Long Island, where a significant number of our schools are exceeding Common Core standards, it’s because parents and the communities are involved and can impact the educational process and educational environment for our students. 

When federal mandates encroach upon and even override parental involvement and community control of our educational process, our children lose out. 

Not only is this an ineffective way to educate our children for success in the completive national and international economy, it increases the size of our federal government, which then increases our tax burden, something with which all Long Islanders are too familiar. I support overall standards, but advocate moving more control of the implementation and assessment of our children are meeting those standards to the state and local community levels.

Rice: I believe it’s important to set high academic standards so that our students are prepared to compete for the best jobs in the 21st century economy. I also believe we need to do a better job giving teachers the time, resources and support they need to be able to get their students to meet those standards, and I don’t believe schools should be at risk of losing federal funding if parents decide that opting out of testing is the right choice for their child.

I think the Every Student Succeeds Act offers a real opportunity to move past the over-reliance on testing, and as we implement the law, I believe that one of the most important things Congress can do is to make sure that teachers are included in test preparations. They know the curriculum they’re teaching better than anyone, and we need their input in the process.

I will soon be introducing legislation that would require the Department of Education to create an advisory board made up of public school teachers and an advisory board made up of parents and family members. I think that could also help address this problem, because it gives teachers and parents a greater role in policymaking and could make the Secretary of Education more likely to issue regulations that include teachers and parents in test development and accountability processes.

Herald: With recent attempted terrorist attacks, what can the Congress do to ensure public safety?

Gurfein: At the state and local levels, we must support our law enforcement. As long as our federal government abdicates its responsibilities for national defense, border security, and immigration control and enforcement, they will be tasked to fill this role.

At the federal level, we need to align with our allies and with the majority of moderate Muslims throughout the world to destroy ISIS and the more than 100 violent Islamist supremacist organizations in the world, just as we did the Nazis during World War II. This would not only eliminate the present threat to our society, but would also send an unambiguous message to others who might intend to follow suit that they are heading down a dead-end path. This is truly the only viable option.

Rice: First, we need to continue working with our coalition partners overseas to destroy ISIS in the Middle East, gather and share intelligence, eliminate key ISIS leaders, and keep taking away their territory and cutting of their revenue sources. We also need to do a better job confronting ISIS online, and develop innovative strategies to counter their radicalization and recruitment efforts. We need to increase funding for domestic counterterrorism efforts, particularly as we continue to eliminate ISIS territory in the Middle East and face the prospect of foreign fighters returning to their home countries. We also need to continue to improve security at our airports. I’ve helped pass bipartisan bills to strengthen screening procedures and other airport security measures, and I’ll continue working to ensure that we are fully prepared to prevent terrorists from boarding planes and to prevent attacks in airports themselves.

Finally, we can’t talk about preventing domestic terrorist attacks without talking about reforming our nation’s gun laws. We need to take action to prevent suspected terrorists from buying guns, require background checks for all gun sales, and ban the sale of military-style assault weapons.

BIOs:

David Gurfein:

Party Affiliation: Republican

Age: 51

Lives in: Manhasset

Career: Retired military

Political experience: No elected office

Other: After earning his bachelor's degree, Gurfein served with the Marine Crops as a second lieutenant and infantry officer. Gurfein pursued a business career at Goldman Sachs after earning his Masters of Business Administration, but returned to active duty in the military after the 9/11 attacks on New York. He served as congressional liaison for the special operations command in Washington, D.C. He retired from active duty as a lieutenant colonel.

Kathleen Rice:

Party Affiliation: Democrat

Age: 51

Lives in: Garden City

Career: Congresswoman, 4th District

Political experience: Previously Nassau County district attorney

Other: Before serving in Congress, Rice was called “the state’s toughest DWI prosecutor” because of her work in toughening the state’s driving while intoxicated laws and prosecuting drunken drivers. Mothers Against Drunk Driving honored Rice with its Lifetime Achievement Award.