8TH DISTRICT CONGRESS: THOMPSON SAYS CHANGE NEEDED IN WASHINGTON

Why are your running for Congress this year?

Pretty much the same reason I ran two years ago. I just don't like what's going on in Washington. I don't like a good many of pieces of legislation that have been offered as far as thoroughness of the bills. I'm unhappy with that particular body of government. I'm pretty much like any other citizen out here. It's got somewhat better in the past few years but nothing substantial. We still see bills offered that have half measures that can't get anything right. It seems like it takes forever to do what they do to get done. I'm not running for Congress because I'm totally unhappy with the congressman that we have. I want to see a lot of them change in both parties.

What effect does party affiliation have on your campaign?

Very little. I think I run my campaign as I would if I were running for a county office. I just try to meet as many people as I can and try to get exposure through the media when it's available. I do well on one-on-one. I just try to convey that message to the people that I will listen to them and be responsive to them. I think that is where our government has been remiss as a collective body our government isn't listening to the people. They are screaming at times and they still don't get the results that they want.

What do you feel that you have to offer citizens of the 8th Congressional District?

Accessibility. I'm down to earth. I always have been. I've worked for 11 employers. Not that that makes us terribly wonderful people. But I think through diversity, we overcome a lot. We are pretty understanding and compassionate. Maybe it makes a little bit on the rough side. Maybe we aren't as polished as we would like to think a congressmen should be on C-Span, but I will do quite well with the people.

Discuss briefly your background and experience that has prepared you to serve in Congress.

I went weekends and nights over a period of lots and lots of years for my education. I went to a lot of service schools, universities, factory schools and agriculture school after I got out of the service. My whole entire life has pretty well been in public service if you count federal services and I was a military person for 22 years. That was broken up. I retired for 6 1/2 years. During this time I was a police officer and corrections officer. Then went back on active duty and did two years in the Persian Gulf. I came back and picked up with the state and public service sector. I stayed there until I retired and decided to run for office 2 1/2 years ago.

What distinguishes you from the other candidates running this year in the 8th District?

I'm kind of in the middle. There is a good similarity between the votes that I would cast and the present congressman. On family issues there wouldn't be much difference. I think he does a good job for the agricultural community in particularly Southeast Missouri. I intend to do the same thing. There are issues that are pertinent and detrimental to our form of government and a free society that have gotten out of control in the last 30 years -- special interests. I think they have too much influence on our elected officials and too much influence on the appointees of our elected officials. I think they have too much influence on the media. Because, if you take the money from those special interest groups, you are going to support their agendas. I'm not saying why the congressman does it or why other congressmen do it. The bottom line is the dollar. What's in it for me? What can I get out of it? There's nothing in this for Jay Thompson except a lot of hard work. I'm going to be as broke when I come back from Congress as I will be when I go to Congress. If I can't find something to spend it on, my wife says I will give it away. I've always been real successful in getting rid of money. I'm not in it for the money.

There are many problems facing the country, but what do you feel is the ONE biggest problem facing the United States today?

Our inclination at the national level to have a real flirtation with governments that don't embrace the same values as the majority of our citizens do such as the former nations of the Soviet Union, communist nations, and prop up dictatorships. Our leaders have a tendency to care more about the citizens and leaders of those countries than their own people. The fact is opportunities, benefits and privileges are extended to people in foreign nations by this government that isn't even made available to its own citizens. We shouldn't just break even if we are paying for something. We should get the edge. This isn't Las Vegas. I want to take care of the people first.

What do you feel is the biggest problem facing the people of the 8th Congressional District, and how do you as a representative intend to address that problem?

They all want jobs, more jobs, and better paying jobs. Some of the communities are better off than others. When you take the farming community, they are doing extremely well when you compare it to all their surrounding neighbors. Poplar Bluff is really well. Basically the larger the community, the better it is doing. This has to do with the highways, the labor force and them being able to attract the industry. But jobs principally and the amount of money they get paid. That is what you hear out there more than anything else. They all have a concern. I see my opponent's sign that says a fighter in Congress stands alone. I like that phrase, it's real catchy. But if I'd been a congressman, there would have been a fight with Mr. Gephardt when he got that 600-job federal agency bill in there. I would have wanted that desperately in my district. Because you are talking about a lot of homes, a lot of new cars, a lot of people spending money in stores, and a job that provides insurance. Federal jobs are pretty good jobs to have. We don't have that terribly many in the 8th District like we do in other congressional districts. So I want to bring some of those types of jobs to this community.

What can be done to expand economic development opportunities in the 8th District?

A lot of it is going to depend on the communities. They are going to have to want it. My job would be to try to bring business and the communities together. I hope my participation would be in addition to that possibly getting grants, arrange financing, and maybe getting preparation outside this country. We are going to have to be competitive with other communities, but we have to make sure we don't sell ourselves too cheaply because our labor is worth as much as they would be making in other states.

How serious is the health-care problem? Is it a crisis?

It is in my district, the 8th District. The Post-Dispatch carried an article that 187,000 in the 8th Congressional District are uninsured or underinsured. I think we can find that figure pretty close to accurate on percentage wise in almost any congressional district. A lot of people are uninsured. It is a crisis because there are things we are going to have to address for us to get a good health-care plan in America. What we are talking about is taxes. Call it anything you want to but it's going to cost us. We want the health care and we certainly need it. But with the same token, we say we want jobs. If we get health care, it's got to do for business and industry, certainly the small businesses and self-employed what it is designed to do. It can't cost jobs because it is in existence. So we got to address welfare reform, immigration reform, and health care reform. We want health care but we don't want it to bankrupt this nation. We want care for our people. But by the same token, we don't want it to cause small businesses and self-employed individuals to go broke. This is where the glitch is. The hard decisions are going to have to be made. That means those people we send to Washington, and voice their points are going to have to work for the good of the people not for the good of the special-interest groups, health-care providers, pharmaceuticals, or whoever it is.

What role should the federal government play in providing all Americans access to health care?

I think a good way of doing it would be to mandate national health care for every American to be administered and monitored by the states. Then the welfare of the people rest with whom the constitution intended it to rest with -- the state. It is probably not going to be that way because states don't want the responsibility. They want the federal government to have it. And the federal government doesn't want the states to have any responsibility, they want it all. So there isn't going to a problem between the bureaucracy who winds up with it. It's going to be who is going to be the winner and who is going to the loser. The winners could be the American citizens. The losers could be the American citizens.

There has been a lot of talk about problems with Congress as an institution, and the need to make changes in the way it operates. How do you assess Congress and what changes or reforms do you believe are needed?

I watch C-Span. I read the paper and periodicals. Every other person in the country does and none of us can be too happy with what we see. First off, there are too many of them in the House of Representatives. When Thomas Jefferson was president he said you couldn't get 165 of them to agree on the time of day, how are you going to get 434? Another worry is the number of representatives each state has. We have nine congressmen, Tennessee has 10, our neighbors all got different numbers. But what really bothers me is the number Illinois, Pennsylvania, Texas and California have. In a period of a decade, California and Texas jumped 10. That's more than we have. I am going to be a good congressman, but there is no way that I can be in 10 places at once. They are promoting their states to get industry in their areas, get the pork. There is enough pork out there for everybody because we are paying for it. I don't think it should all end up in Texas, California or New York just because they have the most congressmen. I'd like to see an even number of representatives for each state. Think how much money it would save.

Next year, a new farm bill will be written. What direction do you think it should take?

Whatever it does it should benefit the American farmer first and foremost. They spent seven years in the GATT talks. We got to get the GATT treaty approved. There is no reason in the world that I would suspect that it wouldn't because the Democrats and Republicans both want it. I think it has got a few bad provisions in it. Once we know that GATT has been approved, then we can look at the farm bill. We didn't have a really big problem when we were dealing with the nation subsidizing their agriculture, raw materials or finished products when we were dealing with Spain, France, England, Germany as a separate entity. But some things have happened in the last two or three years since the last farm bill that is going to make this nation look at it very closely. First off, we are dealing with the European community now. That is 12 nations that signed on to single currency, single citizenship, and single defense by the end of this decade. You're talking about an economic bloc, a trade bloc, that if it were ever implemented it would be crippling. We should never put ourselves in a position as a government where we would be looking at a trade war that could escalate to a military conflict. I've read several reports on it from agriculture analysts. They said just chip away at the outside edge of it and really not do anything with it because it's working real good. Since that time we've had problems with soybean and problems with the wine in France -- nothing really major.

There was another guy running for this seat a few years ago. People didn't think he was quite as smart as he really was. His name was Wayne Cryts. He understood a lot about agriculture. At one point in one person's life there is a period of time that people are going to be really smart and know a lot about one subject. But there is always going to be a few people that know a little bit more about one subject than anybody else. What that man was telling us was accurate because what he told us has already become a reality. So when we win this election, it won't be so much that Jay Thompson did it on his own. It will be a lot of people working over a long period of time.

Are you satisfied with efforts being made now to bring the budget deficit under control, and what further steps do you support?

If the budget is increasing a billion dollars a day, then that's not very smart. Now you'll have to help me with this. We are going to pay off $567 billion in a four-year period of time. I think we are still going into debt. There is more than 567 days in a four-year period. Your Congress votes for legislation that says we are going to cut spending, but it doesn't cut spending. It just says we won't spend anymore but we promise you we aren't going to spend any less. That isn't a vicious thing, that is true. Cuts mean that you cut back. To cut back means you are going to have to eliminate some programs or services or discontinue some of those programs that have been ineffective.

What direction should be taken with welfare reform in the United States?

We must have welfare reform. The things that have been talked about that's pretty much how I feel about it. People that need it, need it right now. They don't need a hassle. They don't need to wait weeks for it. They need it given to them. The problem with it is how long do you let them go to get their lives back in order. They should go into job search within say a month's time. They should go into job training within a period of three months. If it is only part time or full time, whatever. But it should be, nobody should have to be totally retrained because everything they've done in their lives they can associate with something else. But they can be trained for a specific job and then that job be available for them when they are actually qualified for it. It shouldn't take no two years. But if it does take two years then that is where we draw the line. But I don't want to see this overkill there either. Let's just set a predetermined period of time not to exceed two years.

What do you see as the role of the U.S. military in the post Cold War era?

Constantly engaged in brush-fire wars and threats of wars. Rumors of war because of our response to what our national leaders consider our vital interest. We are going to have to define what our vital interest is, because it is going to be awfully expensive if we try to respond every time Saddam Hussein wants to move his tanks toward the Kuwait border. I would have no idea what it is costing us but I could say $1 billion a day and probably not be too far off. That is an enormous amount of money. So what I'm trying to say is if they can't defeat us militarily, they can break us financially if they can get us engaged in enough places doing enough things for enough people. And God we are standing in a line to give them billions and millions of dollars. Russia is just playing us for a sucker.

We have to restore confidence in the people. You do that when you go into a military action finishing what you start and you don't go in without having clear objectives. You don't let state department, treasury department and the executive branch say this is how the war is going to be fought. You let the military leaders decide. We saw that worked out pretty well when we let the generals run it in Kuwait. But they didn't let the generals finish the job.

From your campaign experience, how do you think people feel about government, and what can be done to improve their feelings?

I think if they would just clean house in Washington that would make the people feel better. I think they would like to do it across-the-board just one time but the Constitution won't afford us that opportunity. I think they would like to see the House, the Senate, the president, and everything just changed one time. Then try them for a few months and say OK that didn't work, let's try it again. We are only afforded the opportunity to empty out one House at a time. It has never been done and will probably never be done. At least not while we are in peace and, therefore, we hope it is never done.

I really think this election will be determined in the 8th District not so much on the issues that effect the 8th District and this will be very unusual. It is going to be determined on issues that affect the world, the nation, Missouri, and the 8th District. You can't really separate them. I think people would just like to see an awful lot of changes. When the changes are made, they will feel like they can have a fresh breath of air by being able to trust them. A lot of people trust our congressman. But a lot of people absolutely hate him.

How much do you intend to spend?

I am probably going to be investigated when this is all done because I am going to spend so little. I am going to spend less money probably than anybody that is elected to the U.S. Congress. I spent more on the primary two years ago in the first two weeks then I have spent in this entire campaign. What I have spent my entire money on is gas. Because I go, go, go. Of course, you have to have signs, brochures and pamphlets. I am not going to spend that much. I am going to spend $6,000 when this is all said and done for both primary and the general campaign.

BIOGRAPHY

Jay Thompson

Age: 55

Party: Democrat

Occupation: Retired Navy; 22 years service

Hometown: Bourbon

Experience: First ran for Congress in 1992

Opponents: Bill Emerson, Republican; Greg Tlapek, Libertarian

Election Day: Tuesday, Nov. 8