By Mary Alice Murphy

In a one-on-one interview with Congressman Steve Pearce, the Beat heard his opinions on education, jobs and veteran services.

Pearce said the problem with jobs is that they are being sent out of the country because of this country's having highest tax rate on businesses in the world and because of regulations. "We have one of the most intense regulatory regimes in the world. We need to take a close look at the things that matter to this area'mining, timber, ranching and farming. The reason we are in this fight is to keep the federal government from interfering. And it's a total all-out fight."

On the issue of veterans, he said he helped get the community-based outpatient clinic in Silver City, "but people still have to drive to Albuquerque for six hours or more and then turn around and come home on the same day."

"It's why we passed the Choice Act," Pearce said. "But the Veterans Administration is refusing to implement it. We find most often that veterans are telling us their problems. We ask them to let us know and we'll fight for them.

"The VA keeps finding stalling tactics on the Choice Act, like not paying doctors for the services they perform locally," he continued. "The bureaucracy is simply stalling the program."

He said the second piece of the Choice Act required the VA to fire high-level employees who were not doing their jobs. "They refuse to implement that, too. When the veterans do get service, it's fairly good service. And then you find out that as many or more than 300,000 veterans died while on secret waiting lists. The Albuquerque VA was recently singled out. In colon cancer cases, they are supposed to inform the veteran of the findings. Many veterans were never notified. You can't make this stuff up on the ineffectiveness of the system."

The reform of the Choice Act is a blueprint, "but we have to make sure the VA will enforce it. That's why we are taking to approach of fighting for every single veteran to get the care they need."

He said bureaucracies just don't work. "We have fought more fights for postal workers than any other single union. And we always win, because the management of the Postal Service is so horrid.

It's the same with the VA," he said. "I think you have people with a good heart, but the head-level bureaucrats are so mindless, they can't focus on the true objective of the VA, which is to serve veterans."

The bureaucracies have these internal stresses, "which is why government should not be in the business of providing service."

On the topic of education, he said the schools in the U.S. have shortcomings in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects.

"The schools need to be driven from the local level," Pearce said. "We repealed the No Child Left Behind. It is a falsehood that Washington D.C. could manage every school in the country.

"We passed the Every Student Succeeds on a bipartisan basis," he continued. "It is pushing the money and authority down to the local level. Eventually the students just have to have choice to get students out of failing schools."

He said American students are not competitive with China, India and the rest of the world. "It is imperative we start educating our kids."

"The beginning point is to get rid of teachers who can't teach," Pearce said. "The unions don't want to get failing teachers out. Some schools are not preparing the students and not doing anything with or to the students to prepare them better.

"Our teachers are pretty well prepared," he said. "I go into a lot of schools. Where teachers and principals are aligned, it is possible for our kids to get it."

He cited a recent first-grade class he visited where they were studying the Constitution. "They were really into it."

Lastly, Pearce said the problem in D.C. is bureaucrats. "They do not intend to solve the problems that they are put in charge of to solve. In government, if you are not producing, they put someone beside you to do the job, and if they don't do it, they put someone else in and charge the taxpayers for those extra ones.

"Let the veterans go to the local hospital and doctors," Pearce said. "If they did, it would made the hospitals and doctors more financially stable and veterans would not have to take the long drive to Albuquerque and back."