— This is one in a series of articles exploring the issues voters are considering during the 2012 elections cycle.



With the economy on the minds of most voters, five of the six Republican candidates for the nomination in the 2nd Congressional District race weighed in with plans for growth.

Positions staked out by the five varied across the board, as most of them blamed regulatory and tax burdens, increased federal spending and the health care overhaul for the economic downturn.

Dwayne Thompson, a Muskogee pastor, failed to respond to inquiries about his plan. His GOP challengers answered questions about the federal government’s role in job creation and how to increase personal income.

U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics show job growth in the private sector has been practically nonexistent during the first decade of the 21st century. The U.S. Census Bureau shows the median household income slipped more than 7 percent during that same period, and wages have failed to keep up with the pace of inflation and productivity.

Four of the Republicans  — former state Rep. Wayne Pettigrew, state Rep. George Faught, Stilwell businessman Markwayne Mullin and Tishomingo lawyer Dustin Rowe — traced the decline to federal regulatory burdens.

Retired Marine Corps Lt. Col. Dakota Wood blamed the tax code and what he described as President Barack Obama’s “insistence on playing political games with the ‘Bush tax cuts.’”

Pettigrew said he would work to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act, financial services and banking regulations passed after the collapse of Wall Street, and EPA’s energy regulations.

“Repealing these three onerous pieces of legislation would ignite an economic recovery of epic proportions,” he said. “In addition, a sunset review of existing federal government programs on an annual or other regular basis to check the growth of government would eliminate waste and duplication while promoting self-reliance toward business and industry.”

Faught also criticized increased regulatory oversight, but said he believes federal spending must be curtailed before economic growth can occur.

“Each dollar the government spends is a dollar that must be confiscated from the productive members of our society, either through increased taxes or through eventual inflation caused by devaluing the currency,” Faught said. “There is tremendous uncertainty in the market, and businesses are understandably reluctant to expand until there is a clear resolution of these issues.”

Mullin said the best thing the federal government could do would be to “get out of the way and let private enterprise lead.”

“I would do what I’ve said all along I would do — cut back regulation that stifles business prosperity,” Mullin said. “If costly and unnecessary regulations were eliminated, businesses would be burdened less and able to create more jobs.”

Rowe said it is important to remember “who creates jobs and how they are created” when examining the economy. That, Rowe said, is in the private sector.

“Real economic growth takes places when the proper economic environment is created allowing job growth to flourish,” Rowe said.

Wood disputed census data showing a decline in personal household income during the first 10 years of the 21st century. He said any decline in household income came primarily during Obama’s administration.

If elected, he said, he would work to lower taxes and eliminate loopholes that “create government-preferred winners and losers.”

Faught said he would work to reverse the growth of government, eliminate deficit spending, cease governmental intrusions into the marketplace, and roll back excessive regulations.

Pettigrew said he would promote ways that would return the nation to a “true market-based economy where true profits are the legitimate receipts minus expenses of a business.”

Rowe said as congressman of Oklahoma’s 2nd District he “would operate under the Reagan principle that fewer government regulations is what allows the private sector to create jobs.”

Reach D.E. Smoot at (918) 684-2901 or dsmoot@muskogeephoenix.com.