out and about is supported by a ascentra credit union
production funding for the cities is provided by a grant from the doris and
victor day foundation
washington turns insights on jobs and helping kids stay in school and keep
their sights on valuable careers
in the cities
we'll talk about it acheive cities a community-wide effort to help students
grow into doubt it will city leaders just ahead
but first
a congressional report card
congress is on a summer break but that will end this month
after labor day washington will focus on jobs with the president of the is economic
plans for the nation
and congressman acting what it thinks is best for the country
that makes tonight the perfect time to talk to one area congressman about his
plans for the future and his support for issues earlier this year
joining me now quad cities republican congressman bobby schilling of illinios
congressman how you doing good how are you jim let me ask you about the very first job that
would be yours is have you made a decision yet on whether not you're gonna
be running for reelection
yeah i'm sure i am out you know were were focused more on uh... problems
throughout the district in throughout the country of course but uh...
but we haven't officially announced yet
but very likely that you plan on running definitely why what is the
decision that that is pushing it towards a reelection
well you know i i think when you look at uh... the economy as a whole
uh... you know in in the early by listening to folks who think that that
was one of the uh... the most powerful man in america because of all of the
things that i've done in seven months but you were there are countries in a in
a uh... issue
huge downturn i believe that we're currently in another recession
uh... and and there's a lot of work to to be done and i think one of the big
things were going to focusing on is to stop the over-regulated of uh... america
companies now your politician turned congressman you kinda stipped the
politician in the middle of the year
were a pizza
maker before do you find yourself more political more of a politician who
thought they would become
no not really i a m what i do is i lot of across the aisle abundance
and work with the democrats the out of chicago area
uh... also done quite a lot of work with david lopesact as a democrat
i think one of the problems our country has today is that the democrats
republicans do not work together enough and that's why we end up with all
the stall mates it pretty much safer toxic brew in washington at the scene
that yourself
all definitely i mean we've seen a lot of things you know what i tell of
leadership up there so that i didn't come for the wall plaque i came here to
fix the problems and
do a lot of things of those that votes put up on the floor or more for a uh... a
commercial against someone
for the next election route and fix the problems for the american people that's
always been for a lot of years though i mean that's nothing to be solved right
away
yet that something that uh... we're we're seeing a lot of you know it no
matter what the president says
uh... in the congress we are seeing a lot of reaching across our on the number
of the center aisle caucus which is democrats and republicans working
together sharing ideas a lot of our problems today in america i believe are
truly in the senate
we have talked about a lot of the pressures that republicans had seen
whether it's the tea party movement
for the establishment republicans were e_c_u_ falling
in that spectrum i score fifty three i'm right in the center of it
up at four thirty-three bodies
uh... it's uh... a group that uh... i think it's a club for growth so you can
go all the way to a hundred and i fall in fifty three-d_ feeling awful lot of
pressure from both sides
you know i don't because of when i go and i do a lot of study and watching the
house floor
and when i go on for a vote i you know i i go with what's good for our area was
good for our country and and that really helps me to to make a decision well
let's move on from your job to the real big issue and that is jobs the president
going to be making his announcement that
and major planned for our uh... economic development and uh... deficit reduction
little too late or how do you see the president's announcement coming after
labor day
no i don't believe that it's too late i don't think it's never too late to to
come out you know my hopes are that will have some infrastructure workout
going on throughout the united states of america we look at first the last in the
list
you know very little of that money went out in and helped out with
infrastructure innate actually created twenty percent of the jobs that were out
there so i'd like to see
uh... real uh... stimulus and i think forward drill in uh...
dot tunnels for turtles things like that do you think that the stimulus that had
been approved by congress before you joined congress
that the effects of that haven't kicked in yet
no i believe that they've got they've in and i believe that uh... for
most part it's it's failed you think a second stimulus is needed
um... if if they're going to la taken into a proper stimulus where we're not
going to be taken care of our friends and buddies
uh... in doing real things are going to actually fix econ
i'm not a big believer and government uh... i created jobs i believe that
uh... jobs are created by the private sector
and you know what i always pray to people is that you'll hear in illinois
for example is
if you're illinois based company why do you want to stay here
that's a scary thought but that's the job that we need to change if the
environment is certain for job creators you had talked an awful lot
about simplifying or even deregulating a lot of areas have you seen any success
in that during your
your month of the congressman
you know we are there was uh... you know some more energy taxes that were coming
along we voted that down
uh... there's some issues with the e_p_a_ wander regulate farm dust
uh... you know we all want clean air clean water you know uh... the president
is comin out uh... in in september and he's got seven
new regulations that are going to cost into the billions of dollars in you know
in in a downturn economy to continue to over-regulated overtaxed our job
creators is just not the right thing to do so what do you see he did he say that
the stimulus was a failure
um... and you say that more has to be done
you're awfully speaking for congress in the government what his government's
role other than let's say eliminating regulation what what role does congress
have to create jobs it that the biggest role that they have is you know and i
always go back to the regulation because that is truly the problem
uh... you had for example in the uh... the affordable health care act
there's a medical device tax thereof on american companies
well just last month another company announced they're going to close down
here in the united states in order to take those twelve hundred jobs to china
you know it out what we have to do is create a sand bar one of the things that
we can do that will give a a quick it i believe is
is to take the corporate tax rate
and reduced that down to where we compete currently we have the highest
corporate tax rate in the entire world and this is a global market now so we do
step down but at the same time eliminate a lot of the loop holes that are there
so that when you have the companies out there making three billion dollars and
they're not paying any taxes
uh... we needed to broaden their base and and those are just a few of the
things that we could do but do you see those things have a m
impact for job creation or definitely i because he's right now
we've got trillions of dollors sidelined by businesses because of the
uncertainty that's been created
uh... over their you know the past ten years and
and i think until that certainty
uh... is there job creators are gonna come out and invest i mean when you get
cap and trade you got the e_p_a_ come out doing everything they're doing now
you've got the health care a program that no one knows how that's gonna play
out
people are sidelined in the money until they can you have some peace of mind
knowing that what cards are on the table they're gonna keep sideline bakc you
up that kind of disagree with that
ten years corporate america's been holding on the money because of
uncertainty and he
coperate american now has some of the largest reserves of cash
ever seen
reinvesting they're finding ways as you said ship jobs overseas
you're seeing some of the top uh... leaders of the industry making huge
amounts of money once again
employees not really getting a raise or new jobs being created by that we can
all just be uncertainty you know i a you disagree issue you may but that the
facts are
the uncertainty that's here jim_ i mean how did your prime example 'cause
everyone always tries to go to the big corporate folks but
seven out of ten jobs are created by small businesses it's a fact
uh... i'm a small business that was in the process of expanding and going into
franchisee and i put the brakes on i'm not gonna pull out and put in money out
there into the market
when we have this this this hostile environment
illinois is a prime example i mean were forty eight forty nine out of fifty in
job creation there's a problem there and it's why they go on to other
states it's because the environment that's the big thing we truly do create
caterpillar announcing that staying in illinois in on the biggest employers
are sitting here you do note that there are a couple of companies that are in a
chicago area that did cross the border and
moved in indiana
i want to get involved in state politics gets to a point
with illinois state budget
and the deficit was seeing it had to do something to balance the budget and they
decided raise revenues
you're critical of that
is there any chance of raising revenues on the federal level you know i i talk
to people that they call the uh... the the richest two percent in in america
which the majority of those are small business owners and
you know most people will say you know one
were willing to pay a little bit extra
if we're going to fix the problem look at illinois largest tax increase in the
history of this state
but they did not fix the problem you know things that things are going to
continue go up and americans are looking for for solutions you know for the the
typical career politician the number one solution is let's raise taxes
well you know what did you've gotta stop that and angle focus
back in on on the environment and and make a note to our folks want to stay
here and create more jobs will just be surprised at the president address this
month in september would not include some type of
as the state of revenue enhancement uh... portion
uh... my i think that it could have i'd probably heard of mister bill sac
u_s_d_a_ talk about uh... every dollar
that they put into the nutrutional or the food stamp program principality four
uh... you know he's got a different actually than i do because i mean were
borrowed forty two cents on the dollar from the chinese
you here's what it what this all boils down to first off is
were fourteen point three trillion dollars in debt
and and these guys want to continue wasteful spending and we've got to rain
and the wasteful spending because it's actually at some point our kids and
grandkids are and this is also a national security threat
you were finding three fighter jets for the chinese with the interest of were
payment every single week with
millions of dollars leftover high what we have to have this we've got to have
republicans and democrats it down at the table
haven't frank discussion as by grown-ups
and figure out how we we've come up with solutions rather than finger-pointing
like the president did last month are actually this month out atkinson
blaming everything on the congress we've got seven jobs bills that are held up in
the senate
created hundreds of thousands of american jobs and these guys will not
pass those through
you know a they're the ones that the f_a_a_ bill that that they tried to
blame on the congress but we got out on the radio and said look at this is in
the senate
well then what they there was a flu everybody and they had a quick meeting
first uh... sixty seconds
and then bom you know we've got an f_a_a_ bill to put you know several
hundred thousand folks back to work toward when you're talking about taking
the issues out
a good debate
move on with a major issue let's talk about the debt ceiling
that at times did not seem to be handled by grown-ups
yet exactly right you know all
there were uh... we had cut cap and balance that of course it went to the
senate
and he got table just like that when they do with a lot of the uh... the the
issues that could fix america but to be honest that was not unexpected
i mean is the house sometimes passing things that they knows the senate's not
to approve the got admit that's true yet you know the there's there's things that
you get past and that's one of the frustrating things you know it's dead in
the senate why are we wasted time with it i would agree uh... we put forth uh...
bill that uh... you know look like it was going to go through does some of the
folks at the party folks were upset 'cause i voted for it and we have
progressive movement folks that were upset
because they wanted the taxes these guys want more cuts
uh... but the end of the day is what was right for america and i think that's
what we saw
pretty good uh...
and i also got to see what was coming behind met with terry harry reid still
he was going to have major tax increases on on middle-class american the job
creators other notes also in the gut military by eight hundred eighty three
billion dollars over a ten-year period
and you know i i would agree that there is some wasteful spending in our
military
you i would be a very uh...
uh... afraid to cut that much firmer warfighter have you found your vote for
the debt ceiling increase to be a difficult one to defend
me i'm not at all i mean
uh... the thing that uh... one of the folks explaing tothe on that what was
coming behind that that uh... vote if it went down in flames
uh... was not going to be good for america
here's the here's the problem with tax increases in the downturn economy
bring home to my my restaurant is
people are already struggling to buy products whether it's a pizza car what
have you
and the last thing you want to do is is his
raise prices on them and if i take another tax increase i raise the price
of my product or
i let someone go in a downturn me dot let somebody goand then you have
another person unemployed and that's the scary part two its and that's why we
need some business as sense in washington d_c_ now of course
government is in run like a business uh... there are checks and balances the
budget isn't exactly a zero sum
you get uh...
of the treasury department and the federal reserve able to print more money
all of these things are are necessities in some people's minds but let's talk
about one other at necessity and that is helping americans in times of need
bursting hurricane irene as ravaged the east coast it was even as bad as people
thought
and we're still not sure if we could pay for recovery efforts
yeah and and that's a problem and that's why you know when we look at the
stimulus for example you know three hundred million dollar water parks
uh... thirty million bucks for swap mice in california
this is why every dollar that we can we stand has to be spent appropriate
you know a lot of folks don't realize this but for the first time in four
years the houses actually the people's house and working
because under the last four years
what happened was they would not allow anything that comes to the floor for
amendments were actually seen that happen
there's no earmarking going on which there was a big part of uh...
that the house back in the days but that stuff is also the things that are being
passed past through on merit merit alone lungs dot that gets us about
the spotlight is discretionary spending
and worst of the cuts are going on story would be like cuts to the weather
service that some people are saying
if the republicans had gotten there where they've been a forty-percent cut
in weather serves the same people that predicted this hurricane would be cut
what's your answer to that
you know here's my answer and i've got a rescission bill that's out there right
now because we've got so much waste spending rather than going in in in this
you've taken the the they actually things we need to go through and and
coming with the scalpel
the recision bill that i'm not working on and just finishing up now what it
does is
we have a disease that say for example i get a million dollar budget
they get the last thirty days of their budget may get to a thousand bucks left
over what do they do with it big they do a lot of wasteful spending
but this bill will do
is this one set of eyes tend to hang onto that money and then allow them to
keep the budget for next year but
you know i think what we have to do is we need to go in the department of
defense when you find the wasteful spending their itis visit with the
company last at i dash in two weeks ago
uh... they make simulators their simulators twenty five thousand
the department and the defense buys one that's two hundred fifty thousand the
only difference is they can change it from daytime tonight im
eyes that kinda stuff we need to really hone in on rather than imperative
at the same time when you talk about the defense at
arsenal island where some people might say you know some of these things are
going on in arsenal island an international picture
aren't really necessary and you know how valuable arsenal island
is to the quad cities that that's exactly right away that you
well uh... it's pretty easy to do really because if you look what they're doing
over there you know they're the ones that were responsible marine
soft skin to hard skin
actually literally saving thousands of lives over there but
you know uh... the key thing that we have going on is isn't the simulator for
example we've got a lot of that stuff going on words
you know we can get it for twenty five but yet we're paying two fifty
uh... you know the arsenal if you notice will be given a lot of highlighting we
brought a lot of people and and we're also bring in more folks in because i
want to spend to see first hand
what we have going on here because
you know if you look where we're located i mean it is imperative that the arsenal
is up and running it at full strength because
wars are going to go away you know this threat that we've got going on in the
middle east and people that do not like us
is not going to go away uh... at all in what we have to do say strong especially
on the struck on our side keep
are experienced workers there nice and warmed up to where when it's ready to go
we're ready to go we had a real fear that a major component of our arsenal
islands workforce might be leaving the island that's one of the things i
released version you and other lawmakers
bipartisan effort to make sure that the secretary of defensedefense new
arsenal island is what's your feeling right now it may be in it always
seems that since the last brac
uh... commission meetings
arsenal islands seems to be always on borrowed time right now
yet you know and that's why one of the bills that i passed through on the house
armed services committee are this year was something that they've been looking
for for years and what it is is a public-private partnership which is
allows them to bring in more private partnerships with the government
and build the strength out there for the arsenal because the stronger the arsenal
is
the less tap they're going to come in and wanna brecht them out if they come
they see a weak arsenal
they're going to brac us if we're building up and we're lookin strong at
this is less likely to happen by general dunwoody your four-star general we had a
visit with her we had
you know what the three of the uh... senators therein and four members of
congress
and you know this is something that we want to know that were watching them and
we're going to explanations for anything that they're going to try to do
congrssman just a few seconds left still make in the p says everything is going
well at the shop
you haven't made the pizza of things are going well i did have one the other
still tasted pretty good and he said that important for quality control
is taste testing is important for a man in your position that's right
congressman bobby schilling that you for joining us
our music tonight come from five-man group out of moline bacon
will be at the river music experience and just played out river roots live
here they are playing the song
thunder in the distance
that is the group bacon you can see them playing at the redstone room in the
river music experience in downtown davenport for the RMEs and he's
halloween party that's just around the corner
time now to go out about with lora adams
this is out and about four september first threw september seven i'm lora
adams
they kicked off the football season with the timing episode frontline
which takes a look at it and vicious high school football team and concerns
about their safety
in the quad cities you can be on monster of a reader at reading adventures for
every child twelve and under receives a new age-appropriate books event is free
and includes a petting zoo hayrack ride and puppets and more
so get on your marks get set and run with carl the seventeen and will run
with carl takes place on monday september fifth
five mile run and five k walk run and finish at the bettendorf life center
there's still time to sign up and pre-registration is encouraged all
aboard for the little conductors day at the quad city botantical center of
all ages are divided part after dedicated to riding the rails insulate
dining car snacks and dinosaur train
the annual quad cities symphonies riverfront pops concert music by the
beatles apart opens at three p_m_ with picnic baskets and coolers welcome
viva quad cities festival says bring your entire family and take part in the
fun filled hispanic fiesta that is viva quad cities onstage molines play
playscrafer theater barn theatre presents the musical comedy make me a cowboy
pagination on these and other events logged onto wqpt dot org
thanks lora the community foundation of the great river band in the united way
of the quad cities are unveiling a new mentoring program designed to keep
students in school
and give them a leg up on their careers it's called achieve quad cities
the project hopes to increase graduation rates by five percent over the next
decade
in the coming weeks will tell you more about the different options offered by
the program but we start tonight with rock island's involved and joining me now
is mayor dennis pauley
do you really don't want tell me about this program and does it get you
excited it that end up in so many different ways the city will be able to
better help its youth
what your first where we got there we have our safer community task force
and one of the information we had to do is we had to help our youth the
they said the best way to do that was to mentor so we start looking at how we
could development mentoring programming would best serve the use of rock island
in the process of doing that we came across a acheive quad cities in the forty
developmental assets their work around that
is that this would be the why create something new and it's already
there i was going to say because there are many mentoring programs available
what makes this different
i don't know if it is that much different than his focus right now
and what we're focusing on the rock island were focusing on our students last
year at the washington jr high school fourteen students who were served by
this and now we're going to start adding edison jr school and hopefully get up
to forty students who will be served so we have about fifty students here they
drop out of school
and you know that's fifty too many but you also have a certain number of
students are right on the edge a graduate the right on the edge so if we
can give all students a mentoring opportunity help them fulfill their
dreams and see what should happen in the future those at risk kids
push
towards graduation rather than it's so easy for them to fall back right we do
we need to be there setting the example for them
so they can see what they can be in the future so mentoring is a big word
encompasses a whole lot of things
was what does it mean to you
to this particular mentoring we call career navigators
and it takes approximately six hours a month and the navigators goes in and if
they're paired with one student they're going to school and be with them but it
will also mean within some outside the school
but they're hoping to focus and students certain directions say what did what you
really want to do how he gets there
and what path revealed g what courses you need to take how few
surviving is and that's basically with an navigator is
and and you know that there are some studnets that just
there at school they're not there did they just don't want to be in school i
mean those though kids to reach you we still have to try we can't throw him
out the door and say no we're not going to do anything with you
we still have to try to reach those students
will try to pair up with the with navigator and say what can we do to help you
as you sent out fifty students there's an awful lot to lose each year uh...
for not graduation i graduate
uh... rockies doing pretty good though as far as a graduation rates concern
their graduation rate uh... the other living with publishers in the ninety
two percent is excellent
and you know we have excellcent school systems around both private and public
they're great school systems but if you're losing fifty students down the line
somehow
we did try to work with those
and work with the borderline students to ensure they graduated fulfil their lives
one of the goals of course was to raise
the graduation rates five percent over ten years
is it doable and what do you think so
you know i think it's doable because each if we had fourteen last year
and they're doing very well if we get another again up to forty this year and
keeping each year adding to that number
we're definitely going to get up to the graduation rate that we want you now
when it comes the mentoring to keep kids in school is also
mentoring to help them find a career
yes is that if you have stay in school but also a lot of don't have a focus you
ask them what are you going to do when you get out of school i don't know
so you help them figure out what they really want to do their job shadowing
experiences that go with that
thing go out and be with different people different professionals in the
community
for two to six hours
shadow them and what they're doing shadow the work environment his days as a kind
of i was i really want to be and this is what it really want to do
this is an economic environment where it's tough to get a job in even with a
college degree
high school degree even harder without it
tough enough
is almost impossible without the degree you had the high school like you say
it is extremely difficult
most jobs take at least
at least in the uh... getting a
two-and-a-half-year degree
hahahaha when you measure the success achieve quad cities as far as uh... you
can
rock islands concern well aware that we will make a double others will look at
the graduation rate is still lives and we will also look at the stand up
already
and until we achieve ng
less fifty students here are we getting
are they staing in school
are they going beyond that to really help themselves in the future
because this program does it metrics you're going to try to
uh... measure your success throughout the program it also has the job
shadowing it has a mentoring
it also has an opportunity were uh...
you're going to a classroom
and just talk to students about their profession and talk to them about the
value of staying in school just to be a role model
does a lot of different things to be able to do some one six
six hours
if you're into the mentoring within the job shadowing is two to six hour
just for
and they just go in the classroom that could be just a short period time
and we want people will also go into the grade schools
middle schools read kids
be role models younger the better right younger
just a few more moments of rock island issues i'd like this
last time we talked
was either regarding flooding or or red tape or or whatever when it comes to the
budget
how do you feel right now on months after we talked about the budget for
rock island how you fiscaling doing
uh... the budget is tight is to be extremely tight this next year because
we did lose some cbg dollars and did a lot of those were to be losing
probably seven half-percent more we know that
of the state with air conditioner
we don't know what they're going to do this year
we will take them starting in closely the budget before too long
uh... we will be hiring a new city manager soon that person will then
either you finance director
and we'll start putting together the line-item budget so that we can really
see what we need to do and the other big discussion item if you have out for the
public right now is downtown parking
we had two meetings last week on down town parking
give us your opinions right now we have to two hour free parking
the biggest concern with some people want that to go through for our free
parking
uh... but overall they were very satisfied with the way things are going
they just want we can but you don't see any major changes no major changes
mr mayor thanks for joining the big brother and big sisters
organizations actually helping ordinate some of
mentoring project for these at risk kids if you re interested in getting
involved
check out the achieved quad cities website it is achieved q_c_
dot org
he is not final day by some advance tickets for wqpt's annual
brew ha ha at davenport's le claire park
regional breweries will have a of samples on hand it's come up saturday september
seventeenth
advance tickets are available right now online
at wqpt dot already got a couple more days to order them twenty
bucks get into the gate
all the money raised goes toward wqpt programming
and educational outreach we see see there
and have a great time as always thanks for supporting us your local public
television station
and we'll see you again next
for the cities
production funding for the cities is provided by a grant from the doris and
victor day foundation
out and about is supported by ascentra credit union