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Leaning heavily on his background in national intelligence roles, Ray Bilger, the Democrat Party's candidate in the 15th Congressional District, fielded questions ranging from the state of healthcare to security threats from North Korea at a town hall hosted by the Lycoming County Democratic Committee recently.
Introducing himself to the group gathered at the Pajama Factory for the event, Bilger noted his 25 years spent in various government agencies, such as National Security and the State Department Foreign Services, following his 10-year tour of duty in the Air Force.
"I worked for just about every three-letter organization inside the Beltway and some other outside the Beltway," he said.
He shared that after being gone from the state during those years of service he came back and realized that the same issues, particularly a lack of opportunity, still exist in rural areas which sparked his desire to run for the office currently held by Glenn Thompson.
"We need to do better for our communities. We need to stop the death spiral in rural America and in rural Pennsylvania and I intend to do just that," Bilger said.
"I'm here to try to change the attitude in Congress. We have an attitude, in my opinion, where we are too focused on everything other than being a public servant. I've been a public servant my whole life, I know what it means. I know the fact that you do not work for the people in your party. You do not work for your president. You work for the people who put you in office," he said.
Bilger was not hesitant to criticize his opponent, who he said only showed up for photo ops with officials and big donors, and he was also critical of the current administration, which he contended is committing illegal acts, such as the boat strikes in the Caribbean.
"With this administration and the way that they have gotten around laws, it's creative. I have to give them that. It's marginally legal, but actually, I would say probably mostly illegal," he said.
Other questions from members in the audience of about 35 people included one on accountability for private military companies, which Bilger said he believes starts with having responsible leadership in the Department of Defense.
"We need to get responsible people in charge of that. When we do have responsible people in charge of that, we understand the laws of our conflict. We understand the ramifications of our actions. Our military actions, especially abroad, can destroy our foreign policy. They can destroy our alliances, as we have seen happen in the past 18 months," he said.
Bilger also had some strong words, based on his experience in the intelligence service, about the war with Iran.
"What we don't do is what we're doing right now...having Shias mediating with Sunnis," he said.
"We do a horrible job of actually taking into account the history, the culture and the religions of the regions that we try to import our democracy to because we don't understand the fact that democracy is not a one-size-fits-all idea. Democracy does not fit every country neatly or at all, especially when you're dealing with tribal nations," Bilger said.
He pointed out that Turkey, a NATO alliance ally, is a Sunni nation and has a good neighbor agreement with Iran, is "fully capable of negotiating a reasonable ceasefire and an end to this war for us."
He again referred to the lack of competent leadership in Washington for hindering the efforts to end the conflict.
"We cannot be involved in those talks because we have proven we are not reliable partners...once again we are unfortunately back to the same problem where we have to have competent leadership that is leading this whole effort," he said.
On the subject of the economy, Bilger believes the issues now can be traced back to 1980, when he said productivity kept going up, but wages flatlined.
"We've got to take care of that wage gap...I think it's a step in the right direction," he said, adding that he wished he had an answer to why something hasn't been done about that already.
One of the biggest problems, according to Bilger, is the lobbyists that are influencing what happens in government.
"Getting money out of politics entirely, not just big money, not just the dark money, is one of my biggest issues because that's probably the biggest problem...anytime you put money into an equation automatically that is going to take precedence over what you're supposed to do," he said.
"We need to eliminate Citizens United -- that's a start...Why should money have more of a vote than we do? That is simply inexcusable. We cannot allow this to happen. And that is exactly what I'm trying to do here. I'm trying to be that voice to get in there and do exactly these kinds of speeches right up there in Congress and tell these people you are on the wrong side of this democracy," he said.
When it comes to our relationship with North Korea, Bilger connected the dots between Russia and their war in Ukraine and their support of North Korea.
"North Korea is becoming one of the biggest growing threats that we have...because Russian is working with them bringing their forces into Ukraine so they can actually battle test things and then they're providing that technology back to North Korea so that they can improve their process and improve their weapons to be more precise and adapt to modern warfare. That puts us in danger," he said.
"Russia is involved in all of this, so we have to address Russia...what we do is provide Ukraine with the support that it really needs, not just to maintain the status quo with Russian, but we need to give them enough support so that they can defeat Russia. That is going to stop that flow of weapons back to North Korea," he said.
Questions from the audience included the rising cost of healthcare and the closing of hospitals in rural areas. Bilger cited statistics which say for Lycoming County since the beginning of the year, average monthly healthcare costs have risen 89 percent or about $160 more per month.
"This is a problem that has been brewing in this country for a long time. There are several different ways that we have to do this," Bilger said.
"First of all, this is a serious life or death issue throughout this winter...We've got to put a band-aid on this problem now. We can't wait," he added.
Bilger suggested that the way to solve the cost of healthcare is whenever possible, the money that was allocated for programs, like Medicaid, Medicare, SNAP and the ACA should be returned.
"Maybe we can use all the money we got from that Venezuelan oil that we don't know where it is. Maybe if we can do something like that. Maybe all this other money that we've gotten from all this gold and everything else that came from Venezuela and all these other brilliant things that Scott Besant can't tell us where it is. Maybe we can use that money to actually shore that up just for the winter, just so we get people through before we sit down and decide how we're going to replace the system that we have," he said.
"We need to find a healthcare for all with a private option. That is my proposal. It may not be the final proposal. It may not be the best proposal, but it is a proposal as opposed to sitting here saying what we cannot do," he said.
Bilger affirmed a woman's right to choose to have an abortion and would support codifying Roe v. Wade. He also would continue this country's membership in NATO and the United Nations and is a proponent of renewable energy.
On the issue of gun control, Bilger, who admitted he owns weapons, believes there should be stricter background checks and some type of training on the weapon being purchased.
"We had that in Boy Scouts, too. We had to go through our hunter safety training before you could ever touch a weapon," he said.