Candidate Survey - 2013
THIS QUESTIONAIRE REQUESTS YOUR POSITIONS ON SALT’S TOP LEGISLATIVE ISSUES FOR 2013-14. Your responses will be shared with our members and others via mailings and our website (www.s-a-l-t.org ) as a helpful guide in their choice of candidates. Your answers will not be abbreviated or taken out of context. Please return your answers by August 10th by e-mail at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Thank you for your commitment to public service and for your willingness to share your opinions with SALT.
Candidate: SCOTT SUROVELL
District: 44TH District
1.Inflation Indexing of TANF Benefits is a Fairness Issue: Currently, a family of three in Virginia receives a fifth of the federal poverty level and has seen only one TANF increase since 1985. At $269 a month average for a family Virginia ranks 35th in TANF payments. Indexing would prevent further erosion of recipients’ ability to meet basic needs of children in their own home or in relative care and can be funded from the federal TANF block grant. Shouldn’t Virginia take steps to alleviate poverty and to protect families. Strong families are as important to Virginia’s future as schools and roads. What steps would you support to ensure a meaningful level of time-limited assistance to Virginia’s needy families? Please explain.
ANSWER: I support the indexing of benefits. We also need more revenue to support these functions.
2. Tax & Budget: All Should Pay Their Fair Share. We know from local research across Virginia that the recent State budget cuts have cut into real, quality of life spending by local governments: libraries are closed, police have lost staff positions, teachers have lost their jobs, and class sizes increase for public school students. At the same time, too many (two-thirds) large corporations operating in our State get by with paying very little in corporate income tax due to tax breaks, subsidies, and clever work by their tax lawyers. How will you make sure that individuals and corporations at the upper end of our income scale pay their fair share so that we can avoid painful service cuts in the future?
ANSWER: I support reinstating the Estate Tax and repealing many unnecessary tax credits.
3. Bring about effective change in the criminal justice system: Those who remain in contact with loved ones on the outside are less likely, studies show, to return to a life of crime after serving their time. So why does Virginia make it so hard for inmates to phone their families? SALT believes that charges should be “just and reasonable”. A small reform, perhaps, but lower rates might help prisoners go straight. What will you do to reform the justice system so communities are safer, victims are respected, and offenders are transformed?
ANSWER: I am one of the few members of the legislature, including Democrats, that consistently opposes mandatory minimum sentences.
4. Support of Operation Backpack for TANF Families-- This allowance would permit children living in poverty to acquire the needed school supplies and clothing essential for returning to school & equipping children to learn. Would you support to give children in deepest poverty an even start?
ANSWER: Yes.
5. Rescind the Federal Lifetime TANF Ban for Ex-Drug Offenders: Lifting the ban eliminates for ex-offenders (whose offense was solely drug possession) the disqualification from receipt of TANF federal transitional assistance needed to care for family members, increases the chances of gainful employment of ex-offenders. To us lifting the ban is a matter of fairness, as it serves to provide basic Re-entry program services that reduce recidivism and save states money. This ban penalizes children of drug felons. Do we want to be a society that requires children to pay for the misdeed(s) of their parents? Do you support extending the eligibility of ex-offenders for food stamps to TANF benefits as well? Please explain
ANSWER: Yes.
6. Refundable Virginia State Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC): The EITC higher income is pro-work, pro-business because it results in greater productivity and job satisfaction and less worker turnover. It is pro-family as well. SALT supports a Virginia Refundable EITC to enable hard working families to escape poverty. Approximately 570,000 Virginians live below the poverty level. No one working 40 hours a week should be poor. Do you support a refundable State earned income tax credit (EITC) based on 20% of the federal EITC for Virginia low income workers and their families? Yes/No. Please explain
ANSWER: I thought Virginia already had some sort of EITC. I would need to know more.
7. Transportation: The problem SALT sees with the taxes being put in place for funding our transportation needs is that they are regressive, causing low-income Virginians to pay a greater share of their income towards funding transportation. We find it bizarre to burden those with minimum resources for the purpose of making investments in Virginia’s roads. To mitigate the harm, there needs to be steps taken to assuage the pain. SALT recommends a refundable earned income credit or a targeted rebate program. Do you agree with and would you support that approach?
ANSWER: I would support it although I would also support repealing the sales tax increases and replacing them with gas tax increases.I would support it although I would also support repealing the sales tax increases and replacing them with gas tax increases.
8. Housing Trust Fund: Virginia has been identified as the 9th least affordable state in the nation according to the "2013 Out of Reach" report released by the National Low Income Housing Coalition. This standing is based on actual wages and rents in the Commonwealth. Last year, the General Assembly codified a state housing trust fund, joining 45 other states with similar funds, providing one time funding of $8M from the National Mortgage Settlement funds. Given the housing cost burdens faced by a substantial number of households throughout the state, would you support an ongoing source of revenue for the state housing trust fund? This fund would be used to address the significant shortage of safe, decent affordable rental and homeownership opportunities for thousands of low and moderate income families throughout the Commonwealth."
ANSWER: I introduced two floor amendments to the budget in 2012 to direct all of the National Mortgage Foreclosure Settlement proceeds to the Virginia Housing Trust Fund. I also introduced the same budget amendment in 2013. This money was intended for foreclosure victims and affordable housing and the legislature\'s misappropriation of the money violates the settlement court order.
I remain committed to reappropriating those funds and finding a dedicated revenue source.
9. Medicaid Expansion Health Insurance: Expansion for 400,000 low income, uninsured Virginians with federal funding to pay for 100% of the cost for the first 3 years. Expanding Medicaid for a healthy Virginia is the right choice. Do you agree? Explain.
ANSWER: Yes. This is the most important thing we can do in Virginia.
YOUR ISSUES: What are some issues you feel strongly about that you would like to share with your SALT constituents?
The biggest priorities for my districts are the following:
- Implementing Medicaid Expansion. The 44th District has the largest Medicaid population in Fairfax County and probably Northern Virginia right now.
- Child Care – the State needs to fully fund the child care waiting list so that Fairfax County will get rid of its list now. I am dismayed that one of the wealthiest counties in the United States can continue to build golf courses, high schools with wind tunnels and lasers, while it has a 8,000 child childcare waiting list and waiting list for Head Start.
- Head Start/Preschool – Do something to enhance the availability of subsidized preschool and eliminate waiting lists for Head Start.
- We need to repeal the authority to allow the state to provide tax refunds by Debit Card.This hurts the poor the most.
- We need to prohibit jails from implementing any program (canteens, phone calls, Skyle/Facetime) that makes profits of f inmates that is not reinvested for their health,education and welfare.
Thanks for all you guys do.
Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions!