Himes wants Trump to toe a hard line at summit with Putin

By Scott Benjamin

GREENWICH -- U.S. Rep. Jim Himes (D-4) says that during their upcoming summit President Donald Trump should tell Russian Leader Vladimir Putin “with a clear voice that the U.S. will not allow attacks on our democracy.”

“The president has been equivocating about what we all know to be true, which is the Russians attacked our election,” he said regarding the cyber activity during the 2016 presidential campaign.

“I do think the Obama Administration and subsequently the Trump Administration have failed to deter Russia’s cyber activities,” Himes, a resident of Greenwich’s Cos Cob section, said in an interview.

Trump and Putin are to meet on Monday, July 16, in Finland.

Himes, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said that he is concerned about Trump’s foreign policy.

“He is starting fights with our allies –with Canada and our NATO allies – which puts us in a weak negotiating positon,” said the congressman. “He’s been extraordinarily hard on our allies and extraordinarily accommodating to our enemies.”

Regarding Russia’s support of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Himes said Trump should tell Putin that “a long-term presence in the Middle East is expensive and doesn’t end well.”

The congressman said the unrest in Syria “is destabilizing Europe – aside from the humanitarian catastrophe.”

Himes, who said during a forum in Ridgefield in June 2017 that he wouldn’t have thought a year earlier that he would be working on a doctorate on Russia, indicated July 3 that he is pleased that the two global leaders are meeting.

“I’m almost always a fan of talking,” he said. “I praise the president for engaging North Korea” in the recent denuclearization talks.

However, on a related topic, Himes criticized Trump for initiating a trade war by imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum on some economic partners.

“He wants to go back to the 19^th Century: Someone wins and someone loses,” he said. “He sees it as a zero-sum game.”

“Trade enriches all of the countries that engage in it,” said Himes.

“But it doesn’t lift all boats in those countries,” the congressman acknowledged.

“In addition to the success, the United States, Mexico and Europe have paid a price for globalization and trade,” Himes said.

He supported the fast-track trade legislation near the end of former Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration in which agreements would only be subject to an up or down vote with no amendments.

That was approved as the United States was in the final phase of negotiating the proposed 13-nation Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), which included Japan, Canada and Mexico.

The legislation never came to a vote and both major party presidential nominees – Trump and Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton - opposed it.

Himes said he “might have” voted for the TPP.

“It never got close enough to make a final determination,” he said. “If you look at where we are today, China is running the show in Asia. Malaysia and Vietnam are not subject to our labor standards or European labor standards.”

“I tell my Sierra Club friends: We had an opportunity to help manage the Southeast Asian rain forests,” said Himes regarding some of the provisions that were included in the proposed TPP. “It could have been quite progressive.”

Under former Democratic President Bill Clinton the United States entered into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and took the initial steps toward Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China.

Himes said although those agreements have been of benefit to the United States, the country has learned from how they were negotiated.

“NAFTA had not embedded environmental or labor standards” the congressman said. “So we’ve learned from NAFTA.”

Obama had said the TPP would have included better environmental and labor standards in Canada and Mexico.

On another topic, Himes objected to the recent comments by Trump Administration officials on the six-month anniversary that the president’s tax reform package has been a resounding success since, among other things, it has lowered unemployment to the lowest rate in 18 years.

“The American public understands that it hasn’t been a success,” the congressman said.

“They got a little bit more money and some very wealthy people got an immense amount of money,” Himes added. “The [budget] deficit has already grown dramatically.”

Washington Post economics columnist Robert Samuelson has stated that according to Congressional Budget Office figures, it will take $1 trillion in either tax increases and/or spending reductions over a series of years to achieve a balanced budget. It is projected that the annual deficits over the next decade will amount to $12.4 trillion.

Eight years ago, Himes was one of only 38 U.S. House members, 22 of them Democrats, who voted for a version of the Alan Simpson-Erskine Bowles deficit reduction plan that was named after a former U.S. Senator and a former White House Chief of Staff who co-chaired the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

He said if that package had been signed into law “we would be on the way to balancing the budget. We would not be worsening the problem with wealth concentration. In a fair way, there were tax increases and spending cuts.”

The trustees of Social Security and Medicare recently reported that the two programs made up 42 percent of federal spending in 2017 and the figure exceeded 50 percent if Medicaid was added.

Critics have said that Social Security and Medicare at a time when more people are retiring will crowd out spending for other programs.

“There is no question in the next 10 years this country is going to have to reform Social Security and Medicare,” said Himes, who added that some wealthy recipients might have to be asked “to get less out of it.”

Regarding the Fourth District, which stretches through 17 municipalities from Greenwich to Ridgefield and Shelton, Himes said he is “open to proposals for economic development” in Bridgeport, Connecticut’s largest city, including the recent proposal for a casino.

The Park City currently has a 7 percent unemployment rate, well above the state and national averages.

However, Himes added that “in developing Bridgeport, we must be sure not to worsen traffic problems in this part of the state.” Traffic congestion on Interstate-95 through southern Fairfield County has, according to Gov. Dannel Malloy (D-Stamford), deterred some companies from coming to Connecticut.

Himes said he is disappointed that Trump didn’t propose a major infrastructure improvement plan early in his tenure, noting that it is long overdue and that it was one of the few areas that the president and Mrs. Clinton agreed during the 2016 campaign.

He said he doesn’t believe that the Stamford financial services sector, which a decade ago was the fourth largest in the world, or the hedge fund industry in neighboring Greenwich will “ever get back to where the bubble took us.”

Stamford and Greenwich have more combined population than any two municipalities in Connecticut that directly border each other. Stamford is third in population in the Nutmeg State and Greenwich ranks 10th.

The hedge fund industry grew in Greenwich in the early 2000s following the 2001 collapse of the World Trade Center in New York City, which had housed a number of the firms.

Stamford became a major financial center after the state spent $165 million in 1994 to attract UBS to the city. But following the 2008 financial crisis the company’s trading floor, which Himes said was the largest in the world, is now empty although the company is still in the city.

“This area should have a much more diverse economy than just hedge funds and bankers,” Himes said. “We want strong and safe financial services. But the financial services tend to go boom and bust.”

“I’m really excited that Pitney-Bowes [which makes mailing equipment] looked around the country and stayed [in Stamford]. Henkel, a global [consumer foods] company, put its North American operations in Stamford [in 2017].”

He said he also is pleased about Indeed, the largest job placement service in the world, has one of its headquarters in The City That Works and is expected to grow over the coming years.

Stamford also has attracted considerable television production.

NBC Sports Network is “doing great,” according to Himes. The New York Times has reported that NBC Sports booked 600 hotel rooms in the Stamford area during the height of the network’s Winter Olympics coverage earlier this year.

“For a lot of younger people, it’s hard to move from Chelsea or the East Village, into Fairfield County,” Himes acknowledged when asked about attracting more television production companies to the area.

“So I think for some businesses that poses a challenge,” he explained “But I can’t get a restaurant reservation on a Thursday night in Stamford. The vibrancy of Stamford is such that pretty soon it is going to become even more of a city that younger people are excited about.”

Himes, 52, who was initially elected in 2008, will face Republican Harry Arora, a hedge funds manager from Greenwich who recently completed a master’s degree at the John Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, in the November 6 election.

The roster of former congressman from the district includes former Governors John Davis Lodge of Westport and Lowell Weicker of Greenwich; Claire Booth Luce of Greenwich, who was the first woman appointed to a major ambassadorship abroad; Schuyler Merritt of Stamford, whom the Merritt Parkway is named after; and Chris Shays of Bridgeport, who immediately preceded Himes and has the fourth longest tenure in the U.S. House of anyone from Connecticut.

On another topic, Himes praised Malloy’s efforts over the last seven a half years to increase affordable housing in Connecticut.

Middletown Democratic Mayor Dan Drew has said there are far fewer homeless people and state Sen. Bob Duff of Norwalk, the party’s leader in the upper chamber, has described it as “an economic driver” for Connecticut.

Himes said “Connecticut has reduced pretty much to zero” homelessness for military veterans.

“But we have a long ways to go with affordable housing,” said Himes, who was in the affordable housing field for six years at the Enterprise Foundation immediately before becoming a congressman.

“This is a high-cost area,” he explained. “It’s not just low income people, its middle income people living in the area. If you’re a teacher in Greenwich, it’s hard to live in the town that you teach in.”

Regarding the 2020 national election, Himes said U.S. Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) “would make a spectacular president.”

Delaney, who serves with Himes on the House Financial Services Committee, is the only House member who has been the CEO of a publicly traded company.

He is a moderate, and as Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt wrote in June, the Democratic Party has been “depicted as galloping toward angry resistance and full-blown socialism.”

Himes said, “I’m not sure that the Democratic primary electorate is ready for John Delaney, but we’ll see. He has a bipartisan appeal.”

Delaney has said, “Today, the central question is: How do you bring the country back together?”

Delaney told Hiatt that “many voters are no longer captivated by the old Bernie vs. Hillary dynamics,” based on feedback from his 19 visits to Iowa and New Hampshire, which are usually the first states to vote on the presidential nominations.

“John is a very smart guy,” said Himes. “I’ve worked very closely with him on a bunch of things, including technical things, such as how to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.”

Delaney, who has written a book outlining his platform (“The Right Answer: How We Can Unify Our Divided Nation,” Henry Holt and Co., 240 pages, 2018), plans to seek universal prekindergarten to broaden opportunity, an expanded earned income tax credit to boost low-wage workers and would once every three months take questions, unscripted, from members of Congress on both sides.

On another subject, Himes said Obama “was inspirational” and “had a very solid presidency.”

“On the domestic front he did some very good things,” he said. “He turned the economy around.”

“On foreign policy he was a very principled, prudent and cautious man,” said Himes. “That had some costs for the United States.”

The congressman said the former president didn’t plan enough for the aftermath of Muamar Gaddafi’s ouster in Libya, made errors in Syria, and struggled to respond to Russian cyber activity.

“Those were hard issues,” Himes said. “Those were not stupid mistakes.”

Himes said Obama made the correct decision on the Iran nuclear deal and also to take steps toward normalizing relations with Cuba.

Regarding Obama’s relations with Congress, he said he was thrilled to get two tickets in 2011 from the president for his box at the Kennedy Center. Himes took his mother and “I was a hero to her.”

“But he didn’t do enough of that,” Himes said

“Obama had a certain cool, even to the point of distance,” he said.

“The old-timers - who were used to getting invited for beer and popcorn by George W. Bush and to watch football with George H.W. and with Clinton - were quite critical of Obama’s reserve,” said Himes.

“Nothing massages a congressional ego more than being buddies with the president,” the congressman said. “Obama never did that. There’s probably a bunch of reasons, including that he wanted to spend time with his family.”

Photo: Jim Himes' Congressional portrait