Politics & Government
Millennial malaise
Congressional candidate Miressi says his generation finds it hard to afford to live in the towns where they grew up
By Scott Benjamin
NORWALK – Daniel Miressi says even though he and other millennials – the ones born between 1981 and 1996 - are well-educated and ambitious, “the American Dream keeps slipping away.”
“This isn’t just left or right [politically],” the Norwalk Republican congressional contender commented. “It is about how you can’t buy a house in the town you grew up in. My friends say that they’re cash poor. They say, ‘I don’t know how much longer I can live here.’ ”
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Miressi, 34, who grew up in Monroe and graduated from Trumbull High School (THS), is now in a three-way race with former financial executive Bob MacGuffie of Fairfield and physician and attorney Michael Goldstein of Greenwich for the Republican nomination in the Fourth Congressional District. It stretches from Greenwich to Oxford. The nominating convention will be held on Monday night, May 20, at Ludlowe High School in Fairfield. Ultimately, the nominee may be determined in an August 13 primary.
Until recently, Miressi, who has a bachelor’s degree in History with a minor in Economics from Framingham State University in Massachusetts, worked for the Post Office. He started on the ice hockey team in college and now coaches the team at THS, as well as some youth squads. That allows him to devote considerable time to running for the GOP nomination.
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Miressi said he has friends who graduated with a college degree in Economics or Business that are working as a manager at Target.
In contrast, he commented that there are Baby Boomers in the district who bought a house for $50,000 in 1982 that is now worth $1.2 million.
Said Miressi, “You’re all set, you can cash your chips in,”
“It is though we have forgotten an entire generation,” he said regarding the plight of the Millennials.
“Not many candidates are focused on it,” he lamented.
Apparently, it has been a persistent problem.
Chris Shays, who was the Republican congressman in the Fourth District from 1987 to 2009, said during his 2012 U.S. Senate campaign that for the first time in America’s history it appeared that the next generation would not be better off than their parents.
Wall Street Journal columnist Joseph C. Sternberg stated in his 2019 book, “The Theft Of A Decade,” that during the 2008 Great Recession, “For the first time in recent history, policy makers gave up on investing for the future and instead mortgaged that future to pay for the ugly sins of the present.”
Yet, Miressi said in an interview with Patch.com that he opposes Democratic President Joe Biden’s college student loan debt forgiveness program.
He said that It is not fair to the voters “who never took out a college loan.”
Furthermore, he said the federal government should get “out of the college loan business” and leave that market for the private banks.
Goldstein collected petition signatures to force a primary two years ago, losing to Jayme Stevenson, the former First Selectman of Darien. Sacred Heart University Professor Gary Rose, who wrote a book in 2011 on the Fourth Congressional District, has said that MacGuffie has established the most aggressive line of attack against Himes that he has seen.
Miressi represents a contrast, since he is about 40 years younger than each of his two rivals and has been on the general election ballot for a state Senate seat.
The Fourth District, which is within a short drive of New York City, had elected Republicans in every race from 1968 through 2006. Since being elected in 2008, Himes has steadily increased his pluralities to where he has been garnering about 60 percent of the vote in recent years.
Miressi was a surprise entrant in the 25th state Senate District in 2022. He was doing “messaging” connected to gubernatorial candidate Bob Stefanowski’s campaign when the Norwalk GOP didn’t have a contender for the seat.
He lost the election to incumbent Democrat Bob Duff of Norwalk, the majority leader, although he carried the Darien section and annexed ballots from a number of the unaffiliated voters.
Miressi said he is confident that he has at least 15 percent of the convention delegates that would be required to immediately qualify for the primary. He said that the results of the convention will determine whether he seeks a primary if he doesn’t capture the convention nod.
He said that he has been “passively” raising money on the premise that he didn’t want to seek large campaign contributions until after he had secured the nomination. He did not seek a Citizens’ Election Program grant in 2022 for his state Senate campaign.
MacGuffie stated in an e-mail interview that, “Dan is a smart Millennial Republican - exactly the type I wrote 'The Seventh Crisis - Why Millennials Must Re-Establish Ordered Liberty' [a 2021 book that, among other things, points to the growth in the federal debt since the 1990s] to motivate. Dan has talent, but I really think he needs to round-out his background and hone his skills and presentation a bit before taking on a target such as Himes.”
MacGuffie added that he is confident that he will take the convention nomination after speaking against Himes’ policies for more than 15 years at forums and addressing Republican town committees in the district since early last year after he formally entered the congressional race.
In a phone interview, Goldstein told Patch.com that some delegates that he has spoken with have said Miressi “needs more experience.:”
Regarding the convention nomination, Goldstein said a “lot of delegates are still uncommitted.”
How do you revive the economy that recently suffered from the worst inflation in 40 years?
Remarked Miressi, “You have to raise the interest rates” the way that former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker did in the early 1980s with the support of Republican former President Ronald Reagan.
Former Washington Post economics columnist Robert Samuelson has stated that rate increases ended the Great Inflation, which had initially surfaced in 1969.
Over the last two years the Federal Reserve Board, under Chairman Jerome Powell, has increased rates to their highest levels since the early 1980s.Earlier this year the Fed indicated that it would likely reduce them during 2014 and then in recent weeks, with signs that inflation may rise again, it has taken a wait-and-see approach regarding whether to increase or decrease interest rates.
Miressi said that the Federal Reserve Board “slow-walked it because they’ve tried to play politics.”
However, isn’t there a price to pay for raising rates to historic levels? Volcker’s program may have ended the Great Inflation; however, the October 1982 unemployment rate was 10.8 percent, the highest since World War II.
Said Miressi, “We already have a tight job market, with low labor participation and mostly part time jobs. Additionally, the ways in which people make money in 2024 is completely different so the only solution is to deregulate businesses/entrepreneurs, reduce their tax burdens while interest rates rise. Inflation from irresponsible government spending is the root cause of our bad economy. When inflation gets under control — [the] money supply will loosen and the other pieces: unemployment, artificial wage hikes, and economic stagnation will fall back into place. Volcker already proved this.”
On a related topic: He supports continuing the 2017 tax cut by Republican former President Donald Trump, which is set to expire in 2025.
However, Miressi said the better policy would be to enact a 15 percent flat tax and a small national sales tax.
Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates in Westport – one the wealthiest hedge fund managers in the world – has said for years that the wealthy should pay even more in taxes.
Miressi disagreed, saying, “I don’t think that the wealthy should be punished for being wealthy” since they already pay a large amount of the overall tax bill and create a lot of jobs.
Trump has said, if elected, he would enact a 10 percent tariff on Chinese imports.
“I don’t think it is enough,” Miressi said regarding the need for a better trade policy.
He added that domestic consumers are “proud to buy American” products.
On a separate subject, Miressi said he opposes the efforts by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to remove U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) from his leadership position.
He said that he is “not a fan” of Johnson’s policies, and he also supports much of policy platform of Greene and the U.S. House Freedom Caucus have established.
“However, I’m not supportive of ousting speakers every three months,” Miressi commented, making reference to the removal last year of U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
“That is not good government,” he exclaimed.
Has the White House amassed too much power during the Biden Administration?
Wall Street Journal columnist Andy Kessler wrote this spring that if Trump is elected to another term, he “can lead the dismantling of our post-Franklin D. Roosevelt kinglike presidential platform. It would almost be Washingtonian, the man who refused to be named king. It would certainly be anti-Biden.”
Kessler continued: “Limited government lets the private sector flourish,” which, among other things, would lead to free markets, a strong defense and better law enforcement.
Remarked Miressi:,” I believe we do have to go back to basic constitutional government as intended. The president isn’t supposed to be a king. It’s why our original systems were put in place. The problem is we’ve turned DC into a Leviathan, and with that presidential powers: something our founders would be appalled by.”
He added, “Right now no one follows ‘basic norms’ — Biden is ruling by fiat, Congress passes omnibus/special interest bills… it’s not ‘by the people for the people’ governing. We are a shell of a democracy… That being said, the only way out is through, and the next Republican president needs to use the necessary power to expeditiously reverse the Democrat induced chaos, only to then relinquish the pen & rein in the administrative state that got us here once and for all.”
Which elected officials – past and present – does Miressi most admire?
Former presidents Andrew Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson and Ronald Reagan.
On the 40th president, he explained, “Ronald Reagan represents a man in the arena, a feeling in politics that I think is almost more important than policy. We haven’t had that [since then].”
On the videos of Reagan’s 1984 re-election campaign, Miressi said: “It’s almost like a foreign country with the amount of people who are feeling patriotic and they’re feeling at home with Reagan. I think that is something we haven’t had in politics at least my entire adult life. Obama tried to be a caricature of that. To me, politics is people and Ronald Reagan represents at the end of the day someone who – you might not have agreed with him on everything – but at the end of the day he would do the right thing by them.”
Resources:
Interview with Daniel Miressi, Patch.com, Saturday, May 4, 2024.
E-mail interview with Daniel Miressi, Patch.com, Monday, May 6, 2024.
E-mail interview with Daniel Miressi, Patch.com, Tuesday, May 7, 2024.
E-mail interview with Bob MacGuffie, Patch.com, Wednesday, May 8, 2024.
Phone interview with Michael Goldstein, Patchl.com, Friday, May 10, 2024
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-presidency-im-against-it-trump-biden-
administrative-state-regulation-chevron-4e95e4bd
https://www.amazon.com/Theft-Decade-Boomers-Millennials-Economic/dp/1541742362
Chris Shays, talk at Western Connecticut State University, Tuesday, March 6, 2012.
https://patch.com/connecticut/brookfield/consolidated-health-care-market-drives-costs
