BY LAUREN MATTHEW
Staff Writer
PHOTOS BY MIGUEL JUAREZ staff Congressman Rush Holt (D-12) talks politics with students from the Old Bridge High School government and politics courses at the west campus Monday. OLD BRIDGE — Old Bridge High School students sat in the west campus library Monday, listening to U.S. Congressman Rush Holt discuss, with a real-life perspective, the things they study every day.
Holt, a Democrat starting his fourth term of office, represents about half of Old Bridge and several other Middlesex and Monmouth county communities in the House of Representatives.
Student David DeLucia poses a question to the congressman. “I try to give voice to what’s on your mind, what’s working here in central New Jersey, what’s not, what’s important to you,” Holt told students in the high school’s advanced placement (AP) government and politics courses.
Part of the job of a U.S. representative, he said, is to resolve the problems brought to him by constituents.
“I actually think that kind of thing … is probably the most important thing I do,” Holt said.
“When people call me with a question or a problem, it is an opportunity to make government real, not just an abstraction about the issues,” he said.
Jacqueline Williams and classmates listen as Holt shares his views. Representative government is easy to talk about, Holt said, but more difficult to do.
Holt was a physicist before running for the House of Representatives. When he first ran, Holt said, people said the district was “a safe district” where a Democrat couldn’t win. Now, the district is more competitive and more populous, he said, though district lines are redrawn every 10 years after the U.S. Census is taken.
Questions the students asked Holt ranged in topic from North Korea’s announcement that it has nuclear weapons, to the future of space travel, to Holt’s take on being part of the minority party in Congress.
“North Korea doesn’t have a particularly good consumer economy. One of the ways they can get money is by selling Scuds and missiles, and other things,” Holt said.
The only way to solve this, Holt said, is with China’s active participation, because China has the most economic leverage.
The United States has not handled this well in recent years, according to Holt.
“We haven’t pushed China as much as we could have and should have,” he said.
In presidential debates, both John Kerry and George W. Bush said that nuclear weapons in the hands of irresponsible people, like terrorists, is the biggest problem facing the world.
“If the president actually believed that, there are some things that he should be doing, and he’s not,” Holt said. “We shouldn’t act, in front of all the world, as if nuclear weapons are the most valuable thing you can have.”
Holt said he usually bores high school students with a discussion on Social Security, but one teenage girl asked how worried she and her peers should be about the program, how it would affect her, her friends and her family.
“That is a hot topic of the day,” he began. “It is important to you because two-thirds of Social Security recipients today depend on that for most of their livelihood in their non-wage-earning years.”
Non-wage-earning years does not mean elderly, Holt noted. But most people still depend on Social Security during retirement.
“There is no 17-year-old who is not invulnerable. There is no 17-year-old who doesn’t think she or he is smarter than the market … ,” Holt said.
The congressman disagreed with President Bush’s statement that Social Security is soon to be bankrupt, saying that there is no child alive today who would not receive 75 percent of full benefits if nothing is changed. Full benefits, Holt said, will be available until sometime in the 2040s.
“That does not, to me, sound like a program that is bankrupt and exhausted,” Holt said.
Being a part of the minority party in Congress offers a different perspective, Holt said, launching into a discussion of the roles of the two parties in both the House and the Senate. As a minority representative in a majority governing body, Holt said, sometimes things are a little more difficult.
“Democrats emphasize community, Republicans emphasize self-reliance,” he noted.
“I have to look for … clever ways to get legislation done. Sometimes I can find nonpartisan legislation,” he said. “And, I try to find ways to do things nonlegislatively.”
Holt also fielded questions about Iraq.
“It should not be just a military operation,” Holt began. “What we were trying to do was bring self-determination to the Iraqis, get rid of a threat of weapons of mass destruction … and prevent atrocities being committed by Saddam Hussein.”
Each one of those areas had nonmilitary aspects, Holt said.
“We could have gotten rid of the weapons of mass destruction by learning more,” he said. “We could’ve gotten rid of them by realizing that they weren’t there.”
Economic and diplomatic containment were working with Hussein, Holt said. The dictator had not gone into other countries recently, and it was not necessary to invade Iraq to prevent him from going into other countries, he said.
“The war was really not the best way to accomplish our goals there,” Holt told the students.
The United States made mistakes once in Iraq, he said, noting, though, that our soldiers have done well overall.
“We should’ve had body armor for all the troops, instead of playing catch-up,” he noted.
Indirectly, Holt claims, the war is about oil.
“The key members of the administration have, throughout their careers, focused on either oil or the Middle East or both,” he said.
Over a period of about an hour and a half, Holt responded to well-thought-out questions from the students, one of which centered on the skills Holt exhibited when he appeared on the TV show “Jeopardy,” and whether he felt he could take on Ken Jennings. Holt, a previous “Jeopardy” champ and the recent subject of a “Jeopardy” question, thought about that question before responding.
“Well, the short answer is ‘probably not.’ He’s very good,” Holt said of Jennings.
Holt’s closing remarks echoed the sentiments that he began his visit with.
“I represent you,” Holt told the students, “even if you’re not of voting age.”
Rocco Celetano, teacher of AP government and politics, said that Holt’s visit offered his students a chance to bring their lessons to life. The chance came after Holt’s public relations staff contacted area schools to set up talks like the one Celetano’s classes were part of on Monday.
“These students are studying government,” Celetano said. “To actually get to ask someone if these things really happen is a unique opportunity.”