Lincoln Journal Star: Fortenberry: Election unleashes new possibilities

Rep. Jeff Fortenberry said Thursday he sees "possibilities of real policy reform" emerging from the November election in terms of health care, modernization of the nation's infrastructure and fundamental changes in budgeting and taxation.

Fortenberry said three words -- curiosity, possibility and urgency -- describe the mood in Washington as the lame-duck session of Congress meets to wrap up this year's legislative work while a new president-elect and a new Congress wait in the wings.

"There is a real unleashing of possibilities," the 1st District Republican congressman said during a telephone interview.

"Partisan paralysis needs to be finished," Fortenberry said. "We've got to get things done."

First out of the gate may be "a new type of health care reform" that replaces the Affordable Care Act while preserving some of its features, the congressman said, transforming health care coverage into a new model that places more reliance on the concept of health savings accounts.

The current system is "unsustainable," Fortenberry said. 

"But we are not going back to a system that excludes (coverage for) pre-existing conditions," he said. "We cannot leave certain groups of people behind."

Fortenberry said he also wants to preserve Obamacare's provision allowing children as old as 26 to be included in their parents' health insurance plan and retain the current ban on insurance coverage caps.

President-elect Donald Trump's proposal for a massive program to modernize America's infrastructure represents a broad recognition that the country needs to improve its airports, roads and bridges, Fortenberry said. And the Lincoln congressman would add railroads to that list.

Modernizing the nation's railroad system "should have a place in any infrastructure bill," Fortenberry said. Rail traffic along the East Coast corridor is significant, he said, but a modern transcontinental route also is a worthy public investment even if it isn't profitable.

Infrastructure improvement would be a wise economic investment, Fortenberry said, but it needs to be paid for and "not just deficit-spend."

Tax reform should include provisions to spur small business activity and lure overseas U.S. investments back to America, he said.

Fortenberry said that "what (Trump) did with Carrier Corporation was brilliant," suggesting that his direct intervention in helping arrange a deal to keep the company from moving about 1,000 jobs from Indiana to Mexico is the kind of active engagement needed to prevent U.S. jobs from leaving the country.

"He negotiated something," Fortenberry said. "He went to the heart of the matter."

Indiana officials agreed to give United Technologies Corp., the company's owner, $7 million in tax breaks over 10 years as part of the deal, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The company still plans to move about 600 jobs to Mexico but will invest about $16 million to keep its operations in Indiana.

Fortenberry declined to name any preference between Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani as Trump's secretary of state but suggested that retired Gen. David Petraeus deserves to be in that mix.

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