Durston for Congress

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Durston Discusses the Issues

Democrat takes on Lungren again

By Keith Gebers - Citizen Staff Writer

Published: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 10:08 AM CDT

Note: Two additions to the original article, in cases in which the author left out parts of statements by Dr. Durston, are included in brackets. The phrase, [sic], indicates a misquote.

California’s Third District Congressional race is one of the more competitive political battles on the regional scene. Democrat Bill Durston is pitted against incumbent Rep. Dan Lungren. When it comes to the political war, Durston lashes out at virtually all that has occurred during the past eight years of the Bush Administration.

He has firm beliefs about the Iraq war.

“I would never send anybody else to fight in a war that I wouldn’t fight in myself,” he said. “I feel this war was undertaken under false pretenses. I support the sacrifice our troops are making, but I don’t support sacrificing our troops under a war started under false pretenses.”

Regarding the domestic scene, Durston stated the U.S. economy is not doing well.

“No country can devote massive resources to war and preparation of war without having to pay a price,” he commented. “The sagging economy isn’t all due to war but the situation has been made worse by the hundreds of billions of dollars and the enormous cost of human resources. I think most experts feel the increasing cost of oil is due in large part to the instability of the war.”

Durston criticized Lungren for what he termed Iraq war policies. “He seems to vote without hesitation to send our men [and women] to Iraq,” Durston stated.

Durston grew up in the Santa Clara Valley. He served the Marines during the height of the Vietnam War. Following his military service he attended the University of California, San Francisco where he received his degree in medicine. He is board certified in both emergency medicine and as an internist and has lived in Sacramento for over 20 years. He served as Assistant Chief of the Kaiser Sacramento Emergency Department and Chief of the Kaiser South Sacramento Emergency Department.

Durston has served as Injury Prevention Chairperson of the California Chapter of the American Emergency Physicians from 2000 to the present. He has helped craft state legislation related to injury prevention and has testified before committees of the California State Legislature and received a special Injury Prevention Award for service to the people of California.

“Any time we are told we can’t afford parks or schools or improve roads and can’t afford health care for poor children, we must take into account that we are spending $200,000 a minute, or about $10 billion to $12 billion per month on the war in Iraq,” said Durston.

As far as budget deficits are considered, Durston said he would promote [sic] and vote to rescind the tax cuts [for the wealthy] the Bush administration has put into effect, and close the loopholes that allow corporations to make huge profits and not have to pay their share of taxes.

He said his opponent takes big contributions from companies like Exxon and Mobil.

“My opponent voted against a House bill that would have required oil companies to pay their fair share of taxes and royalties for drilling on public land and would have reinvested some of that money in developing renewable energy sources,” said Durston.

Health care is another issue Durston zeros in on.

“It is my philosophy that access to necessary medical care is a basic human right, not a privilege based on your ability to pay,” he commented. “The United States is the only western democratic country that doesn’t have some form of universal health care. On top of that, on overall measures of quality of care we rank in the lower half to lower third as compared to those other countries.”

He added that people often say, “It would be nice to have universal health care. But how are we going to pay for it.”

According to Durston the fact is we’re already paying for it, but we’re just not getting it. “We pay on average more than two times as much per capita for health care in the United States compared to the other countries,” he stated. “The reason for that is due in large part to the failure of our government to use its purchasing power to leverage down health care costs and to regulate the enormous profit taking by the for-profit health insurance and pharmaceutical companies”.

Durston stated that more than anything else he is running to represent people who want to take back government from the special interests that he now feels control it.