02/12/10 Connecticut House Republican Leader Larry Cafero Endorses Dan Debicella's Congressional Run Against Greenwich Resident Jim Himes

“Dan Debicella has common-sense solutions to help Fairfield County families”

Connecticut House Republican Leader Larry Cafero today endorsed State Senator Dan Debicella for Congress in Connecticut’s Fourth Congressional District.

“Dan Debicella has common-sense solutions to help Fairfield County families,” said Cafero. “I have worked closely with him in Hartford on proposals to create jobs and shrink the size of government, and I am confident he will help get Washington moving in the right direction again.”

“Dan is someone who understands that government needs to be just like our families. We all have the conversations around our kitchen table about what our families need to do—live within our means and borrow only what we can pay back.” said Cafero. “We need to get these values back to Washington, and Dan is the person to do it, because he has been fighting for them in Hartford.”

Debicella is a second-term Republican State Senator representing the eastern part of Fairfield County, including Shelton, Stratford, Monroe, and Seymour. He grew up in Bridgeport where his father was a police officer and his mother was a secretary. He was the first in his family to go to college full time, attending the Wharton School and receiving his MBA from Harvard Business School. He has spent most of his career in business, having worked for management consulting firm McKinsey in Stamford, as Director of Strategy at PepsiCo in Purchase, NY, and currently as Assistant Vice President of Marketing at The Hartford Financial Services.

In the State Senate, Debicella has served as the lead Republican on the budget-writing Appropriations Committee. He worked with Cafero and other Republicans to create a budget proposal that shrank the size of Connecticut government by 5% through combining or eliminating agencies, privatizing social services, and resetting program spending to 2007 levels. Cafero and Debicella also led the fight against the budget that ultimately passed, which raised taxes by $1 billion and borrowed $1 billion to balance the budget.

“In just three years in the State Senate, Dan has helped us develop specific ideas for reducing spending and making government more efficient,” said Cafero. “His business background combined with a common sense approach to government has given him the ideas on the economy and healthcare we need in Washington today.”

Debicella’s economic proposals have included repealing the unspent stimulus money in favor of a temporary cut in the payroll tax that small businesses and middle class families pay, and creating a federal spending cap to rein in the nation’s $1.4 trillion deficit. “We need to stop growing government, and start helping the small businesses that will lead us out of this recession,” said Debicella. Debicella added that most families have not received anything directly from the federal stimulus package, while his tax cut would give $1,500 directly to middle class families and reduce the deficit. He has also proposed a federal spending cap, to eliminate the deficit by forcing politicians to lower spending and prioritize programs.

On healthcare, Debicella said that he was opposed to the public option that Jim Himes has championed. “We do not need a government take-over of healthcare insurance and increased costs for the 94% of us with insurance to cover the other 6%,” said Debicella. “Instead, we need to lower healthcare costs to help both middle-class and cover more of the uninsured. Bipartisan ideas like interstate competition of private insurers, medical malpractice reform, electronic medical records, preventative medicine, and no-frills insurance will all do more to help the middle class than the so-called public option.”

“Larry Cafero has been a tremendous mentor and friend,” said Senator Debicella. “His leadership in Hartford has been a voice of common-sense against those who believe more government is the answer to everything. Connecticut is fortunate to have such a talented leader, and I am thrilled to have him on my team.”

Cafero joins fifty other Republicans who have already endorsed Debicella’s candidacy for Congress. Endorsements have included other state legislators, First Selectmen, and Republican officials from every town in the congressional district.

The Fourth Congressional District comprises most of Fairfield County, including seventeen towns from Greenwich in the west, to Shelton in the east, and Ridgefield in the north. The seat was held by Congressman Christopher Shays from 1987-2009.