Obsitnik, Himes, together again (separately) at Stamford Chamber of Commerce

STAMFORD – U.S. Rep. Jim Himes and Republican congressional challenger Steve Obsitnik on Wednesday differed on ways to continue the nation’s emergence from under the shadow of the crippling five-year recession.

Several times during a forum sponsored by the Stamford Chamber of Commerce, Obsitnik blamed Himes for the slow growth in the economy.

Himes countered that if Republican solutions were pursued over the last four years, the nation might well have spiraled into the type of economic freefall experienced by Spain, where the unemployment rate is 26 percent.

The format of the event was not a head-to-head debate, but rather separate, 30-minute appearances before about 40 people in the Stamford Plaza.

Obsitnik, a political novice who spoke first, said Himes is responsible for the nation’s slow growth and Connecticut’s 9-percent unemployment rate.

“I know what businesses need to do to survive and thrive,” said Obsitnik, a former Navy submarine officer and now a high-tech entrepreneur. “I think we all agree that Washington is under water, but we have a mission.”

Obsitnik said that the nation would have been better off without the multi-trillion-dollar stimulus program under Himes and President Obama and that if capital locked in banks had been freed for businesses, the economy would have grown at a faster rate.

“We need to solve the biggest problem out there, which is jobs,” Obsitnik said. “The government picking winners and losers does not work.”

Himes recalled that in the first months of 2009, when he and the president first took office, the country was losing 750,000 jobs a month and while the growth of new jobs is slightly disappointing, at about 200,000 a month, it’s a sign of a turnaround.

“We still have way too many unemployed Americans,” Himes said. “We have a long way to go, but we’ve come a long way.” He said that as many as 4 million of the total of 5 million new jobs were the result of stimulus money.

He said that without government working as a big-ticket incubator of ideas and projects including the nascent Internet and the satellites that now speed communications, the nation might not have been a leader in the high-tech revolution. He held out a smart phone and said he would love to see such devices made in the United States instead of China.

He predicted that the next Congress will get together and compromise on a budget deal similar to the so-called Simpson-Bowles deficit-fighting proposals for which he voted.

Himes referred to Obsitnik only twice and only as “my opponent,” during the event.