- May 5, 2024
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FRED COSTELLO
AGE: 62
FAMILY: Married 39 years, three children, five grandchildren
QUIRKY FACT: Costell’s first election was in sixth grade for patrol boy. He lost by one vote because he voted for his best friend instead of himself.
BIO: Dr. Fred Costello was born in Orlando. After serving America as a captain in the U.S. Air Force, he moved to Ormond Beach in 1977, where he practices Comprehensive and Cosmetic Dentistry. He and his wife, Linda, have been married 39 years and have three children and five grandchildren. Costello served his community as a city commissioner and then as Mayor of Ormond Beach 2002-2010. Costello currently serves Volusia and Flagler counties as a state representative.
What would you do to balance the annual budget?
I am on record as saying that we must close the federal departments of energy, education, commerce, interior housing and urban development, the environmental protection agency, and contract with the states for any necessary functions. We must shrink the size of the federal government to its core functions.
We can no longer sustain doing things that some people think are wants. We must only do things that are needs. The Constitution is very specific with enumerated powers; we must limit the federal government to those things and return the others to the states.
Would you be willing to pledge not to raise taxes?
I don’t pledge. I pledge to my God, my wife and my country. I believe my record in the Florida House of Representatives, that I supported $6 billion worth of tax cuts over the last two years to make sure that our budget matches our revenues, is a significant aspect of my record. But I don’t make pledges.
The top 5% of wage earners in the United States earn 31% of the income and pay 58.7% of the tax. When the top 5% pay more than the bottom 95%, I don’t think we have a revenue maldistribution, I think we spend too much. So I don’t think we need to think about more revenue, we need to think about cutting expenses. But I don’t make pledges.
If you are asked to raise the national debt ceiling, how would you vote? How would you propose to reduce the national debt?
Part A: If it’s with a balanced budget amendment as a short term, I would consider it. Absent a balanced budget amendment, concurrent with raising the debt ceiling, I’m a no.
Part B: There’s two aspects to that. One, get your current budget under control, then shrink the debt. So the cut, cap,and balance is what we need to do to get the current budget under control. I mentioned six departments that I would eliminate immediately; there are more that I’m willing to consider. After we get our budget under control, then we’ve got to shrink the deficit.
One of the things that I’ve talked about, which is not popular with a lot of people, is earmarks are the gateway to corruption. So there will be no more earmarks. There can be no more new projects. There can be no more new spending until we get our budget under control. Our country cannot afford for any representative or senators to go to Washington to bring home the bacon. We’ve got to go to Washington to cut the size of government so that we can have our children and grandchildren have a sustainable future. It’s not just for our economic viability as a country, it’s for our national security. We’ve got to quit borrowing money from people who want to kill us. ... I hope that growing the economy is the main aspect of getting our debt reduced. But it starts with cutting our budget.
What should be done with the federal tax code? Where do you stand on the subject of a flat tax?
I’m a fair tax guy. As a fallback position, I will support a flat tax. I will support elimination of exemptions and a flat tax; I think that is a much more equitable position for all Americans to feel like everybody’s doing their fair share. The reason I support the fair tax is we only have three types of taxes. There are income taxes; the higher the income tax the more disincentive for earning income. We have wealth or property taxes; the higher the wealth or property taxes, the more disincentive for people to invest in things that create wealth. And we have consumption taxes; the higher the consumption taxes, the more that disincents people from investing in consumption.
So if we want to encourage people to earn money and decide whether they want to save it with no tax, or invest it with no wealth tax, or spend it because they choose to spend it, let them do what they want to do with their wealth, with their income, and do whatever they want to do with creating their wealth. The reason I favor a consumption tax like the fair tax, is there is included what’s called a prebate, not a rebate after the fact, but a prebate that pays upfront all of the tax that would be paid up to the poverty level. So if you just want to take a number, let’s say $20,000, the tax you would pay on the first $20,000 of income is prebated to you monthly, so nobody pays tax up to the poverty level, whatever that number is. I think that’s fair, it’s equitable, it encourages people to make as much money as they want to make, save as much as they want to save without having to pay tax. If you buy used equipment or materials, you don’t pay any tax. If you buy new, you pay for it. Concurrent with that, it eliminates the Social Security tax and the matching; it eliminates a number of items that you normally now pay; therefore, businesses can pass that along to the consumer.
America is a nation of opportunity, not entitlements. So let’s let competition determine how much of that tax the businesses will give to the employees, or they will try to save and invest to create more jobs. But we’ve got to allow our businesses to expand if we want to create jobs and get people off Medicaid so we can get our budget under control.
What are you willing to do to reform Medicaid and Medicare?
One of the reasons that I’m running for congress is that as a state representative, I’m one of three representatives — three out of 120 state representatives that was given the Defender of Home Rule award by the Florida League of Cities for standing up for local government. I want to go to Washington and be a defender of states’ rights. One of the things that we have an issue within the state of Florida is we could not reform Medicaid because Washington wanted to dictate to us how we run the Medicaid program. We have got to have the flexibility to decide what benefits we want to include, to decide how much we want to use as far as managed care, to decide whether we want to have copayments or not; we’ve got to let the states decide what they want to do with Medicaid. Let it be a competition among the states.
If you as a Medicaid recipient think you can get a better deal somewhere else, and you can live cheaper somewhere else, and have better Medicaid coverage somewhere else, that’s your choice to go there. There’s no business having Washington involved in Medicaid; the enumerated powers do not cover that.
As far as Medicare, when doctors are starting to not accept Medicare because they don’t get paid enough to warrant taking that, we’ve got to come up with a way to streamline the bureaucracy. As a dentist, a full-time practicing dentist, I’m fully aware of all the bureaucracy that’s involved in the insurance industry.
We’ve got to allow a number of things. (Let people) buy insurance across state lines; a number of people are already talking about that. We’ve got to allow different insurance companies to present certain plans that may or may not cover all things. You may not want to have obstetrics included in the plan. If you want to buy a plan without that, that’s your choice. If you want to buy a plan that includes an annual exam — we must let competition determine what will have coverage.
When Part D came out, people were so concerned about how much it was going to be, and with competition the cost went down. The cost didn’t end up being what people thought it was going to end up.
My point is that America’s founded on competition; America’s founded on opportunity. ... My position is, is that if you’re 50 or older, Medicare and Social Security don’t change. If you’re under 50, it changes. Let’s just say Social Security is at the age of 67 for full benefits; if you’re 45-50, you get it when you’re 68. If you’re 40-45, you get it when you’re 69; 35-40, you get it when you’re 70. Why is that fair? When Social Security started in 1937, you got full benefits at 65; the average age of longevity was 62. If the average age of longevity is now roughly 78 and you’re getting Social Security at 67, you’re getting Social Security 11 years longer than you were qualified for full benefits, whereas when it started you didn’t get it until three years after the average age of longevity. So my plan simply says you’re going to live to 78 and by the time the people under 30 get there, hopefully it’s 85 or 90.
So we cannot sustain people getting it at 65 or 67 and continuing it out till 90 years old. It’s not sustainable. So rather than have it to wear the 30-year-olds don’t have that plan available, let’s adjust it, amend it so that it is sustainable. And if they want to get it sooner than that, they can save up money and invest in a private plan. There’s nothing that dictates they have to wait till 72 to retire. And in my mind, Social Security and Medicare are linked together; in my mind, you get the one when you get the other, so I would extend the benefits for both until 72.
